Question: It seems to us that people in a group gather by coincidence. But in reality it isn’t a coincidence and each person serves a unique role, which corresponds to a certain Sefira, a certain quality?

Answer: Absolutely! However this is not important to us right now. What’s most important is that people connect. It doesn’t matter what anyone’s role is because they all complete each other. In an integral system even a small screw carries the same meaning as the entire system because without the screw the system wouldn’t function.

Question: So the person doesn’t realize or understand what his role is exactly. But can you conduct an analysis of the groups?

Answer: What would be the point of this because without my sincere and voluntary participation, you can’t force me to do anything? Only an inner realization of the truly voluntary and free participation in this system will give it a state of freedom and perfection. There is nothing you can do against a rat or against any person.

Therefore, no matter how you examine this system, the only thing you can do is strengthen integral education. This is the only thing that can uplift people and further unite them. Of course different research will be done. But basically we should understand that only this type of action is good.
[91789]
From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman” 3/10/12

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The giving of the Torah, meaning the method of correction, is not a one-time event, but a constant process; each one who feels a need for correction receives the method of correction. It was said, “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice for it.” The criterion is simple. If a person wants to correct himself and discovers that his desire is bad, that it is the evil inclination, then an inner outcry directed at correction is born within him that is aimed at the need for correction for deliverance from the evil.

We naturally tend to always get rid of the bad that is within us. The whole point here is whether a person really feels this? Is he willing to bear the bad feeling, despite the countless possibilities to neutralize this feeling and avoid the demand for correction?

And it can be vice versa, to sweeten the situation by evading it, saying, “After all, this isn’t so bad. I’m not worse than others. And why do I care about it at all?” There are a lot of “diversionary paths” that help one escape from the bad feeling. This is because it is very unpleasant and involves great emotional pain to reveal how evil I am.

Therefore a person needs support, great help, which will provide him with secure support. He reaches the real recognition of evil through this; he will scream from lack of choice, and along with it, he doesn’t escape from the path. And then he is really in need of the Torah.

How can one reach such a state where we are really “shackled” and can’t escape from the suffering so strongly that we receive the Light that Reforms from Above? This can be accomplished through very great agony through the path of development called “In due time,” the path of suffering. These sufferings come from a corporeal level and obligate us to spiritual work. The gap between these two levels is so big that suffering is many times more powerful than on the path of hastening which allows one to recognize the necessity for the Torah in the spiritual work.

In this spiritual work, we begin to use the Light that Reforms and examine ourselves from the spiritual degree. We recognize the necessity for correction not because we have a bad life, but because we ourselves yearn for it. Accordingly, the suffering has a different form: spiritual and not corporeal. Therefore according to this, their quality is much higher, their pain is much deeper, and the intensity is such that the person is capable of tolerating it.

The uniqueness of the wisdom of Kabbalah is that it explains how to progress on the path very quickly, by feeling a little suffering quantitatively, but great qualitatively. Thus we can shorten the path; we can divide the suffering with the friends and pass it to them in small quantities. There are many advantages in following the path of Torah compared to the path of suffering. It allows us to ascend to a different qualitative level of progress.

Today, when the whole world is sinking under the troubles of the path of suffering, we want to show to people and ourselves how to advance on the path of Torah. We are at the head, as owners of the method, and they after us, until we all come to the beautiful goal.
[91418]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: How can we make sure that we are firmly supporting our friends with our intentions?

Answer: We should constantly check our attitude to the group. There is nothing more I can check. The right course without deviation, the pace of the advancement—are all measured with relation to my attitude to the friends.

I don’t have to check and examine thousands of parameters and discernments, going crazy between many gauges and dials like in a cockpit, where the eyes must follow a lot of instruments. Only with time is a pilot trained to take in the overall picture and recognize a problem. This why the pilots’ indicators are analog with pointing arrows and they are not given digital displays.

In spirituality it is different. There, despite the many discernments operating on you, you have to bring them to the same scale, to one criterion—to the environment. I reach a growingly stronger adhesion with the group, until I reach the implementation of the adhesion, and I attain the next level and build myself.

Time after time, I adhere to the group and enter it as Noah’s ark. I try to place myself under the influence of the friends as hard as I can. At the same time, I can criticize them, but only if it increases my devotion to them. So first I have to determine the point of adhesion, like a drop of semen in a mother’s womb.

Then when the contact is established, the “flesh” is created around the drop of semen because egoistic desire is constantly added. There are problems, internal criticism and confusion, but I let myself open this “Pandora’s box” only if I am in control of the situation and use it to reach adhesion.

Thus the spiritual embryo grows, by enabling all his desires to participate in the adhesion, above the desires themselves, above reason, and in contrast to its desires. On the one hand, the desires are burning inside, objecting to the annulment, and on the other hand, he demands this self-annulment, the adhesion.

