Question: The general ego is growing during the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah. It turns out that we seem to accelerate the growth of the ego. And as long as we delay the connection between us, humanity is becoming more egoistic.

Answer: The ego is not transferred from us to humanity. It does indeed develop sharply, but it is in us. To the extent that you aspire and yearn for the love of friends, you feel that you hate them and are rejected by them. Those who do not yearn for spirituality don’t feel anything. They have the ordinary corporeal animal egoistic urges, and nothing more than that.

If I strive forward to the “plus” with the friends and attain let’s say “plus one,” I immediately feel “minus one.” But if I am on level zero, on the initial corporeal level, I am just an animal. This means that it is an ordinary corporeal ego.

Spiritual ego is a totally different matter; it appears only in order to push me to an even stronger connection with the friends in the group. First it all seemed okay, fine: “Let’s connect guys!” We rent a place, everyone is burning, everyone is working. Suddenly we feel that we cannot even look at each other. This means that a negative spiritual level has started, and that’s a good thing.

Now is the time to rise above it, to rise to the next level “plus two.” And then again “minus two” appears.” And thus, over and over again. Without this zigzag we would not develop.

Can you imagine what ego people who rise have, like Rabbi Shimon’s students who wrote that they were ready to burn each other?

When you reach such a level, these attributes appear in you. So we have to establish an environment. You will not be able to attain this level without a strong group to support you and direct you. It “shakes” you when it is necessary so that you will wake up and see where you are; it obligates you and the others to perform your duties in the group, pulls you to dissemination, wakes you up at night, etc. It is impossible to advance without it.

At first a small ego appears in the group. But if the friends don’t notice it, if there isn’t someone who can help them, the group falls apart. There are many such groups. I hear about it occasionally.

So, we should actually be happy that serious signs of the spiritual advancement appear. This is already spiritual egoism.
[95020]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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Question: What is the work in the middle line and how can I feel it?

Answer: The middle line doesn’t actually exist. After all, there are two forces active in nature: the force of bestowal (in red) and the force of receiving (in black). A person is neither one of them. The two forces emanate from above. There is the force of bestowal that created the force of receiving that is opposite from it. These two forces, let’s say plus and minus, exist in nature and everything stems from them: the still, vegetative, and animate. Man is of course a “spiritual creation” and exists in the comparison, in the connection of these two parameters inside him. 

The Masach (screen) is the plus, and the ego is the minus. Connecting them inside him correctly is above his ego, and by following faith above reason, a man stabilizes the middle line. This is the whole art.

This means that on one hand, I want to get closer to the friends despite my ego, since we discover the spiritual world only in the connection among us (the yellow part in the drawing).  And our ego (the black circles in the drawing) remains and grows even more.

Sefirot and worlds appear among us, in which everything is revealed. The upper world is external to us, external to our ego and above it, above the connection between us. Therefore, the whole wisdom of Kabbalah is based on the principle of “love thy friend as thyself.” Why? Because when you work on it, exit yourself, and build a kind of a sensor in the external form, you begin to feel the whole filling upper force. You may call it the Creator or the upper force, whatever you wish.

This is our work, and it is fulfilled in the middle line.
[95017]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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Question: Why is it that the more you give a person what he is supposed to pass on to somebody else, he keeps it to himself and doesn’t wish to pay it forward? Suppose a person asked me for help. For me, it’s not a big deal, and I don’t receive any material benefit from it. I give him a hand because I feel that I am rising spiritually. But I want the person to be better.

Answer: I don’t understand why you would demand this. We don’t do it. We must think that when we help a person, we are approaching the upper force. We become similar to it, meaning that when I bestow to another, I get a chance to be like the Creator, up to the point that I reach a state when I will begin to feel that I’ve reached the first degree of similarity with Him.

To achieve that, I have to exert certain efforts and perform certain actions. They accumulate since this is a cumulative process. And as I do, I start feeling contrasts: I want, I don’t want at the same time increasing all kinds of doubts, criticism, etc. But if I move forth correctly and understand that all of this is done to enhance the quality of my efforts to help, toward bestowal, then I don’t demand anything.

