Baal HaSulam, Letter No. 13: …This came upon you due to your negligence of my request to exert in love of friends, for I have explained to you in every possible manner that this remedy is sufficient to compensate for your every deficiency. And if you cannot rise to heaven, I have given you ways on Earth, and why have you not added in this work at all?”

We are the ones who draw the picture of this world in our properties. Actually, we distinguish two types of impact that our desire to receive feels:

• good and comfortable
• bad and dangerous

The “matter” we consist of is the desire to receive that is divided into five (5) levels: zero to four. On all these levels, we have multiple qualities that in general can be reduced to how to receive pleasure.

Our perception of reality allows us to differentiate the edges of the Light of Infinity that can either bring us pleasure or harm. All we do is we portray them in our perception; the entire picture of our reality is woven of them.

This picture is very small and limited; Kabbalists have been telling us about this fact for thousands of years now. Lately, also scholars ascertained that we catch only a fraction of reality.

Is there a way to observe authentic reality other than the one we are born into, live and die in, in which we feel insignificant, unhappy, and incomplete?

Kabbalists say that it’s possible to perceive the true reality and sense the Light of Infinity in which we constantly dwell only on one condition: if we manage to amplify our tools of perception.

This is why the science we study is called “the wisdom of receiving.” With the help of this methodology, we manage to broaden our sensors and in addition to the five senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch— we climb a step higher towards obtaining five additional senses.

To do this, we have to change our desire to receive in terms of not only perceiving what’s important to us in a positive or negative sense, but rather to perceive things that are outside of our desire also regarding them in a positive or negative way. How do we do that?

I need to dress into somebody else, into someone who is external to me, to rise above my own sensations, both positive and negative, to the perception of what is good or bad for another. If I manage to catch somebody else’s sensations, at least the perception of one person, then I get out of myself and start identifying the world as it really is, in a initial, small extent. Then, a person can continue working on expanding my exits outside of myself, again and again, until I start sensing the reality completely independent of myself. This is called the perception beyond reason, above the desire to receive.”

We have been in the process of developing this quality for quite a long time now. The matter of which the desire is built has transitioned from the inanimate level to the vegetative, then to animate, and it has been the development of the receiving desires of self-perception. The desire to receive continued to enlarge its ability to feel various outside impacts from within until it depleted this option to the very end. There is no room for further growth in this direction any longer; so, the desire to receive now recognizes its limitations.

Here is what today’s generation is going through: We lack interest in life, indifference to further growth and what we do in this world. We can’t control ourselves and the world around us as before. Our egoistic desire has exhausted itself; we have completed this phase of evolution.

In the future, our desire to receive will push us towards the next developmental stage. It is said that by creating affliction and predicaments, the Pharaoh forced the sons of Israel to exit from Egypt. Similarly to them, we too feel hopeless in this life. The egoism that is governing us, demonstrates that it is unable to fulfill us any longer. We go the extra mile to find reasons to live, search for additional pleasures and livelihood; however, all of them lead to even deeper descents; the more we try to live better, the worse our lives become.

Even those who have everything do not sense any joy or happiness. Besides, our material life constantly gets harder. We definitely continue to fall.

This is exactly what is supposed to be happening. At some point, the sons of Israel fled Egypt because they went through a similar situation. They would have liked to stay there, but they were hit by huge blows and sufferings that didn’t leave them any choice but to escape.

When a Kabbalist begins his self-correction, he acts as if he strives to enter a beautiful spiritual world full of light, into the bright future that will open all horizons to him. However, on his way there, he discovers quite an opposite picture —tough internal life and intense burdens that press him immensely. This pressure is caused by the fact that he isn’t moving forward in the usual egoistic way. Instead, through desperation and unfortunate circumstances, he must pass through all stages of spiritual birth, meaning to exit Egypt, rise above his egoism, get out of himself, and feel what it is like to be out of his body; that is, he lives through sensing other’s desires.

In this world, the process of birth is also accompanied by labor pains (Tzirim in Hebrew), in other words by (Tzarot) troubles, sufferings, and pressure. And in particular, those feelings are given to those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah to help them advance by pushing them forward in the same way a mother’s uterus presses on the fetus for it to be born.

