Question: The purpose of our work at the workshop is clear: We open the heart to each other, we draw closer, connect.

Answer: You are learning to understand what a group means. Before that you only heard what it is. But here, I hope, you began to feel that special properties are embedded in the group, which you won’t be able to scrutinize alone. By listening specifically to your friend—and it doesn’t matter what he is saying for he may not know anything (he may be in the group for one or two months), you will hear in his words what you need to hear.

Question: There is also another form of group work, when the text is simply read and no commentaries are given. What’s the difference? When do we apply this kind of work?

Answer: It is a very serious question.

In general, how do you discuss something between yourselves when you stand in a big circle and say something? You also speak about yourself, from yourself, about the greatness of the group, the greatness of the goal, of the gathering, or about why you came to the convention.

Most important is not to talk about what’s in your heart at the given moment. You do not give vent to what you feel at the moment. As in our world, you do not want to tell anybody about your deepest feelings, personal secrets, and the same is here. That is, I do not talk about my relationship with the Creator as it concerns only me. All the rest—it makes no difference.

Question: When we work independently in the group, who will help us stop on time and talk from the heart, not from the mind?

Answer: Don’t be afraid to err. It’s not important. It’s completely unimportant!

Those who study for a month or two can gather into the group and try to discuss something between themselves, to mumble like children—it’s not important. They will nevertheless grow, if they only do what’s needed. No preliminary knowledge is required from a person, nothing. Most important is to act simply, open heartedly, and naively, and then everything will work out.
[76899] 
From Vilnius Convention 3/25/2012, Workshop 4

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Question: How should I feel my group as a result of the workshop?

Answer: The group is “one” because only one soul has been created. And the more I reveal the structure of a single soul, the more I reveal the group.

A group is not a material concept, not ten physical bodies sitting in a circle. The group is what we build above our egoism through the connection between us, downplaying our ego and raising the importance of connection, the Creator, the Light. The farther apart we take these two opposite points, raising the importance of bestowal, love, and connection, there above, we begin to feel as one.

Everyone feels not himself but only this collective one, outside of his body, his thoughts and desires. We all feel just this desire and one thought “as one man with one heart.” This is called the group.

If everyone acts like this during the workshop, we build a common locator in our group, which begins to pick up all the other “units” in the hall, formed from each circle or approaching this. And then I will start to feel through this sensor all the souls of the righteous existing in the spiritual world. This becomes my vessel with which I work in the spiritual world.
[78229]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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Question: Do we have to feel the parallel shattering before every new level?

Answer: Of course, otherwise we won’t be able to rise up to it. By receiving corrupt desires, we correct them and build the next corrected level from them.

This new level has never existed before; we are creating something that is totally new. We only receive the material and build new steps from it. This is because we evoke the Light of NRNHY in all the worlds, although to us they only had the faint Light of Nefesh. After all, we bring our desires and clarifications into it. We add our egoistic desire to receive to the desire to bestow, by evoking and correcting it.

The corruption is revealed in us, and we correct it. Now in these desires, which are obtained each time, become 620 times greater than the desire that was created during the descent from the top down, we receive the Reforming Light and then the Light that fills the vessel.

No matter what level I am on, suppose on level 30 from the bottom, I will receive a Light that is 620 times stronger than the level itself because I am adding my desire, the spiritual yearning, my work. This is what happens on every level.
[78059]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: How can I advance toward bestowal if my aspiration is egoistic, for my own pleasure, stemming from this world? After all, I can’t do it any other way.

Answer: Don’t worry about that, for you have all that you need for spiritual advancement: a group in which to actualize your desire for the spiritual, where the Light (Creator) is revealed. What else could you possibly need? You have a system that helps you grow, like a caring family!

You receive support from our great world group, from lots of friends. Besides, the whole world in general supports you by revealing its worthlessness with each passing day. These conditions are so favorable that we really have nothing to complain about. It’s even a bit upsetting. Are we really so powerless that we must be clearly shown the breaking of the egoistic world to convince us that there is no other path but this? This speaks to our complete feebleness and inability to resist our desire to enjoy; that’s how small, destitute and hollow we really are.

In the times of Baal HaSulam, the world surged, chasing after pleasures and wealth, and aspiring to develop science and new technologies. But today the world feels only disappointment, as if we are being deliberately supported in our path.
[78119]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: You said that we must constantly return to the corrected state and to keep it in mind. What is that state?

Answer: The point is that when a person attains an integral connection with other people in a group that isn’t too big, he remembers that, he has an impression called Reshimo, (reminiscences). This impression is emotional and it is stored in him as a memory, but it is an active memory.

This means that with the help of any state that resembles it we can always fulfill the Reshimo and to actually begin to experience it anew, to live in it and to immediately feel in it the ease, the lack of restrictions, warmth, security and the exit from any crisis, etc.

When a person begins to exit himself and connect with others, he sees that all the problems he felt before were felt by him because he had a different perception of reality, “for himself” and not “from himself.”

So the main thing is to leave a very accurate impression of mutual cooperation with the world around him, with the environment, in a person and to teach him habits and how he can return from different states to this basic state. Then we will return to it on different, higher levels, despite the possible interruptions, with the help of different environments, in any environment.