According to his powers, he balances these two extreme states on the middle line and this provides the growing of the “body.” This is because the “body” is basically already a result, a middle line, Tifferet.
[91661]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/12, The Zohar

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The Creator’s greatness is a very complicated issue. Of course we cannot move without feeling His greatness, but we don’t want it to be like in our world when it is part of our nature to respect an important person.

The importance depends on the environment. If people around me respect someone, I will also respect him. But if people around me disrespect someone, I will undoubtedly disrespect him too, it only depends on the society that impresses me. I decide according to the opinion of society who is important and who is not.

Naturally I am always ready to serve an important person. It only depends on how important a person is in my eyes if I agree to carry his suitcase that weighs 10kg or 100kg, to work for him for one day or for a whole lifetime. But these are purely egoistic motives. If the Creator reveals his greatness to us, we will gladly work for Him, just as for a very important person because of the egoistic desire. It would not be faith above reason and the intention of in order to bestow but ordinary ego, since I will work for the pleasure that I receive from belonging to a great personality.

It is a pleasure to serve a great person; this is our nature and so in such a case our machine works on ordinary fuel and doesn’t perform any spiritual work. This is because spiritual work is above any payment that the desire to receive gets as compensation.

So the Creator cannot reveal His greatness to us if we ask Him for it so we can use it to work putting the Creator’s greatness as a condition for our work. Because then we would get the same situation as in our world. I underestimated someone and disrespected him and suddenly the society says to me: “Didn’t you know what a great man this is? How clever, rich and influential he is?” Then I would immediately begin to respect him and would be ready to serve him.

The Creator is concealed and doesn’t reveal His greatness to us unless we, with the help of the group, the teacher, and the study, prepare ourselves in order to truly want bestowal, and only if we need the Creator’s force, His greatness, only in order to attain bestowal, do we receive it.

This means, that bestowal should be in first place, and only for the sake of bestowing should we want to feel the Creator’s greatness. Only in this case will we reveal the greatness of the Creator, based on what is important to us, the importance of bestowal.

A person needs to prepare a very special deficiency called the three lines. We will find out more about this very important point, but it is good that we have moved closer to it. It is a very subtle but fundamental condition of knowing how to separate where the egoistic motives are concealed and where the true bestowal regarding the Creator’s greatness is.
[91654]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/12

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If from the very beginning, albeit artificially, I “work hard” before the friends, if I bow my head before the group, at least on the physical level, I, in this way, prepare myself to discover my shame for my egoistic flaws and to stand in this sensation. I will be able to endure and “digest” it, I am not identifying with it, I will be grateful for it.

Shame sets me correctly before the Creator. Like fine-tuning, it makes it possible to catch the right wave. The greater my shame is, the more precisely I tune to the narrow range of frequency, the one that leads me to the Creator, to the properties that I want to acquire. And the picture does not become fuzzy in front of me; on the contrary, it is extremely focused.
[91650]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)

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Question: What do I raise in my eyes by bowing before the friends?

Answer: Nothing. Self-diminution and the realization of the greatness of the Creator are two different but complementary things. Usually in the context of a relationship with the Creator, we are talking about the group, and in the context of a relationship with the group, we are talking about ourselves because the group is between me and the Creator.

Question: What is exactly revealed to me when I raise the group in my eyes?

Answer: The corrected system of the single soul that is at the end of correction. The system, that today, I see through the prism of my flaws.

This is what the greatness of the group is, and no less, because this is the truth. And although I cannot yet accept it as a fact, in the end, I will understand it completely.
[91647]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)

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Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Item 8: This is because there is a natural law that the receiver feels shame and impatience upon receiving gifts from the giver out of compassion and pity.

From here extends a second law, that never will anyone be able to satisfy the needs of his friend to the fullest, because ultimately he will not be able to give him the nature and the form of self-possession, as only with it is the desired perfection attained.

Actually the Creator can’t cover and compensate for the feeling of shame by Himself, without our participation. We have to go through different stages independently, thus revealing our flaws and correcting them; of course, we use His force in order to perform the correction, but the cycle must be as follows:

– I discover how corrupt I am

– The problem that is revealed is not in me but in my attitude compared to the attitude of the Giver.

– I determine what is flawed with respect to it.

– I look for how to correct the flaw and how to complete it.

– I ask the Creator for the force to correct the flaw.

This means that this action is very complicated and is made of many components; it’s impossible to manage without it. A person has to actually feel it; there is no other choice. He has to feel it and to go through the different states on the way, with the Creator’s help of course, which means with the help of the upper force, the Light. But he has to participate in every stage and in every decision.

It’s impossible to receive a present from someone, to enjoy it, and to feel that it’s yours. There is always the feeling of shame before the giver. In our world the problem is solved by the concealment of the Creator, who thus allows us to reveal Him only to the extent that we can bear the feeling of shame.

