Question: The holiday of Passover is coming soon. What should we focus on now? How can we use this time for unity?

Answer: Passover is a very special time when I discover that I am in exile. This is the beginning of the Egyptian slavery. Unless I feel that I am in exile, I am still not in Egypt, I am not Pharaoh’s slave yet. To put it differently, if don’t strive for unity, I haven’t started the process yet. But when I am drawn to unity and I feel that I cannot unite because my ego stops me and blocks the way, the ego is revealed to me as Pharaoh. It controls me and doesn’t let me reach unity and discover the Creator.

The exile is not feeling the Creator. I feel that I miss Him, then I continue to head towards unity, and the ego, Pharaoh, appears as tougher and tougher. Eventually I don’t know what to do, I see no way out, and then the point called “Moses” is revealed in me. It begins to draw me out, to the unknown, while I am confused and don’t know in what way this point is different from Pharaoh. Thus Moses grows in Pharaoh’s palace, in the ego, either separating himself from Pharaoh or merging with him in my eyes. He aspires straight to the Creator, but is nourished on self-love.

And so I advance: I want to build a vessel, but instead I build “poor cities,” Pithom and Ramses. Every time I want to get close to others, to unite, new problems come up: disputes and separation, detachment and indifference. The ego holds power and doesn’t let me free, doesn’t let me do anything. No matter how hard I try to draw the connection, it doesn’t exist. My efforts are for the good of “Pharaoh” and they harm “Israel.”

And so I arrive to the ten plagues of Egypt, I suffer because my egoistic desire doesn’t let me unite with the friends. In answer to all my attempts, it summons great suffering in me and pulls in different directions. It gives my “beast” everything it wants, but blocks the way to unity because otherwise I will escape from Egypt.

Then Moses goes to Pharaoh demanding: “Let my people go.” We try to unite even more and want to escape Pharaoh’s control. This is already a true revelation. So what can we do? After all, the Creator constantly hardens my heart.

Thus I go through the ten plagues, until I manage to totally break loose from my ego. In the dark I escape to unity, to the mountain of hatred (Sina) that is revealed to me and to mutual guarantee as the essential means against the ego. I don’t suppress hatred, I don’t annul it, but rather build mutual guarantee around it. After all, this hate is a priceless acquisition: Thanks to mutual guarantee, I will be able to turn this mountain of hatred to the summit of Holiness, the mountain of the Lord.

Today it isn’t only about us. The whole world is starting this process by discovering that the destructive ego that controls it threatens to erase all of humanity from the face of the earth.
[74225]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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Question: How should we prepare for the convention in Brazil in the best possible way?

Answer: First, I would like to say that in the beginning I will be having short meetings with the groups in Columbia and Chile. But this doesn’t replace the convention in any way. Therefore, I am inviting all our friends from South America and, in general, from the whole world to this convention. I strongly recommend that you come to Brazil. I think that we will have a wonderful “carnival” there.

It is very important to attend a convention at least once. I don’t know when I will visit South America again, and so let’s meet. It isn’t just any meeting, but another kind of contact, not like via the Internet. If it doesn’t work out, we will meet in Columbia and in Chile, but if you can, come to Brazil.

This convention will be multi-lingual. Perhaps it will be easier for those living in Australia or in the Far East to come to Brazil than to our other conventions, and it is worth it. It is a problem if a person has never attended a convention “physically.” After all, in our world we exist in a body and need this kind of interaction. We can’t form a virtual connection that leaves such a strong impression yet.

It isn’t by chance that business people fly to meetings all over the world, although they could call each other or use Skype. We may wonder why would a person waste so much time flying. It would be better if he sat in an office; he could get much more work done. But people still need direct communication, even if it lacks any feeling and warmth. Dry, cunning, and far from being honest, these contacts still require personal face-to-face meetings.

So trust me that for us it is very important. By creating such contact we will be able to carry it through, and without it, it is very hard to advance.

The collective preparation is just as important. This is a collective convention, and so we should feel it. Disregard will cause great harm to all of us. We mustn’t sit and wait for someone else to organize things. If this happens you will not benefit from the convention in any way. Without preparation it is even worthless to connect via the Internet because it would be stealing, actual stealing. You have to make efforts and you will benefit accordingly. If no one thinks about it, no one worries about it, no one cares, the convention will only bring harm.

Everyone has to take an active part, at least in some way according to one’s abilities. One should be concerned at least in the heart: “What did I do for it?” Without participating, you will have no vessel. So what will you be able receive? In what will you receive it? Clearly, it is only by our joint work that we are creating this vessel.
[74230]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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An embryo annuls itself and that’s its only job. It gratefully accepts everything that happens to it and always perceives the upper one as good and benevolent.