Question: How often does a person have to return to the corrected state during the day?

Answer: He should constantly be in it. I try to turn any state I am in into the corrected state.

Question: How can it be intensified, how can it be stronger and more powerful?

Answer: It is possible to intensify it by the resistance that I feel in order to return to it. Eventually, when I overcome the resistance I feel, it becomes a coefficient of intensity. My experiences of cooperation, the oppositeness of the states “to me” and “from me” will accordingly be clearer, more distant and stronger.

Question: When you describe this phenomenon I see it as an individualistic process, but we are always saying that it is a group process.

Answer: It is a group process, but we are talking about an individual effort within the group process. Later, when the process stabilizes as a group process, everyone will begin to feel a unified partnership. This is the state in which individuals become one whole, just like many drops merge into one in which no division is felt, but rather is the feeling of one big unified drop.

But we are saying that these states are constantly changing—groups break up and reconnect. We are not speaking about one group or about the fact that humanity has become such a group. Therefore, the individual component of my work with all of the environment becomes the main thing here.
[77166]
From “A Talk on Integral Upbringing” 2/27/12

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Question: How can we be equal to others? How can we measure if we are equal? After all, otherwise we can’t be friends and create the conditions for the Creator’s revelation between us.

Answer: You can feel either above or below others, but only those who achieve equality among themselves become friends. In other types of relationships, when you either bestow or receive, you’re not a friend but rather a teacher or a student.

People become equal if they desire simultaneously:

1. To give everything, like an adult to a child, to care for them,

2. They are ready to learn from any friend like a student from a teacher (as it is written, “Mi Kol Talmiday Iskalti” – “I’ve learned from all my students”).

It is precisely by combining these two attitudes toward another that I become equal to him, that is, I become his friend.
[78024]

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In order to be balanced with the Creator, to connect with Him, I have to change myself. How is that possible? How can I resemble Him? After all, balance is resemblance.

In order to do this, we were given an environment. Balance with the Creator is attained by balancing with the environment in which I discover Him. The Reshimot (reminiscences) that are awoken inside present the group to me, and my work becomes real, now I’m dealing with something that’s familiar, everything is solved among friends.

How is it possible to find balance with the group? Through mutual guarantee that is the force, the law of balance.

According to this law the entire world is mutually connected, just like cogwheels in a certain system. None of the cogwheels can turn independently without turning all the other wheels and being turned by them. It’s just like two clutch discs when they touch each other.

But the law of development operates in this mechanism. First, the clutch pedal is pressed and the connection between them is still weak. At this point we don’t disturb but rather help one another by spinning and not feeling that we are connected to one whole. The states and nations are separated; some don’t even know that others exist.

With time, the inner ego grows and the cogwheels become more closely connected. In other words the clutch pedal is released and the discs get progressively closer to one another, until they are very tightly connected. This is how all of humanity develops towards mutual cooperation: Countries establish connections, new continents are discovered, international commerce and industry flourish, societies change, the number of different professions grow, and people are becoming increasingly interdependent until they are totally interdependent.

This development is very difficult because the ego and the Reshimot that develop bring us closer together and crowd us, until at a certain moment when this overly tight connection begins to worry us. We can’t detach ourselves from one another to live without each other, even if we want to. Therefore, nature, the Creator, brings us to a new state in which we discover that we can’t break apart any more. If we don’t work out the right mutual connection among us, then we may be destroying ourselves.

Thus mutual guarantee obliges us to be mutually responsible for one another. We are like cogwheels: Any wheel that turns, turns all the others. The clutch pedal is left untouched and the discs come together, the teeth enter each other and we all find ourselves in one huge interconnected system, that doesn’t allow any cogwheel to turn freely. Now all the others have to agree with it, to agree about the direction and the speed. Without this agreement, no one will be able to move.

Eventually everyone will discover a “strange hand around his neck.” Imagine a person lying with an IV without which he may die, but there are several billion taps installed on the tube in which the vital fluid flows. Everyone can turn off his own tap and then, that’s the end.

We will soon feel that we’re in a very unpleasant situation. That is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed to us in advance, in order to prepare our life to the new conditions. After all, everything comes for the purpose of correction; the question is only how to look at this whole thing. If we know in advance that everything comes to serve the search for the right mutual connection among us, meaning mutual guarantee, then the cogwheels will be arranged as they should and will turn in the right direction, in harmony. Moreover, the mutual balance will help them become balanced with the general force that locks them in the one system together with the Creator. This is how the world will reach the desired correction.
[77690]
From the One Convention in New Jersey 5/12/12, Lesson 3

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Question: How can we be sure that our connection in the group is enough for the work that we want to actualize?

Answer: You can actually discover this if in spite of the friction, you try to connect and work together. Then you work on two levels: Below are arguments, hatred, rejection, and lack of understanding, in other words the ego that separates between us, and above, you are the opposite, connected in love.