The Creator is concealed and the shame is revealed only to the extent that I am ready to resemble Him, to clarify the matter of my receiving. The more I advance, the finer and more sensitive my perception becomes, and then I am ready for the revelation of shame. In some ways it is similar to what happens in our world.
[91415]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/12, “Matan Torah” (The Giving of the Torah)”

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It says that the Creator puts a prayer in a person’s mouth as if filling a person with the right prayer. The Light arranges our deficiencies and then we can cry out with the revelation of the right deficiency for which we will already receive a correction and a filling. Everything comes from the Light. There is nothing that isn’t done with its help.

So when we are in front of the source of Light, which is The Book of Zohar, we have to demand, to ask, that this Light will arrange, sculpt, and format the correct prayer, the deficiency, the necessity, so that we will undoubtedly advance to the attribute of bestowal. This attribute will help us reach revelations that will be only in order to bring the Creator contentment, not for ourselves. Let the Light do its job.

So together we all yearn for one deficiency, one form of the one deficiency for the Creator. It may be that this deficiency, our appeal to the Creator, will fill us and we don’t need anything else but that. This will already be the answering of the prayer. The yearning and the deficiency can actually be the filling.
[91533]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/12, The Zohar

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We should understand that everyone experiences the burdening of the ego and thoughts of criticism about the Rav, the group, about where we are headed, and the study as compared to other methods. This is good and right. These doubts are sent from Above. We must not annul them, but rather accept them and overcome them. We advance only by constantly clarifying our feelings with regard to the goal, the path, and by checking our deviation from it.

If a person cannot get back on the right track, correct himself with regard to the path, since his ego doesn’t let him see his true condition and his pride blinds him, then such people, without mercy, should be eliminated from the group because they are very dangerous.

We shouldn’t be ashamed and hide such cases in the group. On the contrary, if we know about such cases and respond, it will be easier for us to cope with it. We will feel that we are all protected in the group and that we have one wide back. That group will be able to get advice from others and we will be enriched so that such things will not happen in other places.

We will be able to learn from such cases, to know in advance how to straighten things and get back on track and to clarify our principles. After all, a beginner doesn’t understand what valuable experience has accumulated in the group for decades. They believe that it is enough to read a page or two from the staute and to find out what to do. They don’t understand that it is all based on a person’s internal changes that are accumulated as a result of years of work.

A person who follows this path is required to bring himself to changes: not external changes but to change himself so that he will see the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) around him. “One judges according to his own flaws,” so it is precisely these flaws that we have to correct internally and not the external world. This is the only right approach.

We should be very careful not to let people who are inclined to be dominant and suppress others, who do not allow others to take different roles equally, to run the group. After all, by that they don’t let others advance and thus bury themselves.
[91513]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, “Conversation About the Group”

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Question: Why is shame necessary for our advancement? After all, it is an unpleasant feeling that burns you and seems to belong to the path of suffering?

Answer: Shame is like feeling a certain pain in the body. The pain indicates an illness that needs to be healed. Thanks to the pain, I am saved from death. It is the same with the feeling of shame; it indicates lack of correction somewhere so is it possible to ignore or to annul this feeling?

But we try to escape it. So Kabbalists tell us that we need the help of the group and the books and everything that can support me and help me bear the feeling of shame.

At the same time it isn’t only that I need to bear it, but I also need to get to know it more deeply and to perform acts of correction. The feeling of shame will continue to grow until it obligates you to cry out for help and then you will receive the Light that Reforms that will correct and heal you.

You are not healed if you cry out weakly. There must be a true outcry, a call out to get rid of it, since it isn’t just any illness; it is the correction of the desire to receive, of your nature.

Question: But we always aspire to feel good, how can I aspire to feel shame?

Answer: In order to do that you increase the importance of the goal, by placing it above your pain. You say: “Let it hurt, I don’t want to identify with what hurts and with the pain itself. I want to attain the goal, and thank you very much for the pain, since it focuses me on the goal.”

It all depends on the recognition of the greatness of the goal, the greatness of the Creator. Since the Creator is a desire to bestow, a form of bestowal and concession. To the extent that these values seem great to you, you begin to suffer from your attributes which are opposite from these values. But if you extinguish this gap, and you inject yourself with some “anesthetic,” you prevent yourself from advancing.

This is why you build an environment that will sustain you in the necessary state. As a result, you see your oppositeness from bestowal, you suffer from that, and still you continue to increase the Creator in your eyes. You adhere to Him, you want to adhere to the group, you don’t want to identify with your evil anymore, but not in order to escape it like a kind of pain, but in order to really reach bestowal, in order to really assimilate in the group.

There are many discernments here and they all lead in one direction. So try to understand how wonderfully the feeling of shame guides you if you use it correctly.
[91405]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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