However, the wisdom of Kabbalah is not just telling us about the birth of a new perception and the acquisition of the transition from absorbing to releasing, from reception to bestowal. It is not a theoretical study of the process; it is not about philosophy. Kabbalah helps us to realize this by a process of spiritual birth.

After all, like a fetus in the mother’s womb, we have to feel cramped, dark, tightness, suffocation, and the need assist this process on our own. It’s a very unpleasant sensation. That’s why we are granted the wisdom of Kabbalah to begin realizing and acknowledging the process in order to make it easy and fast.

Thanks to Kabbalah, we know what to expect; we realize that we have to exit out of our internal sensations into the external world in order to avoid viewing the reality only through the limitations of our five senses; we should see the world that is outside of us, outside the womb. We have to achieve this state somehow. How?

We need an “obstetrician” here; we have to be born not as a result of painful birth contractions that push us from behind, but rather due to the outside force that pulls us forward. In this case, the process of birth will be quite easy, with the “waters,” with the property of Mercy.

For that, we need external support that has to be provided by the group, which elicits the external force. It is said: “Man shall help his neighbor.” The group can pull us out of this dark world into the bright light; it will help us raise our perception of reality to the next level so that it’s not limited by five senses anymore; but on the contrary, we begin viewing everything around us in the Reflected Light without absorbing anything inside ourselves, but rather turning outside.

Hence, the terms “bestowal,” “love,” and “mercy,” all of them, in fact, are talking about the perception of reality in a different quality, in exchanging one’s desires with the desire of his friend. If one manages to transfer one’s primary concern from himself to his group of friends, it is as if one is drawn out of the womb, out of this world, and go beyond this material realm into the world of externality. In this case, our efforts trigger the upper force’s response, which helps us go through this and to be born.

This is the first step we have to go through; it is extremely difficult. Similarly in our world, in spite of all efforts to facilitate the process of birth, to make it easy and safe, it always appears to be a miracle similar to the “miracle of exiting Egypt.” At this stage of development lies something new and extraordinary, and even more so when it comes to spiritual birth.
[81263]
From the Miami Convention 6/23/12, Lesson 1

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In the creation there is only a Light and a vessel for it. The vessel for the Light is not the desire to receive that the Creator created, but the yearning for the upper one that stems from the created being itself.

The Creator evokes the created being by a spark of the Light so that the created being will be able to develop this yearning inside. The created being has to use this spark correctly by turning to the environment, which means to an external force since inside it only has an initial desire and a spark.

The desire is on the Creator’s account and it cannot become a vessel for the Light; it is just a general desire to receive. The spark directs this desire to an external force, to an external factor. If by this external factor the created being develops and the additional factor inside, this desire that is created by the created being itself will become a vessel for the Light.

This additional desire can only be bestowal, because the desire to receive is in the created being’s nature, something that is different from this desire can only be a desire to bestow.

It seems as if the Light of Hochma is the Light of the mind that fills all the desires with understanding. But it isn’t so. The Light of Hochma is the Light of life. It is the Light that created the desire to receive opposite to it. Thus it fills this desire and gives it vitality.

The vessel for the Light of Hochma is the measure of Hassadim, the measure of bestowal that the created being can develop in him. Therefore it says; “He gives wisdom (Hochma) to the wise,” which means that the Light of Hochma enters a vessel that is especially for Hochma, the desire to receive that yearns to bestow, which means to resemble the Giver. Then the Light of Hochma is dressed in such a vessel.

The more the created being exerts himself in order to attain a deficiency for the Light of life (life symbolizes bestowal), the more the Light of life, the Light of Hochma, is dressed in it and revealed in it. The Light doesn’t come from a distance, it is revealed within the created being since it has always been in it and only now is revealed.

So we only have to try not to be foolish and not to hope to receive the Light in order to receive, but to understand that the spark we have received was given to us so that we will develop the attribute of bestowal inside us with the help of an external force, meaning with the help of the environment. This external force will convey the yearning for bestowal to us, which symbolizes “life” and the “Light of life.”
[81596]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/28/12, Shamati #145

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Question: How can I create a daily schedule to reach the property of bestowal sooner?

Answer: Along with all our groups, together with all the friends around the world, whether they are now watching the lesson, working, or sleeping, let’s agree to support each other so that no one forgets that we will reveal the Creator only in unity. All the time, I will be thinking only about how to reveal Him in unity and nothing else.

