Question: You talk about group work, but in the past, Kabbalists did not really work in a group, did they?

Answer: No, it is just that back then, there was not yet a state where people felt that they had exhausted all efforts, but still were not progressing, there was no state of group despair where you feel like you have reached a dead-end and do not know what to do next.

People have always gone through stages like this. We disseminate Kabbalah, we take action, we feel important, in charge, we are so wise. But then reach a point where we say: “And now what? We have nothing”—that kind of state had not yet appeared.

I was waiting for it. I prepared The Book of Zohar for this moment. I prepared practically 70% of The Zohar before we even started reading it. It has been a very long journey.

But now the time has come when we are beginning to feel the need for inner movement, inner tension. A large part of the group, people who have been advancing for years, who have gone through all the articles multiple times, absorbed all the material, disseminated Kabbalah everywhere, traveled the world, connected with friends globally, has essentially realized and exhausted everything at this level. So, what is next?

This is precisely the point where the real situation arises, where we can say: “Guys, enough playing around! You see that nothing external will help. Now it is either we rise or nothing.”

Of course, we can continue as we are. We can disseminate Kabbalah, feel like a global academy, a worldwide community promoting good ideas. But in reality, this will not bring us anything real.

To move forward, we need a group revelation of the Creator, not an individual one. That is why I started working in this direction.

Question: Are we truly standing at this threshold—either up or down?

Answer: No, not “either up or down.” We will not fall. We will continue moving, but we will stay on the same plane instead of taking the shortest path.

Either we will truly start merging our points, uniting through the help of the Creator, and filling ourselves with Him, or we will keep moving forward slowly—another book, another clip, another small step, slowly spreading.

Of course, this is still existence, and it is certainly better than purely animalistic existence where one only thinks about their physical body while it is alive.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Group despair” 7/28/10

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Question: If a person constantly has problems and constantly turns to the group. Where is the threshold of the attitude of using the group?

Answer: The difference lies in understanding that I turn to the group precisely to allow it to unite more, to reach connection, and to rise because of my problems rather than to solve them.

Question: But you say if there is an obstacle preventing advancement toward the goal, it should be eliminated. At the same time, we are given these obstacles to rise above them rather than cancel them. Where is the truth, then?

Answer: A person discovers the truth in the purity of his attitude to the purpose of creation: it is worthwhile to look at it one way or another, to rise above it and not bother others, or, conversely, to puzzle them with this problem to unite everyone even more. You cannot know in advance.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Ask the Group” 6/15/10

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Question: A person often has a state where he tries to avoid transitioning into the spiritual. That is, his egoism pushes him away, and makes him take some steps of retreat. How can one avoid making a mistake here and still go against his ego?

Answer: This must be done in advance. The moment you miss it, nothing will help. Egoism will still trick you, drag you in, distract you, and you will not be able to escape it. Therefore you must always protect yourself in advance, like a climber who is in a rope team with others. Without this you cannot do anything; such a connection is essential.

Moreover, it must be constant, every second. In Kabbalah, you fall every second, and without this connection, you fall into the abyss, and then you have to climb back up. This takes a lifetime. That is why a person does not manage to achieve spirituality, let alone advance through 125 steps.

Everything is created very clearly and logically when you act correctly. It is the law of nature. There are no concessions from the Creator here: “You are so small my beloved; I will make everything okay.” No! Here the force of bestowal and the force of reception are opposed to each other. And you must find the right connection between them and act clearly. This is the law!

It is not like in our world where from our weakness we constantly create anti-natural conditions for ourselves. Nature has no mercy as we imagine it. To receive what I do not deserve is what we call mercy, but this is wrong. Why should it be like this? “Because I am so beautiful.”

If we understood the essence of nature and how we should behave with it, we would truly succeed, justify the Creator’s actions, and not wait for some favors. It is exactly like in the saying, “We should not wait for favors from nature.” We should not wait for it to show mercy toward us, but we should study its laws and clearly reproduce them within ourselves. And then there will be no problems. We will see how perfect and eternal it is and become similar to it.

Question: What could be the solution for a person to prepare himself in advance?

Answer: It is only in connection with others, only in a state of mutual guarantee. And this is given.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. How to Deceive Egoism” 5/18/10

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Question: If a person falls sick and is embarrassed to ask the group for help because he believes that the group should not be involved in such matters, what does the person lose, and what does the group lose? Or is it just his personal problem?

Answer: He loses the opportunity for help, rapprochement, and connection with his friends. But why should he be embarrassed? Everything that happens is guided by the Creator according to His plan. And we are expected to act in alignment with this plan.

