The only way to survive a descent is to prepare in advance. If the descent already has occurred, there is nothing that can be demanded of us since what can you demand of the dead? As it is written, the “dead are free.”

You are asked only why you haven’t prepared yourself for this situation. You must fill all the reservoirs and charge all the batteries. When a descent occurs, there is nothing we can do.

It is like the phases in alternating current that change like waves, one time up and one time down, and one part is filled on the account of the other part. One time, the vessels are revealed, and one time the Lights are revealed.

It is an excellent situation as the Creator has taken our ego and has helped us. It is written that the Creator created the evil inclination, but you have complained that it is evil, so He takes it away from you.

So, go ahead; act now! However, you can’t take even the smallest step without it, not even lift a finger. If your ego were to be taken away from you, you would lie like a corpse unable to move.

So, where can you find the power? Why aren’t you asking for it, and why doesn’t it come? It is because you haven’t prepared yourself for such days in advance.

If the newspapers write that there may be a food shortage, everyone stocks up with three months of food supplies at home. So, why don’t we think about storing energy in advance in case of a descent? This is exactly how we must act in accordance with reasonable, sensible logic, but it is difficult for us to do that because it is following the path of correction.

There are people who enjoy the fact that they have fallen so low and think that by their suffering they will achieve something, but this is a total lie. We only advance by exertion, by labor, and not when I have been thrown into a swamp and peacefully sink into it.

So, any moment that a person delays his ascent it is a sin. How can one ascend? Suppose you begin to sing a cheerful song in front of everyone. While you are singing, everyone wakes up, and then they must constantly try to store the energy, everyone’s power, the power of our unity, but not from the fact that I woke up by myself.

If you think, “How good it is that I have woken up now and how good I feel,” you will fall immediately. However, if you think about how we all have woken up now toward bestowal, toward the Creator, it will remain. Then, you will begin the new level, the next state.

The power that later can lead us to redemption is accumulative, and it is stored in the general desire. None of us has the vessel to store energy.

Now, when you have managed to feel an awakening, at least a physical one, think about how to worry about the friends and not let them descend. Everyone should worry about others. That way, there is no need to think about oneself.

The shame must burn in me for not worrying about my group. This means that I am betraying it. This is where the feeling of responsibility comes from and where the mutual guarantee stems from. I only need to think about how to provide the group with everything that it needs, as if it were my baby and I only worry about its wellbeing, so that it will keep on rising and growing.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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A very strong congress has just ended; we feel tired, indifferent, sleepy, as if a heavy cloud embraces us and converts us into pessimistic elderly people.

The Creator took our egoistic desire away, the fuel that pulled us ahead. Before, we were burning with desire; we strove to get spiritual rewards and were ready to fight to attain spirituality. Each one of us considered himself a hero, although we felt like “supermen” only because our egoism was quite “hot” and was pushing us towards new achievements.

The Creator wants to help us; thus, He takes our egoism away so that we replace it by another power. Now, instead of being pushed from behind, we get inspired by the greatness of the goal and are hauled forward by it.

Now, we really have an opportunity to move ahead, but instead we complain that we do not have any energy or desire any more. Do you remember how “hot” and huge your desire was? However, it was not yours; it was given to you from Above. You were simply pushed from Above, and as a result brought to the group of Kabbalists.

At this time, your desire disappeared and you think that it’s better to leave the group and drop Kabbalah since it doesn’t attract you any longer. Do you really think that if it doesn’t appeal to you any more, it means that there is something wrong with Kabbalah? Everybody judges to the extent of their own corruptness. It’s obvious that without motivation one cannot advance. Even machines cannot work without fuel.

One should turn to the group, the books, and the study; he should demand help from them! Plead to the Creator!

If you have no power for this kind of appeal, it means that you experience deficiency of the general force, mutual guarantee. If there are friends of yours who lost their “life-force,” you should at least cry for them; it’s as if you are at their funeral; mourn over the wonderful friends that you lost! Look at the heavy tombstones that lie on their chests, that is, the stony hearts that they cannot rid themselves of.

At some point they were shining with a desire, but now we can only cry for them. Soon, you yourself will descend into the same pit. However, if we are ready to help each other before it happens, we’ll be able to rise from any kind of downfall. Not only will we be able to overcome our indifference, we will cope with genuine hatred should it arise among us.

Only the power of the group can initiate a desire out of “thin air.” At this time, we don’t have this kind of desire, nor can it emerge from anywhere. However, we have to “ignite” it artificially, as if we are starting a new business and advertise our new goods. It should become our common spiritual business; as a result, it will trigger such a strong need in us that we will simply be “burning” with desire. Underneath this desire, there can be nothing at all!