Our unity will become a means, the desired result of the breaking. Then, in this unity we’ll reveal the Force of bestowal and love, fulfillment and eternal life. Day and night, let me be consumed with the concern that no friend, no person with the point in the heart forgets about the main thing: that only in unity we create the vessel for revealing the Creator. We’re not required to do anything impossible: If together we will by all means think and worry about this, then He will be revealed. It’s in our hands. Agreed?
[81606]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/28/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Our conventions are becoming more and more qualitative. It might be that they are not as presentable as in the past, but they are deeper. Of course, in them, we are talking about the realistic connection and unity, but now this unity, in addition to the external discoveries, is penetrating to the boundary of inner experiences and feelings.

We know that “advantage of the Light is from the darkness.”

The Light is revealed only in the vessel, and therefore, we have to prepare the vessels, the desires, to feel the exile from the spiritual world in order to reach redemption. And this is to say, that all of us must work on the necessity that is directed to this convention. We need to define the character of the convention to know what one wants, to what one wants to reach, and what should happen in our meeting. We need to build this convention by ourselves.

This is not about the technical or organizational component. I speak here about this, that we need to build from beginning to end the whole process that we need to go through in creating the connection between us, until the step in which we will reach qualitative unity and we will enable the Light to illuminate inside us. And for that, we need to work, to invest efforts, and to do preparation without any connection to the place where the person will be during the time of the convention.

We all need to see what necessity and deficiency we need to reach by our internal and external efforts, in study, in intention, and organization at the place.

I am waiting for your opinions and reactions, and according to them, we will hold our convention.

I will prepare myself according to what you will write. Then, truly there will be collaboration between us and we will progress forward maximally.

Otherwise, if I will do something people are not prepared for, it results in a one-man show. We don’t need a show here, rather unity, a mutual, common action.
[75214]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/12, Shamati #190

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 30, “The Most Important Is to Want Only to Bestow”: The most important is to want only to bestow because of His greatness, because any reception is flawed. It is impossible to exit reception, but only to take the other extreme, meaning bestowal.

We are present in a single state: in the field of information belonging to the property of bestowal. There is only this force field, and its force is the force of bestowal. This is how it is revealed to us.

Within this force lie its foundations, which we do not attain: abstract form and essence. What we attain, as the Kabbalists tell us, is the force field whose force is characterized by bestowal.

In order to exist independently within this field, we were created from the opposite force, the force of reception. If a person simply experiences whatever was determined by his or her nature and does not change himself, then within that unified field he feels the reality called “this world.” Each one can personally absorb this picture in oneself and live through it. This world is called imaginary because we don’t feel what really exists outside us and it is as if we are existing in an unconscious state and seeing a dream inspired by the vibes of imaginary perception.

Within this dream we are developing more and more towards awakening and awareness. Our entire evolution, our whole history fit into this process.

How can we feel the external, true reality in which we actually exist? How do we probe for this field of upper force that created us, sustains us, influences us, and constantly develops us in order to attach ourselves to it?

There are two paths:

1.      The first is called “the path of suffering”: Whether we want to or not under the influence of the field of bestowal, we will keep developing and still come to want to know the One who governs us, influences us, develops, and guides us. Suffering will compel us to get to the root of its cause and we will discover that we suffer because of Him, because this is how He affects us.

Then we will have to come to know Him, to draw closer to Him in attempts to change His governance. And, like the first Kabbalists, through suffering, we’ll discover that this field, this Force acting on us, wants us to become similar to it by uniting with each other. This is called the law of equivalence of properties.

Why is this necessary? The fact is that through this, we will be the same as Him: eternal, whole, and perfect, and at the same time will remain independent. After all, if we were within Him, under His complete governance, then it’s as if we don’t even exist. However, our development contains a polarity: Inside us, a force grows which is opposite to the field of bestowal, and at the same time, we need to work on ourselves in order to become similar to Him.

2.      If we do not want to go through the path of suffering but by the path of Light, through the good influence of the field of bestowal, then we reveal a simple law: In order to remain independent, we need to demand from this Light all the changes that accompany our growth. If I demand and the field executes it, then there is no problem with remaining independent while at the same time being similar to Him. After all, I myself, against my own desire, ask for it to change me.