What for? For me, this is already the very realization of my desire. The reward is the revelation of the Creator, revealing myself at a higher rung. In that case, I should thank the person who gives me an opportunity to act this way.

We cultivate it in the group because from it I can get the force to operate so I can get the right response. Even if later I start hating this person or thinking of him critically, it’s also good. Today I feel this way about him, tomorrow, he feels this way about me, and so on. That is, we are being “stewed” in the same emotions: giving – receiving, receiving – giving.

But we shouldn’t be demanding. Why? He did you a favor by being an object thanks to which you became more similar to the Creator, your next degree. The only demand of the friends in the group is for them to follow the group’s code: to come, study, clean the facility, and doing dissemination. That is another matter.

As for the rest, treat him not as a person who is supposed to do what we all decided in order to support our organization, but as a soul I am connecting with in order to reveal the mutual quality of bestowal and reception, in order to discover my upper world. I can’t neglect the friend. We have to understand that everything the Creator is showing us in the friends, is what we see of Him.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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I cannot correct the evil that is revealed in me without a group. Suppose I hate a certain friend, and although I understand that it is bad, I cannot do anything about it by myself. Only the Creator can help me, and until then, despite all my efforts, I continue to hate him.

I am bothered by it from morning till night, I understand that it is stopping my spiritual advancement and what is most important is that it doesn’t allow me to bring contentment to the Creator. It turns out that if I hate a friend, then to the same extent I hate the Creator. So what can I do?

Then I remember that I can change myself by the environment.

Question: And what if it doesn’t work?

Answer: It will work 100%, if I only want it to. In fact it is all very simple and everything is in the group including the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

Question: So what is stopping a person if this is the goal of his life?

Answer: Disrespect and laziness, that’s what’s stopping him. He has everything, to the last detail: support, a crisis, friends, books, dissemination—these are all the conditions and the upper force is standing ready. We are the ones who are stopping ourselves.

We have to connect, to stabilize, and to create the force of mutual guarantee in order to use it to attain the influence of the Creator. It may be that we are forgetting this part of the work, although artificial at the moment, it is very influential on the first part of the group work.

We are not doing that; we are not making enough efforts, like in the hour of distress. Where are our efforts? Where is the demand?
[94905]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: How should the lower use the connection with the upper for correction?

Answer: The lower has to nullify himself in order to receive from the upper. It’s as if you are drowning in the river and someone throws you a rope so that you can hold on to it and reach the shore. For you “catching the rope” means reaching the initial level of equivalence of form. This initial equivalence of form is called annulment.

Later the work becomes more difficult. Although you have nullified yourself before the upper and have caught the “end of the rope” and you already have a link to it, you know that in order to start receiving in order to bestow, you have to create an inner deficiency in the link in addition to the self annulment and the simplest adhesion with the upper. Here a person has to act against his own opinion, thus inserting his deficiency into the upper and going through phases of Ibur (gestation). Otherwise, it will lead to nothing. “A man’s pride shall humiliate him,” and this is a very big problem.

In our work, the group has the role of the upper. It should be a concept, an idea, the embodiment of perfection in my eyes, since the actual connection is already an upper attribute. Here an addition to self-annulment is required: By nullifying myself I adhere to the upper, and by continuing the work of annulment, I determine the connection with Him.

In other words, by my initial self-annulment, I make a contact with the upper, with the group, with the teacher and the study. But in order to enter it, in order to receive from it, I have to nullify the “flesh” of my desire, layer after layer. This period is called “the nine months of pregnancy,” and eventually it will become a birth.

[94679]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/12, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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It is impossible for anyone to calculate the measure of work that he needs to invest in order to move to the next stage. It is impossible to say about an ordinary person, who meanwhile is living his normal corporeal life like everyone else, how many corrections he will need in order for the point in the heart to open in him, the spiritual spark. Also it is impossible to say how many actions he will need to make with this spark in order to reach the first revelation, meaning to connect it with the other sparks.

In the first degree we are connecting our suffering, and then in this measurement of suffering that was connected, finally the spiritual spark is revealed, meaning, a valuable question is reveled in a man: What is the meaning of my life? This spark directs him to the goal, to the answer for the question, “What is the meaning of life.”