People are waiting all night long at the doorsteps of the stores to buy a 5th generation iPhone. Learn how to advertise your “goods” by escalating artificial needs. After all, the goal that we pursue also seems “artificial” to our egoism.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: This convention seems to have opened a new door for us and everything that we do seems tasteless from here, as if we have lost all its previous juiciness.

Answer: So why haven’t you asked for it?! You are constantly saying: “We! We!” so why didn’t you all ask together?!

Question: I feel that this is a new state in which I still don’t know how to ask. It is as if we’ve touched something, but we haven’t processed it enough yet so that we can actually fulfill it.

Answer: You are not asked to put your request in nice elaborate words. A father understands a simple cry.

Question: So why haven’t we asked?

Answer: Because you cannot unite and support one another. There are still different calculations that control you: shame, lack of readiness; in short, there is no true decisiveness yet, when you simply break through without any calculations.

Question: Where does the shame that doesn’t let me break through come from? We speak so much about closeness and unity, but I know that there are still locks in my heart, limitations that dictate what is allowed and what is forbidden.

Answer: It is because the Creator is still far from you; at the moment you don’t feel that He is close. You have to try harder to imagine Him in the form of the unity of the group, which is actually what we have started this week. The “Creator” is the essence of the outcome of our unity. This is what we have to pray for and turn to.

In any case, we need an outcry, a prayer, a request that is free of any calculations. If you cannot reach that it means that you are still far from the Creator or that the Creator is far from you.

But all the complaints are also justified and helpful. The more you complain the better. They will lead to the right and accurate calculation.

I think that this time we’ve taken a big step forward. It isn’t just a step; we’ve actually stepped inside and delved into clarifications, opening our hearts wide, although we haven’t scraped off its peel with an “iron brush.” It is indeed a good clarification: We have begun to sense, to feel, where this unity actually is, how we discover the AHP of the upper, a higher level, how we identify it, how do we all adhere to it so that it will raise us, and what is the relationship we have with it.

We’ve been through many things that relate to connection and unity, and although they seem very sublime, distant, and abstract, they will gradually come together in our feeling. Then it will be easier for us to turn to them and to fulfill them.

I think that this convention is very deep and has brought us the deepest most intensive clarification. It is meant for people who are actually only two steps away from entering spirituality. I am very happy that thanks to the feeling in the group here and throughout the world I can speak in a way I never have before.

Question: What should the right request be?

Answer: “Open the gate for us!”

It is at the time you feel that all the roads are blocked, that all the gates are locked, that you cry out. This is the 50^th gate, the desirable state we spoke about and read so much about. Now you are feeling it in practice, and only the collective prayer is missing, the pressure, the persistence. Try, make an effort, it will come…

I am very happy about the states we have been through.
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From the Convention of Unity, Day Two 9/21/12, Lesson 4 

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The created being’s correction is to connect with others, since this is the correction of the shattering that took place as a result of the great bang that shattered the one created being, the only desire that was created, into many parts.

All our work is to connect all these parts. Of course, we don’t have the power to do so, but we can shift this state around. At a certain point in our adhesion we arrived at separation and now by feeling that we are separated we want to return to the state of adhesion.

The previous adhesion is recorded in our Reshimot (reminiscences), and if we turn them inside out and instead of receiving for ourselves and rejecting others we will reject ourselves and accept others, we will attain adhesion.

We can do that thanks to our existence in this world where we can act even against our will. In this world I can hug someone without feeling any love towards him and even while hating him. This is a lie, of course, but if I know in advance that I am not lying to him, but rather to myself, it wouldn’t be a lie. I know that I am performing actions that are hated by my desire, but I do it in order to attain a state in which I will actually want this. So whom am I lying to except to myself?

We have to act this way in order to connect, although initially we don’t want to connect and don’t need one another. The harder we try, the clearer it will be to us to what extent it is against our desire. The students of Rabbi Shimon, the great Kabbalists gathered to study The Zohar and discovered a burning hate, a true shattering in the root itself.

But if at the same time we perform actions that are aimed at connection, by understanding and trying to rise above our nature, above the shattering, and by physically doing everything possible, then it is enough to gradually approach unity.

These actions are called Lo Lishma (not for Her Name). Our intention is to attain Lishma (for Her Name), bestowal and connection. We account for not being in this state yet although we are trying to advance in every way we can.
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From the 1^{s t}part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/12, Writings of Rabash

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If we prepared for the descent, we could say now that we have done so much, that we prepared for it. But it turned out that it is stronger than us. We held on as much as we could with the power we built up in advance, and still, for a moment we couldn’t hold on and it happened. But we could already clarify our weak points and understand why it happened.

The Creator “trips” us somewhere, but why? He may want to show us deficiencies on a different, more advanced level, more deeply in the creation. But we learned nothing and simply fell dead.