In this way, during the course of development I include two forces in myself:

• The force opposed to this field: the field is wholly aimed at bestowal, while I’m wholly aimed at reception;
• The form of bestowal, which I clothe on my force of reception

Inside of me is a force of reception, the cruel egoistic desire yearning only for personal gain, while on top of it I clothe the opposite form, the force of bestowal and love. But how can I know how to ask for the force of bestowal? After all, I don’t know what that even is. Whatever I may be imagining, all of my speculations are based on the force of reception and won’t allow me to truly demand changes in myself. Anything that I ask based on my own nature will always be directed at reception, sometimes concealed or camouflaged, but reception nonetheless.

How can I ask this field to give me a true force of bestowal so that it would start to be revealed in me like the force of reception, so that I would have two forces opposite to each other?

For that we were given a special existence: We see ourselves as living in the world filled with people just like us. And if I want to obtain a desire aimed at bestowal, a request for bestowal, then I can unite with others, with at least one other person. After all, the minimum plurality is two. But Kabbalists say that it is better if there will be at least ten of us, since this is a whole quantity. I need to start uniting with them in order to reach the desire for bestowal.

How do we unite? The Kabbalists who discovered the method explain this also: I need to sit together with them, eat and drink, study among them, and most importantly, maintain the intention: What do I want to achieve through all these actions? It’s important not to forget that my intention is to obtain a desire to bestow. This is what Baal HaSulam writes about: “The most important is to want only to bestow.”

It turns out that I work with people who desire the same thing, we are together in one group, and someone teaches us. How all this came to be, we don’t know, as if by accident. But in reality, that very same field drives us in the same way that an electromagnetic field places iron filings along the lines of equilibrium. In the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Baal HaSulam writes that the Creator brings a person to a group and says: “This is for you, take it. Here is your free choice.” And the choice is only to be strengthened together with the friends on the path to the desire to bestow. We cannot achieve the desire itself, because that desire is the Creator. However, we are obliged to want this desire among ourselves, and then, feeling the need for it, I will feel in my heart that I am lacking bestowal and that I want to be a giver.

Why? I don’t even know. It happens on its own after a long time, five, maybe ten years. This is why we were given this life. Little by little, in the heart of a person, a desire and need for the property of bestowal appear.

Everything here is subject to simple “physics of forces”: The more acutely my heart experiences the need to come to bestowal, the more powerfully the field of bestowal affects me. This is how we come closer: I according to my need for it, and it according to the force of bestowal directed at me. As a result, we begin to feel each other, and I obtain internal changes: In addition to the natural force of reception, a force of bestowal appears in me.

This is how a correct form is developed: A receiving desire inside and a giving desire on the outside – a form of man (Adam), similar (domeh) to the Creator. His receiving desire, the “material” of creation, remains, while on the outside it’s covered with a garment, a “wrapper,” a desire to bestow.

So first and foremost, I need to want to bestow, and when this desire reaches a certain degree of tension in the heart, the field influences me by induction, introducing into me the force of bestowal.

Finally, it clothes in me and I become a sort of a sentient “probe” or “sensor” for this field. Suppose I received inside me ten grams of desire to bestow. First of all, through this, I was born; in other words, I begin to sense the field that surrounds me, I feel that I exist within it, I feel its properties, its attitude toward me, and my attitude toward it. In addition to the current material level, I enter into a connection with this field on a new level that is called the spiritual world, and this, in essence, is how we attain the Creator.

This field contains all the information about the past, present, and future, about everything that happens to me and to the whole world. A person who maintains connection to this field begins to understand how to make contact with it correctly, what to ask of it. Through this, we find ourselves in an enormous flow of information that fills all of reality. Here we learn who the Creator is, what this field is, how to establish contact with it, and how to operate the entire system. Thus man ascends higher and higher, more and more is included in the spiritual world. And all this only from the desire to bestow that he received in himself from this field.

Returning to the desire to bestow: A condition is embedded in it—one needs to want to become a giver. And who would want that? Special people with a point in the heart, that is, with a small charge that directs them for the field of bestowal of which they are a part.

And what of others? Others cannot strive for that. Like the first Kabbalists, they can reveal this field through the path of suffering and misfortunes, anguishing, not understanding the reason for what’s happening and in general, what they live for.