After that, he again begins to work in the group that changes him, because he is not able to change by himself. Man finds himself under the influence of the environment and he changes, because it changes. So in the period of preparation, he tries to put himself under the influence of the environment in the most beneficial way for the fastest progress to transfer from the path of suffering to the path of Light, the Torah, the wisdom of Kabbalah.

With that ends the preparation period: preparation for the covenant of self-annulment for Arvut (Mutual Guarantee), rising above the thoughts and disturbances in order to achieve connection of our sparks.

The whole work is done through the influence of the environment upon a man. Therefore, it is impossible to calculate in advance the toil that is demanded from him and the precise situation or state that needs to happen so he will receive the revelation. This is because the revelation depends on the state surrounding him.  This state is not coincidental, but to calculate it one needs to know and take into consideration the whole system, and this is impossible from our degree.

From a higher degree it is possible somehow to calculate it, but here there is an additional condition. Each degree includes four phases, a whole HaVaYaH, and in order to rise to the pure calculation, one needs to raise the HaVaYaH. That is, only from the world of Yetzira, one can observe the world of Assiya. And if one exists in a high degree of the world Assiya, it is impossible to calculate what will happen in a lower degree of the same world, because your corrections in the degree of this world (in the Light of the Nefesh) is still not determined.

But due to a man strengthening his connection with the environment, he progresses. Finally, the concealment disappears and he comes to revelation.

Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” Letter 54: It is true that after the Creator sees that a man completed the measurement of his work and finished everything that he had to do in his power of choice and strengthening in the Emuna (faith) in the Creator. It means that he proved that he yearns for the quality of bestowal that is called Emuna. And then the Creator helps him and he is rewarded with the attainment of the revealed Providence, it means the revelation of the face.

This help from the Creator cannot come before he finishes his measure of work. It is worthwhile to remember this always, so as not to request revelation, that is, one needs to request from the Creator help to complete the work and not for the revelation. This is a result of our work. A corrected Kli (desire) is felt as the revelation of the upper world. The revelation does not come from someplace outside the man himself, by becoming corrected from not being corrected, by finishing his correction, in this state that until a moment ago was not corrected, suddenly he feels the corrected state that is called redemption.
[94598]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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Question: What is the right spiritual fear?

Answer: The right fear has to appear in a person every moment, and he should know how to correct it, which means how to ask for a greater fear.

Suppose I see that I am not so connected and adhered to the friends and I want it to really scare me. I want to feel terrible anxiety and fear of that, since if I am not adhered and connected to them strongly enough, I will not attain anything!

I know that I have to be incorporated in them and to lose myself, but I cannot do that. So where is my fear and anxiety of that? Where is the concern for that—to constantly think that I lack it, that it hurts and threatens my very existence? This permanent inner concern must constantly occupy me. I have to fear that I have no fear.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/12, “Introduction to the Study of the The Sefirot” 

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 54: When the Creator sees that one has completed one’s measure of exertion and finished everything he had to do in strengthening his choice in faith in the Creator, the Creator helps him. Then, one attains open Providence, meaning the revelation of the face.

This is where the work in the group comes in—all of the person’s obligations, according to the designation of his soul and his generation, which can be very different from one generation to another and from one person to another. No one knows for sure what one’s obligatory measure of exertion is, since it is very personal, because everyone stems from the spiritual root of his soul. Even when we correct ourselves and connect, we are still in different states, although we are connected into one big vessel.

Every time new people join us, we immediately connect to them in one system, and accordingly changes take place in us. There is never a change in a person that stems from himself. If he lived alone in the world, he would never change.

All our changes are a result of perpetual movements towards connection in the general vessel. This influences everyone personally, each time awakening a new environment, in the attitude towards a person, to which he has to connect: either by the path of sufferings or by the path of the Torah. This is how everyone operates throughout his life.

Most people go through these connections unconsciously, unprepared, not understanding what they are doing and what they are living for. This is how they are reborn from one generation to another and their whole correction is done unconsciously. About this it says “go and make a living from one another.” Everyone influences everyone else and as a result everyone changes according to the Reshimot (informational records) in the general shattered desire.