My work is only to annul myself no matter what happens, whatever changes take place from one end of the world to the other. I keep myself in a state of bestowal, Hafetz Hesed, no matter what. This means that I exist in the upper one, annul my personality, my independence, and I don’t disturb the upper one as He influences me—let Him do with me whatever He wants. I’m like a baby in the arms of his mother, who doesn’t think about anything.

If you were carried in someone’s arms, how would you feel? Imagine that ten people are holding you now and lifting you up in the air. Although they will undoubtedly be strong enough to hold you, you will tremble and feel afraid to find yourself in the arms of others. You will be afraid that you might fall and will doubt whether they have enough strength to hold you.

A baby has no such doubts. Have you seen how peacefully a baby sleeps in his mother’s arms? This is the attribute of self-annulment in relation to the upper one. A baby does it naturally. But thanks to these forces an embryo grows in its mother’s womb. This means that being in the AHP of the upper one, it annuls itself no matter what happens: for better or worse, no matter what state it is in. An embryo only increases its loyalty and annulment.

This is called the the root level of the desire (Aviut Shoresh), and this work isn’t simple at all; it’s actually very hard. By that you sculpt your first form. No matter which Light comes, you only annul yourself, no matter what you feel: pain or pleasure, shortage or abundance. Thus you form yourself and become similar to the Creator in your first form called “an embryo.”

An embryo is in its mother’s waters and shapes itself into the spiritual Partzuf: the 10 Sefirot that are filled by the Light of Nefesh. When it ends its self-annulment and there is nothing else it can do on that level, on the root level of desire, it has to move forward, and this is called birth.

The difference between these states is immense since by being born, a spiritual embryo begins to work with the vessels of reception. He feels that he is detached from the upper one. The birth is the most significant change of all the changes on our way.

An embryo is each of us who annuls himself before the others, who become a mother’s womb for him. Our collective embryo is the field that connects us, which we want to create between us. If we all connect, the mother’s womb becomes the general revelation of the upper force where we all exist.
[74085]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/29/2012, TES

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Question: On whom does the ability to annul oneself with regards to the upper one depend: on a person or only on the Light?

Answer: The level of your self-annulment depends on the group. You will never be able to annul yourself before the teacher and before the Creator if the group doesn’t encourage, support, and strengthen you. You cannot annul your desires by yourself; you don’t have the strength for that.

You have to work with the group in relation to the Creator because without it, you won’t be able to approach Him. You have to assume the correct form that draws you closer to the Creator, and you do that with the help of the group. The group gives you this form of annulment, the approach, the point of contact with the upper one—you do all that within the group.

During the convention in the Arava desert you felt the existence of this contact point, the point of general connection. It isn’t in the upper one yet, but it is the result of our collective efforts. Now we need to develop it so that we will feel that this point is in the waters of Bina, in the Upper Mother (Ima Ilaa). This is the state we have to attain.

We should feel that we are inside the upper one and annul ourselves more and more on top of the growing ego in us, on top of the conflicts and problems that come up. We annul ourselves for the sake of unity, in order to stay in the upper one, to bring Him pleasure and not to reveal our desire, because otherwise we will become a foreign body and there will be a shattering, an abortion.

We have to attain greater loyalty to the upper one, which will symbolize that we are growing and expanding inside Bina, until we fill the entire space of Bina by our desire. The result is that the desire to enjoy is in it, but we have annulled ourselves completely above our ego and thus have grown. This is called a spiritual embryo.

When it reaches the size of all of Bina, of all the spiritual womb, its doors open.
[72292]
From Lesson 2. The Internal Convention, 3/2/2012

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the commandment, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person, since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.

This is the condition: The upper force is revealed only if we really need it for unification.

Question: Where does this agreement come from?

Answer: It comes from the general desire. One is not able to correct himself without the other. The correction is made through the universal unity. The force that corrects needs to be common to everyone.

The force and the mind, the effort and the approach, everything needs to descend from Above. Everything accumulates into one and as if “sews” me to others.

This is what we need to think about. If we want this to happen, then first of all, we need mutual guarantee. After all, in the general mutual inclusion, every single point that is soldered with the others contains all the rest.

Question: Is our cry to the Creator our agreement to this?

Answer: I would say yes. Only actually it isn’t a forced scream. We reach agreement about our state, about the helplessness, and the need to reach mutual bestowal, mutual guarantee, mutual connection, and mutual assistance and support. When you begin to connect all of these things, you discover that you lack the upper force. Then you really need it, while previously your needs were of a personal nature.

You discover that you need the upper force in order to really fulfill the conditions of connection in mutual bestowal between everyone. But it’s not starry-eyed idealism already since the goal is to discover the true attribute of bestowal that lies above the needs of all.