To the measure that this state is becoming formed, we are arriving to the present, singular point in history. The path of suffering of the world has more or less been revealed today. Many people, even if not all seven billion, are already asking the questions: “What do we live for? What is the meaning of life? What are we suffering for?” This question, coming from them, cannot receive an answer. Moreover, they don’t know where and how to direct their suffering. After all, they don’t understand and don’t feel anything except for this world.

Here comes the turn of the people with a point in the heart: We are obliged to become for others what the Creator is for creation. After all, it is we who are able to connect them to the field of bestowal, and this is our purpose, what Baal HaSulam describes in the article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee).” This is why we awaken en masse toward the upper force, while others receive this awakening from us. This is our work.

Thus, “the most important is to want only to bestow.” We are able to desire it with consciousness and awareness, because we were given a particle, a spark of its field, and with its help we can aim our course, and aspire towards this field in order to reveal it. By uniting our sparks, we will be able to demand from it the force of bestowal. While the others aren’t capable of this, they need our guidance.
[81119]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/12, Shamati #30

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Question: How can I see the current situation as unbearable in order to yearn for the next state?

Answer: You need the Light for that. Don’t we sometimes feel that we cannot stand ourselves? Don’t we torture ourselves when we see that we are wasting our lives by using everyone for our own benefit? Don’t we condemn ourselves for wanting to rest and for looking down on everyone?

However, we cannot bring all these feelings together. The problem is that a person thinks that he can do something by himself. A person is successful and is very lucky if he understands that without the Light, he can do nothing.

A person should not search himself, but, on the contrary, he should say, as it is written, “Go and tell the craftsman that made me.” Let the Light correct you; this is the only option.

The Creator wants to evoke you and spur you on to contact Him by every bad feeling he sends you. This is the reason He created evil: so that we will use the Torah, the Light, as a “spice,” as a means for correction.

So any bad thing that happens to you gives you a chance to turn to the Creator. However, if you don’t turn to Him, if you look for help elsewhere, this is called “other gods,” as if it weren’t Him who sent you these troubles.

This is where the group comes in, in creating a consolidated perspective, a clear understanding that everything we receive is from the Creator. The moment we feel a flaw or a defect, we must turn to Him. If this is the general approach, then I will certainly not forget this.

We forget these simple facts in our spiritual work because we don’t make sure that it should be the common, general protocol, the general atmosphere in the group. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t waste our time.

Question: However, I turn to the Creator not so that He will solve my corporeal problems, but so that He will help me demand a greater connection since the connection is the solution.

Answer: Yes, the solution is indeed in the connection among us. The Creator sends you a problem in such a way and on such a level that you will identify it as a problem.

If he sent you a problem in its true form, as lack of bestowal upon the friends or lack of love, then at that moment you wouldn’t feel sorry about it. So, instead, he presents it differently to you.

You didn’t exert yourself as you should have in working on the connection among us, and this corruption is depicted to you as a totally different external problem such as a flat tire, for example. You come out in the morning and see that you have a flat tire, so you curse life and the Creator, and change the tire with the spare tire if you have one.

Thus, the real problem takes on a different form that enables you to feel sorrow and pain. Now, besides the necessary external actions, your work is to understand that the Creator has called you since you are not connected to the friends and do not reveal the Light. Otherwise, what do you need troubles for?

Question: So, how can I turn to the Creator now? After all, the Creator is a force, the law of nature; it is useless to pray to Him and to ask from Him.

Answer: “Praying” doesn’t mean to ask something from Him the way we see it. By praying, I discover a deficiency within me and a need for the Light so that it will come and influence me. Praying means to discover a deficiency that is aimed at correction, at the right filling, by the force of bestowal, by the Light. It is the attribute of bestowal by which I want to be filled. This is called praying.

However, I never discover such a deficiency. Instead, I feel that I lack something. How is it possible to turn the egoistic deficiency, the fact that I lack something, into a deficiency for the attribute of bestowal? This is our internal work called “God’s work.” When, together, with the friends, I switch from a corporeal deficiency for my self-benefit to a spiritual deficiency for the attribute of bestowal, I summon the Light that Reforms, and my desire is fulfilled.
[81454]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How can I empower the environment so that it can make me feel the importance of the goal?