It is crucial not to perceive what happens as solely personal. What is personal here? We are just protein-based organisms interacting within our own slime. The most important thing for us is to elevate the soul above this. Why should we make something significant out of our insignificant material existence, something that supposedly needs to be preserved and cherished? It is the soul that we should value and aim to elevate as soon as possible.

Therefore, we should take advantage of every opportunity, whether someone feels bad or good, in any situation. If we can use all this for spiritual elevation, we should do so. Why should I value fleeting moments of my organic life? It turns out that I do not understand the purpose of life. What is it given for?

It is so that I unveil, create, shape, and expand the soul, receive the upper light within it, experience eternal existence, and remain in it while still existing within this transient organic form.

Suppose, I am given a car to travel from point A to point B, but along the way, I start fussing over it, tending to it, washing and cleaning it. Then it all ends there: I am turning a means into a goal.

Question: But does a person assist his group by reaching out to friends for help?

Answer: The point is that we are created as complex beings, largely unaware of our place and actions we should take. Therefore, in the plans that the Creator implements upon us, He considers our current level of development.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask the Group” 6/15/10

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Comment: When a person is in a group, he relaxes and it seems to him that he has already achieved everything. But when he goes outside the group, for some reason he gets a lot more trepidation.

My Response: Naturally, because he is no longer in a safe place where the group supports him. He understands that he is internally arranged in the same way as others. This feeling of herd mentality is required by a person at any level.

Question: Which condition is more important for a person?

Answer: To feel that you are in a group and at the same time outside of it and you need to constantly enter it. That’s the best part.

Comment: But you said that it’s better when a person feels worse than others. Everyone is organized, everyone is working great, but he does not measure up to them.

My Response: Everyone should have a subjective feeling that I’m worse than the others, all the others are in spiritual greatness, the whole group is a system of infinity and perfection, and I’m in it like some kind of underdeveloped organ that happened to be in it, and I have to quickly correct myself, and connect with everyone else.

I need to curry favor with my friends so that they don’t throw me out; I must please them in every possible way so that they accept me as one of their own. Moreover, I do it consciously. I’m really trying, I want and need to feel that way.

Comment: But it is impossible for a person to exist like this for a long time.

My Response: Why? Constantly. At the same time, he feels his perfection, perfection not at the expense of himself, but due to the fact that he belongs to the group, due to its greatness.

Question: When does a person begin to feel that they are in safe hands?

Answer: Only by annulling himself and dissolving into his friends does he feel that he is in safe hands and feels great on the account of the group, because he was able to annul himself before it. That is, we constantly have two opposite feelings in our spiritual state, when one determines the other.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call, The Greatness of the Group” 6/19/10

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Question: What actions should the clarification of truth and lies lead me to?

Answer: Figuring out the truth and lie leads me to the only action—annulling myself before the upper. After all, the truth is in the upper, while in me, given that I am the lowest, it is always a lie. To reveal the upper, I must accept Him by faith above reason. All the conditions the upper gives me, I must recognize as the truth, and all my inner impulses as lies.

It turns out I want to come out of myself and stick to the upper, to receive His values and try to follow them according to His mind. It is like a child who wants to use his father’s mind, and due to this, he grows up, acquiring the mind of an adult.

Due to our annulment before the upper, we gain additional opportunities. This is not how it works in our world. If I annul myself before you in this world, it means I give up one of my opinions and accept yours because I consider you to be more intelligent, cultured, educated, or a better scientist. I am annulling myself on a specific issue so I can learn from you.

But in the spiritual world, I have to annul myself before the upper in everything, so that nothing of my own remains in me. Not even like a child before adults, but much more. I need to annul myself as if I do not exist at all: annulment in thoughts and feelings. But I do it rationally and with great wisdom. Special psychological work is required here. I examine myself and observe how I annul myself before the upper to clothe in Him and adopt His state.

This form of annulling myself before the upper allows me to rise to His level. First, there is my complete self-annulment before the upper, which is called the “embryo” (Ibur). Then, there is an even greater self-annulment, which is called feeding (Yenika). And then, even greater self-annulment, called adulthood (Mochin).

Initially, it is a very simple self-annulment, although it is not easy for us to resolve ourselves. I annul myself as if I simply do not exist and turn into a single point, a drop of seed in the womb of the upper. This is just the beginning of my self-annulment. But then, to master this degree, I need to take all my previous thoughts and desires and transform them to match the upper.

They will always be the opposite because Malchut of the upper has turned into Keter of the lower; therefore, the dregs of the upper were food for me—sweetness and truth. What was garbage at the upper level (in Malchut of the upper), waste I did not want to use, turned into food, sweetness, and truth for the lower.