So no one changes on his own. All the changes stem from the fact that a person forms different connections with others at any given moment. This is how this general system exists and operates.

It either happens on an unconscious level, or in people who are already on the preparation level, which means that they want to advance to conscious actions. In the meantime, however, they only make efforts, as preparation. They work on it so that they will be worthy of their advancement and to participate in it actively, and thus they advance.
[94601]
From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Malchut is called a prayer because it is a deficiency that one cannot get along without. After the first three phases of Direct Light, comes the fourth, final stage, Malchut, deficiency. If a man doesn’t have a deficiency, this is a sign that he has no Malchut, meaning he doesn’t have the beginning of the degree of Adam, human; he doesn’t have anything to start his spiritual structure with.

All the spiritual work is in order to develop our deficiency (Hissaron), our Malchut, so it becomes Malchut Shamaim “(Kingdom of Heaven),” meaning Malchut that is connected with heaven totally exists under the Providence of Bina. This is to say, to make your desire exactly as the desire of the Creator.

In this goal, a man always is conducting a dialog: He raises his deficiency, checks it, and requests to reveal what his real desire is, what does he want at this current moment and in general.  He always turns to the Creator with this deficiency in order to organize it, to fit it to the fulfillment, to the reaction from above, and to keep a constant connection with the Creator.

That is why it says: “Let it be that he will pray all day,” because this is creating our mutual connection with the Creator.  We only need to constantly direct our Malchut, our heart, to the new deficiency. And if we do not do that, then nature, as always, will push us to correction together with all the creatures by the general Light, the general pressure, that if we feel as growing tension and as the global crisis.

But if a man wants to be in personal connection with the Creator, he must always turn to Him with the correct deficiency, to reformat it, to organize it and to be constantly concerned that this deficiency would fit the stages of the progress.

It is impossible to finish this work and to relax, because by that a man feels that his heart connects more and more strongly with the Creator, in a direct and shortest connection. The levels of this connection determine the levels of the worlds. Man feels that he is shortening more and more the way to and understands better and better the Creator. And the group is the mechanism that connects them together; this is the collection of the foreign deficiencies. Because it guarantees that a person will relate correctly to the Creator.

And this is how he progresses; each new fulfillment better organizes his desire. He wants precisely a fulfillment like this because to bring contentment to the Creator is possible by bringing Him the whole deficiency for fulfillment.
[94686]
Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/12

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Question: Why does the desire, the fire in the heart, which was felt earlier, disappear? How do we support this desire? How can we keep ourselves in the desire to reveal the upper force, taking into account that we do not feel it?

Answer: The Creator gives us our primary aspiration to attain Him, pushing us forward with all kinds of troubles in this life, a feeling of emptiness, and pulling us with the expectation of revealing the truth, meaning. But we have to go further by ourselves. This initial push from behind and pull forward are temporary; do not expect that they will propel you forward all the time.

You have to cultivate this thrust forward yourself, and it can only come from the environment. You must build your group, your environment, so that it excites you, pulls forward, teases, so that you see friends who succeed and strive forward more than you do, so that you become jealous, envy them, so that they give you the importance of the goal, and you feel support in that from them.

In order to be impressed by them, you have to annul yourself. If you consider them greater, then even a small drive towards the goal that you see in them will seem great to you.

This is the basis of all Rabash’s articles about the group. The Creator gives us only the initial impulse and nothing more: the negative force from behind and a small attracting force forward, and only for a certain time. And then He begins to give us more and more egoism, the hindering force, so that we develop our own pull towards Him on this hindering force. You can get it only from the environment. That is why freewill is only in the creation of the environment suitable for us.

So, if we do this seriously, we will definitely reach the goal, but this is the most important thing, this is a guarantee of our advancement. So, I am very happy about our unity at the Siberian Convention where we will try to unite to feel our next state there, on the spot. It is before us; this is our next step. Let’s make it together, and it will bring success. “Let’s join our hands, friends, so not to be lost one by one.”
[94838]
From a Virtual Lesson 12/2/12

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