Answer: If you see the environment as important, it will convey the importance of the goal back to you. Don’t pay attention to how this environment behaves. What you see is irrelevant since you don’t see anything in its true form.

You must simply, constantly, invest in your environment as if it swallows everything. Your job is to make the environment feel that the goal is important, that the Creator is important, the spiritual path and the studying are important. In response, you may see that they all disrespect one another and that they disrespect you since this is also something the Creator has arranged for you.

You must understand that you are working vis-à-vis the Creator who is depicted to you in the form of the society. The Creator may present the environment to you as totally corrupt, but this doesn’t matter. You still must make efforts and bestow upon it in one direction.

The other direction is your receiving from them, which is meant only to teach you how you should improve yourself and, despite everything, impress them with the greatness and the importance of the goal. Leave all the calculations of how much you can get from them. All such accountings are egoistic. If you begin to think about how they offend you and how they treat you, it is all ego.

You should see the group in such a way that you don’t care about anything that is in regard to you. No matter how they respond to you, you only need to give in return, just as you treat little children and wait until they grow up.
[81451]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/12, Writings of Rabash

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To get a sense of the Light, we must practice, and exercises are possible only in the group. For example, a dance teacher begins to perform various movements with me: a step forward, a step backward, a spin, and so forth. The group is in front of me, and I can feel it, work with it, and thus advance.

Yes, this is very unpleasant to my egoism because, every time, I must give primacy to the group, not me, but it leads me in this “tango.” Friends express their desire, and I should follow it. As it is written, “Nullify your desire according to His desire.” I am learning how to bow my head, to accept the desire of the group as my lead partner, and come to cooperation, unity, with friends. I begin to feel their desire. It turns out that my dancing partner is reliable and close, devoted and faithful. I act for him, and he acts for me. Then, our unity turns into a real group.

The “group” means a single desire of friends to be united with each other. There is neither “me” nor “them” in this desire that is being born between us, but there is one whole, a new reality, not connection itself, but its result.

This is the spiritual fruit that came out of the mother’s womb. In it, we perceive the One and the Light; the Creator is revealed in it, in that desire to which we gave birth and created, which we have achieved by becoming one whole. There cannot be a divided multitude, but unity reigns in it.

Baal HaSulam writes about this in Letter 13: Besides the great power hidden in it, you should know that there are many sparks of sanctity in each of the friends. And as you collect all of these sparks into one place, as brothers in love and friendship, certainly you would have a very exalted degree of the level of sanctity at that hour.

A person can be included in the group in different ways, can come and go in waves, wholeheartedly or half-heartedly. Nonetheless, each of us has a unique particle of the Light that pulls him out of the bottom of this world, and that is why we must appreciate everyone. Moreover, this applies equally for men and women.

Our sparks are a true gift from above. A person is called a human (Adam) if he has this spark pulling him toward becoming similar (Adameh) to the Creator. If he does not have a spark, he still belongs to the “animate” level.

We are not speaking about some inadequacy. Some merely get a “dual” task to be born earlier than others and help everyone else to be born spiritually. They are similar to the head of humanity and must lead it forward.

That is why we need to understand that every friend has received a special attitude from above, from the Light that dressed into him. In his soul, in his spiritual root, there is something very special placed in him, so he is close to the light and receives this assignment.

Of course, he does not rise egoistically above humanity. We respect the friend because he was granted a special role to serve. We don’t treat others with disdain because this mission doesn’t depend on us.

That is why I must respect each friend. He was chosen from above, by the Light to become my partner. I cannot be born without him, and neither can humanity.
[81447]
From the Miami Convention 6/23/12, Lesson 1

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 208, “Labor”: The efforts that one makes are but preparations for achieving devotion. Hence, one should grow accustomed in devotion, since no degree can be achieved without devotion, as this is the only tool that qualifies one to be rewarded with all the degrees.

In order to ascend a new step of the ladder, one must apply effort. Only after one applies effort does he attain a new level, but how does this happen?

At the present stage, one possesses a number of qualities, but the next step involves a higher level of qualities. How can we acquire them? We should plead for the Light that Reforms to affect us, to correct us, and thus leads us to rise.