Thus, here the general agreement is required: We carry out the unification but not for the sake of corporeal benefit. Thus, it arrives as a result of our search, our work in analyzing the state.

Question: By what does the friend complete me?

Answer: Without one another, we are not able to understand what we need to receive the Light that Reforms. We can’t reveal our real deficiency if I don’t help him and he doesn’t help me.

Question: Do I ask for the friends?

Answer: I try to pray for the friends, I worry that they will receive spiritual revelation, understand, and feel what the spiritual world is. When everyone supports each other, each one shows the correct desire.

You want something that seems to you like spirituality. And it doesn’t matter how correctly you picture it to yourself. Let everything be artificial, until we receive the Light that Reforms. And still, try to think about the friends: “I wish that they will achieve this before me.” If you initially wish for the greatest things for the friends, this is already spirituality.
[71969]
From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson 6

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 12: But it is foolish to think that the Creator is obliged to bless exactly the place where the action takes place. On the contrary, usually, the action is in one place and the blessing in another place, in a place where a person doesn’t do anything, because he either didn’t know or couldn’t do anything there.

We exert ourselves in one place and the result is revealed in another, and so we don’t understand where all our work disappears. Actually, we don’t know what kind of work we are doing. Are our actions good or bad? Do they lead to the goal or not? Who carries them out: we or the Creator? We don’t understand all this because we are in a very confused state.

Why are we in concealment? We don’t know exactly what we should do with it, we don’t know if we act correctly or not.… Why is it that the fog, the confusion, the lack of understanding, the lack of orientation, or the lack of responsibility bear some result according to the principle of “I have labored and I found?” Why is it called exertion? Wouldn’t it be better if we were told in writing exactly what we should do?

No, that’s not the way it is. Although we cannot agree with this approach, it is described in endless places in Kabbalistic writings, in thousands of excerpts.

Our work is abstracted from results, and it is really very hard to accept this. I have to act like a “dummy,” like a beast, like a madman. I am offered a lie: to hug with the friends while I don’t want to, to speak about love while not feeling it…. In short, I have to do what I don’t understand.

This dualism is needed so that we will rise from this world to the spiritual one. The spiritual world is opposite from this world, it is unfamiliar, unperceivable. Therefore by these incomprehensible actions we acquire the vessels that guide us to the place we haven’t reached yet.

So we need the orders from Above to fulfill these actions. We want to enter the dimension that doesn’t go together with our attributes in any way, and in fact there is nothing that draws us in that direction. We have to act “automatically”: Kabbalists say and we do.

If a person understands that there is no choice, if he really wants to rise to a higher degree, then he is aware of the fact that this is a totally different level and it isn’t a quantitative addition at all. I will not be smarter or understand more, I will not acquire more earthly blessings. I act on the assumption that this world is exhausted and over. There is nothing I can add here.

I am getting ready to add something else to myself: a spiritual degree. Therefore, I have to be equipped with the vessels, the Lights, discernments, and Reshimot (informational genes)—with everything that belongs to the spiritual world.
[72050]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7

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Question: If disturbances come to me in the form of foreign thoughts, can I just stop thinking about them and ask the upper force to direct me back on the right path?

Answer: If I get a disturbance from the upper force, why should I ask It to remove it? It is the same as when my mother asks me to assemble a new toy from a Meccano kit, an airplane or a car, and I say: “I don’t want to.” How can I grow? If I want a car that is already assembled, I will grow into an undeveloped child. It is because when I assemble, take apart, or break something, then everything happens the way it should. Just like all those years at school or university when we were constantly given assignments. They could have given us the answer. Why do we need disturbances?..

Question: Suppose an external thought came to me. Do I simply break through it further, realizing that this a disturbance, and think about how to work with it?

Answer: Work with a disturbance should be done in the following way: After you focus on the idea that everything comes from the Creator, you should process this disturbance together with the friends. That is all! You will not be able to direct yourself at Him on the same frequency. You cannot. You can do it only together in the group!

When you are together in one group, and all kinds of mutual relationships exist between you (we are talking only about the relationships that are relevant to the goal), then this single force of nature exists around you and above you. You have to create a resonant circuit in yourself like in a radio receiver, which tunes to Him, and then you will pick Him up. This force fills everything around and inside you, but you can pick it up when you tune into the same frequency.

People come to the group with their problems, with the minuses. What happens next? They connect with each other, and all the minuses disappear because we only desire to work on bestowal. I rise above my problems—they remain below. There are plenty of minuses below me and below each of our friends, but we understand that they are created in order for us to aspire to mutual bestowal, so that we work on these minuses.

In what way? They come from a single unified force. It does this on purpose so we rush towards it in spite of the problems that arise in each of us, and most importantly between us. After all, great hatred, dislike, contradictions, and misunderstanding arise between us: No one understands me, and I do not understand anyone; no one appreciates me, and I do not want or appreciate anyone.