There is actually no ascent without a descent, so we have to remain loyal to one another, like cells in one body in which each cell is responsible for all the other cells and if all the other cells are not responsible for it, it will die.

It may be like an oxygen pipe between us. The pipe reaches me after it has passed through a thousand friends before, and what is more no one knows who they are exactly. Everyone can turn off the tap without anyone noticing and the oxygen will not reach me and so I will die.

The tap is our lack of attention, lack of desire. It can open the valve more widely or close it; it all depends on the friend’s desire with regard to me: Does he think about me and about the whole system? If he adds such a deficiency, the valve opens, and if he diminishes the deficiency and it disappears, the valve closes, clogs the pipe, and we all die.

Do you understand that everyone dies because of you? It is all because the valve in your heart is closed. Ask the Creator to help you, to become your partner if the friends are dead and cannot help you. Turn to the Creator for help like to another human being. At least He can be like a human being,

Question: Can we turn to the Creator like to a human being?

Answer: You are not afraid to curse Him are you? So why can’t you turn to Him like to another human being so that He will intervene and help you? Do you think it is forbidden?

Turn to Him and say: “I am asking You to help me! Let’s go to the group together and revive the dead so that they will be resurrected!” say it several times in your heart and you will see how helpful it is.

The Creator is ready to work with you and to cooperate with you in everything. There is nothing that prevents this. You can turn to Him at any moment, with any demand.

We know that the request from Him should go through the group since otherwise it will not be heard, but it is when the group is ready to respond to you and work mutually with you. If you have no choice, turn directly to the Creator in order to go with him to Pharaoh. Don’t wait for those who are busy with the pots full of meat and who are full of the onions and the garlic.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”: Indeed, know that for this reason, the Torah was not given to our holy fathers—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—but was held until the exodus from Egypt, when they came out and became a whole nation of six hundred thousand men of twenty years of age or more. For then, each member of the nation was asked if he agreed to that exalted work. And once each and every one in the nation agreed to it in heart and soul, and said “We shall do and we shall hear,” it then became possible to keep the whole of the Torah, and that which was previously impossible became possible.

At first everyone participates individually in the group and not willingly but because he is compelled to do so. We see that we disrespect our obligations to our friends; we disrespect the option to be considerate of everyone and to follow the spiritual path. To what extent does a person understand that his advancement totally depends on his mutual cooperation and his connection with others, in rising above his ego, above his weakness and his laziness? Does he at least look for the powers of the general cooperation and the general doing?

If we keep these conditions, then out of a collection of just ordinary people we become a group. Then, like in the exile in Egypt, we experience different periods, good and bad, we work hard and we have to turn it into holy work for the Creator. Here everything depends upon how much people can identify the place in which they can fulfill the goal.

There can’t be an exodus from Egypt unless they find the deficiency within them which will enable them to unite more closely. This is because the exit from egoistic slavery is labor pains, when I simply have to reach connection, when I am better off dead than alive. Then I understand that I am buried in my desire, in my ego, like in a grave. From there I am born into the Light, but only if I connect with others. This is the only way the birth can take place. Then I reach the giving of the Torah, which means that I reach the instruction, the guide, the connection with others.

There can’t be any other kind of work and there can’t be an exodus from Egypt if I don’t cry out that I want to serve the Creator. It’s with this desire that Moses turns to Pharaoh: “I want to work for the Creator, to connect in mutual guarantee.” Therefore, I have to exit the ego, to rise above it, to escape from Pharaoh. It’s an obligation, since the next level is so desirable, so necessary, that I am like a developing embryo that can’t stay in its mother’s womb any more and must be born.

Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article “And This Is for Judah,” saying that the future redemption is already revealed in the previous level, in exile. The difference between exile (Galut  – גלות) and redemption (Geula – גאולה) is the letter “Aleph” (א), which symbolizes the Creator, the Champion of the world. The Creator can’t be revealed in exile—Galut since there can’t be a corrected vessel there. It’s because you are still in your ego, but when you rise above your ego, it’s called the exodus from Egypt, and then you acquire the first spiritual vessel and then you can reveal the Creator.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, “Matan Torah (Giving of the Torah)”

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Imagine that you come to the lesson and your arm hurts badly; you will think about the pain all the time, of course. It will interfere with your studying and will cause great discomfort; you won’t know how to get rid of this pain and you won’t be able to forget it.

The question is how should we feel the same pain for not having reached the end of correction yet, for not having reached our ultimate goal? I don’t want to wait a single day! If it is so important to me, I am burning with impatience, like a baby –I want it now and right away!

The problem is that I don’t want what I should want. Where can I get the right desire from? This is a reason for a prayer.