If I want to do other work, I have to turn all the bitterness I feel now into sweetness, and everything I thought was sweet should become bitter at the degree of the upper. All my truth, when transferred to the level of the upper, must turn into a lie, and all my lies must become the truth of the upper. This means that Malchut of the upper turns into Keter of the lower. If I want to rise, I have to do the inverse work.

But first, I just annul myself without figuring out where the truth or lie is. No matter what happens, all I care about is annulling myself before the upper as if I do not exist, and turn into a point, a drop of seed. But then I start analyzing myself and turn bitterness into sweetness and lies into truth, and so I climb the degrees.

In the nine months of embryo development, I am constantly growing due to the fact that I am annulling myself more and more, turning all my lies into truth, all the bitter tastes of giving into sweetness. It is a vast and continuous work to transform yourself into your opposite in all your desires and thoughts, turning them all to giving, bestowal, and feeling the sweetness in all this.

Clearly, this change occurs due to the light coming to me. But I must constantly annul myself at an ever higher level for the light to work on me. The light that comes to me during these 9 months of growth of the embryo is called “blood” (Dam), from the word “inanimate” (Domem), which gradually corrects me. Then, I go through the stage of “feeding” and become an “adult.”

The whole ascent from the lower to the upper consists of the work of self-annulment. Therefore, through disseminating this knowledge and reaching out to the general public, we realize our self-annulment. After all, by annulling ourselves before the people, before this world, by serving it, we annul ourselves before the Creator in it. Because it was the Creator who placed this whole world before us.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False”

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This is because he must draw upper light for the foreign thoughts of all the people in the world, too, since he is mingled with them and must sentence them to the side of merit.

This is precisely through extending the upper light over these Dinim of the general public (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 33, “The Lots on Yom Kippur and with Haman”).

Question: How can we draw the light onto the general public? How can we bring joy into the Kelim of the group?

Answer: When your friends begin to correctly choose their actions, then by working in connection with them, you ask each other, explain to each another, and discuss among yourselves, and clarify what is holiness and what is not.

Question: And how does this bring light into the group?

Answer: The point is that you strive to act, think, and contemplate like the light.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah lesson 3/13/25, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Lots on Yom Kippur and with Haman”

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Question: Children understand their parents only when they become parents themselves. We strive for the light egoistically, and at the moment of revelation, we become altruistic for a moment, and then the light goes away, and we selfishly yearn for it again.

When will we begin to understand the Creator the way children understand their parents?

Answer: When we grow up.

Question: How many such gifts should we receive from the Creator in order to truly begin to understand Him?

Answer: It depends on us and on how much closer we get to each other, on continuing to do exercises together, and on how well we study Shamati and at least some of The Book of Zohar.

But if we read Shamati together in a group and study each article from all sides, we will quickly advance toward this.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/25, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is the Difference between a Shade of Kedusha and a Shade of Sitra Achra?”

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Question: It is said that through pleasure and joy, a person attains fulfillment of both external and internal Kelim, which leads to an expansion of knowledge. What internal and external Kelim are being referred to?

Answer: These are the desires to be filled and to feel the Creator within oneself.

Internal Kelim are those that remain with me and always belong to me; I perceive them as my own. External Kelim are those that I must attract.

Question: How can one correctly attract these desires in connection with friends?

Answer: We work with the desires of our friends, combine them, and fill one another. It depends solely on us, on how much we see the unification of these desires.

Question: But in order to see the greatness of our friends, we have to work through obstacles. Does the effort to work above all these obstacles relate to external Kelim?

Answer: Not to external, not to internal, but to those that are being revealed. Desires are revealed within me, and I want to work with them either above them or below them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/24, Baal HaSulam “What Are Three Things that Broaden One’s Mind in the Work?”

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Question: What does it mean to hold on to the Creator during descents?

Answer: Holding on to the Creator during descents is when it doesn’t matter at all how you feel about the Creator. What matters is how He feels about you. Pay attention to this.

Question: How can I focus on His attitude toward me rather than on the state I am going through right now?

Answer: It depends on how you evaluate yourself. Do you help the Creator reveal Himself in the world or not? If you help Him reveal Himself in the world, and this is the most important thing for you, then you bring the Creator closer to yourself, or you yourself come closer to Him.

Question: In moments of descent, can I hold on to my ten, to my friends?

Answer: You can hold on to your friends, but this is still an intermediate state. You must transition from it to the Creator.

Comment: When a descent occurs, the only means left are the friends in the ten, our meetings, lessons, and dissemination.

My Response: That is enough. If you gather all of this together and direct it as coming from the Creator, you can receive enormous strength from it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/25, “Continuing the Convention With an Ascent”

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