Everyday problems are more or less discarded, but the problems that exist in the group and repel us from each other are the central problems. “Stacking” these problems, aiming them forward together, we as though tell the Creator: “You will not divert us from the path. We understand where this comes from. You put all these problems in front of us so that we’ll rise above them, like above Mount Sinai (the mountain of hatred), to You.”

Here, against all the disturbances that He causes purposely, you generate a completely new property: unity. Thus, you begin to discover Him between you—His quality, His force. This is your radio receiver, your sensor, the sensory organ that you create in yourself. In it, you immediately reveal Him—not somewhere outside or above, but here, inside.
[73966]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3

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Why don’t we feel progress? We can aspire to each other for a long time, try to organize a group, and in the end we get no results.

The truth of the matter is that we need to pass through what is called the “preparation period.” It is exactly like the first twenty years in a person’s life, which he spends to become a grown up and enter into life. Only after that does the next stage, the real correction, begin.

At the new level, we continue to work in the same group. However, if previously we had the group and the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif or OM), now we have the group and the Direct Light (Ohr Pnimi or OP). Therein lies all the difference.

Of course this is a huge difference. During the preparation, we work in darkness and constantly suffer with questions. It is precisely here that the work is the strongest. After all, we work having no understanding, no knowledge of what we are doing.

Actually, the most important work is realized at these levels. It is also like this with small children. During their growth process, they set the basis for their subsequent existence, for their entire life. The way a person spends his first twenty years, prepares himself, absorbs the good acts, the intentions, the understanding of what is happening, knowledge, and so on, that’s the way he will continue to exist in this world. And in spirituality the situation is even more rigorous: Until a person passes these years, meaning the time of preparation, he doesn’t enter the upper world.

In this way, the preparation period demands a question: How many years do we need to devote to it? The answer is simple: It’s not about the number of years—it depends on us. We see that many new students come to the group much more prepared than we were in the past. Everything is already internally arranged within them, they quickly grasp the principles and connect to the group; it’s as if it’s easier for them. From this we see that the time changes everything.

Thus, this time depends only on us. We can compress, shorten it. Only the intensity of our studies determines how quickly we will advance on this path, this introductory phase, the time of preparation.
[73865]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 4

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I need to separate the outcomes of my every action and every state into two parts: 

1. The state itself came from the Creator, and it is always good;
2. While I, in accordance with my desires, can call myself either the “wicked” or the “righteous,” depending on whether I justify this state or not.

Moreover, which criteria do I use to justify it? If it is pleasant for me, then of course I justify it. What am I in this case then: the“wicked” or the “righteous?” I am the wicked because I justify the Creator egoistically.

It could also be the opposite: My state is evil for the will to receive and good for the will to bestow since it allows me to move forward. It turns out that the Creator is helping me by sending a bad sensation so that I don’t remain in the same place and instead realize that there are still things that require correction in my relationship with Him.

True and precise self-evaluations are always needed. Everything depends on a person who attains the given state, analyzes it correctly, and comes to a demand. And what does he demand? He asks for the forces of bestowal, and nothing more.

If I ask for good, this demand will be egoistic. At the same time, I am not able to ask for harm to my egoism. The very same ego lurks in any such request.

How can I beg to progress to the next state, which undoubtedly bodes harm for my egoism? Could I really ask the Creator to correct me, that He take away the most precious thing I have right now? If in my current desires I yearn for pleasures, how can I ask to stop receiving pleasure? It won’t be an aspiration of the heart but simply words that don’t count in spirituality.

A person has no possibility to raise a prayer for correction on his own. The only way is to appeal from within the point in the heart (without attaching anything from my own self since egoism reigns within me) by connecting to the group at the same time. Only together with the friends can I make my contribution to the common prayer for correction. And this prayer will help us.
[73979]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/29/2012, “Introduction to TES” 

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Question: All of us, men and women alike, are looking for ways to ascend to the next degree. How can a woman come to the correct understanding of it? After all, the men unite and discuss these questions in the groups, while a woman doesn’t participate in this process?

Answer: A woman is the vessel that a man needs to fill with his work towards the Creator. What does he fill this vessel with? With the Creator. Here a man acts only as a means. This is what we call a screen and the Reflected Light. This is the men’s work. And the women’s work is an enormous desire for the revelation of the Creator.

So where do you see a small role of a woman if she is actually the very desire without which a man has nothing to do? This is why unmarried men were never accepted into Kabbalah. What’s there for him to do if he doesn’t have a wife? This is called “half a body.” There is such a concept in Kabbalah: An unmarried man is half a body. With only half a body you shouldn’t be coming to study.

This is why we need to understand what the role of a woman is.
[73951]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3  

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