I see no rush to connect with the friends and to reach the love of others in order to reach the spiritual goal. These are problems on top of other problems that set many obstacles before me one after the other. If I really wanted to reach the goal, I would love the friends; after all, it is unattainable without them. But the point is that I don’t need this goal: Does anyone want to give? And so I don’t need the friends and I don’t want to pay for the goal by love of others. It all seems very distant, foggy and unrealistic. I sit in front of the book during the lesson thinking: “What am I doing here anyway?”

So we are given a tool called the Torah in which there is the force that brings us to the goal. For us this is the upper level from which the force called the Light comes and pulls us forward. This is what we have to think about during the lesson just as you think about the arm that hurts and which you want to heal.

It doesn’t matter what you are reading at the moment, you have to think about your “illness” and to dream about the healing. If you don’t have a deficiency for that, ask that it will be given to you, connect to the friends, check which desires they have.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: Where is the borderline between suppression of material desires and gaining spiritual ones?

Answer: We do not suppress our desires! We only discuss them and immediately assign more weight, greatness to the next, higher level of desires, the ones that drive us to unity and integrity, since they are far more important, better, higher, superior, and valued than our egoistic inclinations. It’s so even if our egoistic desires are seemingly of a positive kind, such as wanting to listen to a certain type of music, or read some kind of literature, or go to the ballet, or watch a football match, or go to a men’s club, or eat a special type of food—whatever it might be.

In other words, at this phase, with the help of the group I must receive a very serious and strong impression that these collective integral global standards are of a next level. They are not one step up, but incomparably more advanced than our aforementioned animal instinctive desires that nature automatically aroused within us and we, like slaves, tried to realize them quickly.
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From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 3/1/12

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It’s not enough to simply connect with our friends’ sparks. We also have to study; knowledge will shape us and teach us how to connect with the sparks. So far, we have no idea how to unite, since we are not familiar with the system of spirituality. So, we read about it, listen, and study. We learn that we have to connect and form a system that consists of 10 Sefirot, Partzufim, worlds, Surrounding Light and Direct Light. All these names describe the connection between us that we need to achieve.

The main thing is to tune ourselves to receive help from Above. It’s not enough just to think of connecting with our friends’ sparks; we need someone else who will tie us together. We have to appeal to the upper force so that It does this work for us. We bring our broken connection to the higher force and complain to It about our inability to unite. It’s similar to a crying baby who approaches his mother and father complaining that he cannot do something because it is broken and doesn’t work anymore.

The upper Light deliberately broke the bond between us so that we would demand it be restored. When one appeals to the upper force with this request together with his friends, it means that one is already inside the corrected system. It is called “Israel, Torah and the Creator are One.”

Israel stands for all of us, for those who are oriented “directly to the Creator” (Yashar – El.) The Torah is the Light that we search for in order to get glued back together. We study its actions with the books. The Creator is the upper force, a source of the Light that returns to the benevolence and assembles us back together. That explains why it is called the returning to the source of the good state that existed before the shattering occurred. This is how we attain correction.

We have to clarify numerous phases at this point. Although, we should understand that one is totally unable to do it on one’s own because he will always tend to work internally and presume that he has enough power and qualities to appeal to the Creator and scream to Him on his own.

But, I will never be able to address the Creator without presenting the broken vessel that consists of at least 10 friends who want to reconnect. I will be one of them. And if there are friends who understand that they need to connect in order to reveal the Creator and if they try to appeal to the Creator, for bestowal and love to reign between them, it happens.
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From a Talk at the Meal Commemorating Rabash, 9/20/12

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Thanks to mutual guarantee a person reaches a state in which he feels that everyone supports him in order to provide him everything that he needs. Then he can think about others. It is only under this condition that he rises above his ego.

There are no other forces. The ego is the only force that dominates us and only in a group can we neutralize it.

If the group doesn’t neutralize and annul my ego, I will never be able to do it myself. I will be buried in it forever and will not be able to be born, to exit it. Mutual guarantee is the law of life for me, it is the precondition for my spiritual birth.

Unless I receive from the group the secure feeling of full protection and of the provision of everything that I need, I will not be able to rise above myself. In fact, it is mutual guarantee that gives birth to this feeling in me, and it isn’t up to me any more. If the friends influence me by their mutual guarantee, I will not stop thinking about them at all. That’s the way it works.

It is like a baby in his mother’s arms who feels that he has no troubles. He feels instinctively safe, and that he will be provided with whatever he needs. This is how I should feel, like a baby in the arms of the group, who feels that all his troubles are gone, all the thoughts, the anxieties, and the questions.

There is nothing that is connected to me; it is as if I am floating in the air. From this moment on I can begin to think about others.

We are talking about unchangeable laws, about forces that operate on us. It isn’t my fantasy or a guess. If the force of mutual guarantee operates on me, then I detach myself, and it makes no difference whether I want to or not. If the friends operate on me with this force, I am free of the ego’s domination. From that moment on I can think about others.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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