All our efforts are meant to awaken the Light. How do we do that? We elicit the Light only by trying to simulate the higher step, although we are totally unable to do that since it is hidden from us. How can we become somewhat similar to it? For that, we have to follow several instructions defined by Kabbalists.

Our next step is in fact a greater effort to bestow as opposed to the current phase. It means that we have to invest determination into unity with friends, annul ourselves in relation to the group, and try to feel to the best of our abilities that there is none else besides Him in all our problems, issues, impediments, and hindrances. Everything is sent to me by the Creator, including the interferences that conceal His oneness and hide His unlimited power over the whole universe. We have to connect everything that happens to Him; our efforts should be directed to regard the group as a mechanism through which He reveals Himself to us.

Our determination has to reach a point where we feel that our efforts cannot grow any stronger; this is when we surrender ourselves to a higher state so that it can govern us. We still do not have the correct sensation, nor do we understand our next spiritual step; all we do is simply entrust ourselves to the next step by directing all efforts solely towards attaining it.

Due to this level of self-sacrifice and complete devotion, a person receives a soul from the higher level. Our efforts have to be directed to realizing that there is none besides Him; we have to strive to reveal Him and His oneness through bestowal and unity in the group. Let the upper govern our senses and intellect without any disparagement on our behalf.

This state comes to us gradually, step-by-step, to the degree that we elicit the Light that Reforms by attaining more similarity with the higher level. Similarly a fetus turns to its mother, allowing her to nurture it. Step by step, she augments his desires (in our realm it bears the form of supplementing its flesh), but his “job” is to refuse new desires by completely entrusting himself to her.

Over and over again, he merges with the upper one and admits that there is none else besides Him, the One who is good and does good, in spite of all the problems, difficulties, and obstacles that the new “flesh” (desires) awaken in him

The fetus “attaches” all of its parts as well as the whole world that surrounds him in his mother’s womb to the upper force, and eventually reaches the level of devotion and self-annihilation, which is called “nine months of conception” after which he is born into this world. The process of birth is excruciating; it is accompanied by tremendous labor pains (“birth contractions” – tzirim) under very constrained (tzar) conditions that cause incredible afflictions (tzarot). Through enormous pressure that originates both by the upper force and the fetus itself, the fetus transcends the narrow passage, and is born into the world of the Light. During the process of birth, the child has to completely “bow his head,” flip upside down. Then, when the process of birth is over, he lifts his head up again.

All of this is a result of our efforts. We have to realize that we will never attain the next step on our own; therefore, our task is to elicit the Light that Reforms so that it produces essential changes in us and, as a consequence, prepares us for the next step.

So, our work is to make actions that effectively elicit the Light that Reforms. Now, we are talking about our unity. By investing efforts into connection between us, we raise its importance with the help of the Light. At the same time, the Light demonstrates to us that we are not yet able to unite. The force that inspires us to bond conflicts with predicaments that prevent us from attaining unity, recognizing that there is none else besides Him. We still continue to think: “if not me, then who?”

This is how we approach the critical point that allows us “to be born anew” at each next level.
[77472]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/12 in America, Shamati #208

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Question: How should we direct our “Prayer for the Many” before the convention in the North so that it will personally influence each one of us so that we will feel the importance of the group and for the world?

Answer: Conventions of this kind are very beneficial. I saw it also according to the groups I visited lately. We need to maintain the intention of bestowal for all of our friends all over the world. It is very influential and advances them significantly.

Each time, I happily discover that the gap between the groups shrinks more and more. It is especially now as the groups opened to meet the general public, when we support the unity of the congresses, and especially with the workshops, the groups feel a very, big change. The distances between us disappear, all gradually become one group, and this causes great happiness.

The convention in the North will begin on Thursday of next week. I very much hope that our friends can get away from work and their other involvements. Nowadays it is not so simple, since it can cause unpleasantness on the side of the employers. I warn you: Don’t put your position at work in danger and don’t leave if there is no possibility to take a vacation.

We will try to have a continuous live broadcast.

As to the preparation, the main thing is the connection. This means a really deep, internal connection between everyone, between all the groups and all the friends so that not one of us will be forgotten. We must prepare for more consolidated and dense activity. From Sunday of next week, we will devote special lessons to this. Be with us, and everything will work out.
[81520]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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