In our maintaining both of these levels, you constantly rise in both of them: The ego grows above love, and you hate each other, and then love elevates above the ego, and this happens again and again; similar to how we walk on two legs. The positive and negative constantly substitute each other, like swallowing and regurgitation. The whole life is built on sequence, and it is impossible to advance in any other way.

But if the hatred that grew is depressing love and you agree to this, then the connection between you will be torn, and the group will be destroyed. Thus, one always needs to remember what the Creator says: “I created the evil inclination.” He constantly renews your ego, so that you constantly will rise above it to the good inclination.

In this way you connect to Him again and again. He strengthens your self-love specifically so that you will stretch the connection and ask for help. This process must be as clear to you as the light of the sun. Only in this way, we advance as a group; otherwise, we can expect a collapse.
[77363]
From the Brazil Convention 5/06/12, Lesson 5

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Question: What efforts should the group make in order to attain correction in the same lifetime in which its members discover the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: The efforts should be not to judge any member of the group according to the state he is in. We are all “rags,” as Rabash used to say; we are all uncorrected. All the sins and negative attributes are in each of us.

A person who attains the high spiritual levels discovers on the way disgusting and repulsive desires that he has, and he is shocked by the fact that he can have such desires. It is even impossible to imagine! As a result of the shattering, everyone has all the kinds of desires inside him. Therefore, we mustn’t see anyone as corrupt.

“It takes one to know one.” If I see a flaw in someone, it is only because I am corrupt. If I were corrected, I could see the other according to my level of correction, as totally corrected, because all these degrees already exist. What I see now is the reflection of my ego. It is my ego that depicts this picture for me.

So the main work in the group is to accept every member as your beloved baby. No matter what he does: If he doesn’t let you rest, if he makes a mess, if he breaks everything, you know that it is your baby. This is how you should treat the friend. It is a sign of love.

I speak about a friend and mean that a person can treat others this way too and not someone who just came in and joined the group. Mutual help means to consider the personal states of every individual.
[77624]
From the One Convention in New Jersey 5/12/12, Lesson 2

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Receiving the Torah means getting to know the Creator who is revealed in our connection with each other. Events that happened at Mount Sinai indicate necessary conditions that need to be realized: to feel an exile from the state of connection and unity and the lack of sensation of the Creator that is being revealed inside of this connection to the extent of groaning from the work.

And all of this happens under Pharaoh’s blows, which we go through trying to connect despite all the rejection, hostility, and hatred that gives egoism an opportunity to escape. But still, we aspire toward connection and are ready to accept it in any shape or form in order for it to happen.

Then we cross the Red Sea and reach Mount Sinai, although there is still a long way to get closer to that state. And then we gather at Mount Sinai (the mountain of hatred); this means, we finally managed to unite around our hatred and to accept the condition of a mutual guarantee: to become one man with one heart. Under such circumstances, a force of correction becomes revealed to us. It turns out that in order to gain this power, it is necessary to go through a number of states by increasing and clarifying our demand, which means building a vessel suitable for the correction, both in the mind and in the heart. By realizing that we need nothing else but that, we will receive the revealed method of correction and the power allowing us to go above reason.

With this power we can fight against our egoism, which continuously grows, but now it grows consciously and under control. It is clear that we are making unpleasant discoveries and revealing new evil in the left line, but then we correct it in the right line. So we gradually learn how to correct all our egoism to finally enter the land of Israel.

The most important moment in this work comes after elation and ascent achieved as a result of a big convention. After all, there comes a new phase, beginning with a hardening of the heart, a new invitation to Pharaoh, who hardened even more. And then, above all, commitment to lower oneself and accept this process is important. Although we still do not feel that such states are absolutely necessary for us, we must accept them as inevitable, that is to trust the higher teacher leading us forward.

It is the Creator who hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and here we need to rise to a certain level of canceling ourselves by accepting this hardening and working with devotion. It is necessary to accept the fact that there is none else besides Him, and strive to stay connected, no matter how hard the state comes in.

And such difficult challenges are usually given after big gatherings, the general feeling of inspiration and connection. But we must realize that difficult states that come afterward is a time of real work. Now you are given an opportunity to properly treat a new egoistic nature, a new broken Reshimo, which you must work with.

But the mind and the heart forget about it, and a person gets confused thinking that everything that is happening is the truth and not a game coming from above. There, the general opinion of the group and mutual support should come to the rescue. Apart from confusion and mixed feelings everyone goes through, a person must receive a second point of view from the group that is beyond this confusion, in order to show where this special state and all mixed feelings are coming from. It comes from a new Reshimo that purposely is revealed to us by the Creator to perceive it correctly.

All development goes through the stages of HaVaYaH beginning with the “tip of the letter ‘Yod’“, that is completely unknown to us. Then passes the stage of “Yod-Hey,” the development from top-down, and then “Vav-Hey,” our preparations, perceptions, and reactions from below. Thus, when a new state is put in us in the stages of “Yod-Hey,” it is important to learn how to properly accept it. Not everyone is capable of doing it yet. We should not blame them but the overall strength of the group that did not provide sufficient support, knowledge, and feeling that all these states are given to us in order to advance.
[77940]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/12, Writings of Rabash

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