Even when a person finally begins to hear what is being said about different kinds of bestowal that need to be attained, there is still a big difference in what bestowal he wants to enjoy. And then it is important with what bestowal he wants to bring contentment—changes also happen there. After all, he begins to understand that there is egoistic bestowal.

And this is what we reveal in the group. We enjoy getting together, it lifts our spirits and we feel inspired—so why not unite? Besides, we think that it helps us advance spiritually. But let us think: What are we are advancing towards? It is pleasure, even though it seems to be due to bestowal! Is this already spiritual pleasure or not yet?

However, in either case, we exert efforts and the Light affects us, clarifying our desires. As a consequence, we begin to better understand the different types of reception and bestowal—for whose sake they are performed—until we finally begin to perceive new flavors, which happens only with the help of the Light that Reforms, only by the group effort.

Now a person is able to distinguish between “strong spices” and the “food” itself. On one hand, he needs his desires to receive as “spices.” But on the other, he does not enjoy them, but the real “food” whose flavor they bring out—his degree of bestowal. One is built on the other.

And one does not need a lot of pepper, salt, or mustard to bring out the flavor of food, even though you cannot manage without them either. The same happens with our efforts to add our own aspiration to the work of the Light. It does not need to be big; a big effort is not required of us. But this effort is necessary and it helps us “find.”

This is why we need to try to evaluate every state we experience: Whether our states are really spiritual and stand for spiritual advancement? Or perhaps these are additives with an opposite flavor: pepper, salt, and mustard, and not the flavor of the Light and bestowal. These additives help to separate the form of bestowal, the Light that comes to us, on their background—the form that is expected of us from Above.

But this work is very important; it is necessary for preparation of spiritual vessels. Our work is to make efforts, which leads to a “finding,” as it is written: “I have labored and found!” This is the main principal of spiritual advancement.
[72289]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/1/2012, Shamati #117

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Correction occurs from the easiest to increasingly more difficult. However, the due correction seems difficult to us on every degree, and we cannot imagine anything bigger and harder. Every person perceives it according to their own degree.

Yet if we look at the whole spiritual ladder, it is certain that the higher we rise, the more difficult the desires we work with are. But with the experience that one has already received and the partially corrected desires that he has previously reached, it is easier for a person to overcome these hardships and advance.

It is written that “wisdom comes with experience.” Thus we perceive corrections with more ease, they become clearer to us. The key is to conquer the first degree. The most difficult thing is to open your eyes.

Let’s hope that we will accomplish it very soon. It depends on the world and us since we are inseparable from each other.
[72298]
From the Preparation for the Lesson 3/9/2012

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Indeed, there is no dispute here, for everyone admits that to begin with, it is enough to start with one nation …for the beginning of the correction of the world. Undoubtedly, both the physical purity and the mental exaltedness of our Holy Fathers greatly influenced their sons and their sons’ sons, and their righteousness reflected upon that generation, whose members all assumed that sublime work, and each and every one stated clearly, “We shall do and we shall hear.” Because of that, we were chosen, out of necessity, to be a chosen people from among all the nations.

We study the general system that stems from the four phases of the expansion of the Direct Light. The Light operates on the desire that it created as “existence from absence,” and inevitably, the desire develops by the four phases. Only in the last phase does it feel itself separated from the root, from the Light, and in this state perceives the root as the bestowing one and itself as the receiving one.

As a result of this feeling of separation, the oppositeness in attributes, the desire restricts itself and performs internal changes in order to resemble the root. The root gives it the feeling of self-deficiency that stems from the evil and lowliness of receiving, and so the desire wants to change itself and to resemble its root.

The four phases create the matrix of Yod-Key-Vav-Key (HaVaYaH), or the “the name of the Creator.” This means that the Creator imprints His name, His action, in matter, meaning in the desire of the created being.

All our development occurs following the format of Yod-Key-Vav-Key, through the four phases and their root, or through the five worlds. In each one there are five Partzufim, and each one is divided into five Sefirot, a total of 125 degrees.

The five general stages of development are divided according to the Aviut (depth, “thickness”) of the desire, from the root (zero) level until the fourth phase, or into five Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, ZA, and Malchut, or five Partzufim: Galgalta, AB, SAG, MA, and BON, or five worlds: AK, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. In short, the format of HaVaYaH surrounds everything, and there is nothing else in reality except for these five parts of the desire to receive. The Creator is also inside.

Accordingly, the last phase, Malchut, which needs correction, also includes five phases that are corrected gradually, starting with the “tip of Yod.” The levels that preceded us are called “forefathers” and “sons.” And we stem from them. This is the order of the correction of the vessels.

In fact, the level of the forefathers begins from Adam who was the first to discover the Creator. Then came the souls who do not belong to this world, although we call them Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and so on. It is a matter of numerology, as the name reflects the level that the soul attained in its correction.

We come after all these souls from the degrees of HBD and HGT, and we belong to the degrees of NHY. On the whole, all the souls make up the general vessel, and so at our stage we should see the continuation of the previous levels. Our small level is also divided into three corresponding parts: HBD, HGT, and NHY. In this round we are the forefathers with regards to the last degree, the last generation.

So we are connected to the forefathers because all the Sefirot match one another and are connected. Because we belong to the level of the forefathers, it is hard for us to be corrected. After all, it isn’t just about something that exists; rather, we have to rise in our mind and heart, in awareness and understanding, in clear attainment, and in a large scale, finite, and perfect action.

So we should be grateful that we were privileged to be the first. Yes, it is not easy. There are people in the world who prefer a “quiet place” and little responsibility, but there are those who want to spread the Creator’s name in the world. There is nothing we can do, it doesn’t depend on us; however, we should be grateful that we received such a special role, we should be proud. You can be a farmer, for instance, and simultaneously disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah.

There are many interruptions along this difficult path, which are especially meant for us. It will be much easier for others. We will build schools, kindergartens, and different systems for the new world: industry, management, government, and health care systems, and then people will enliven all that.

But it is us who attain the Creator fully and wholly, not like the forefathers in the past. They only had the Light of Nefesh, while we attain the head of the level with the greatest vessels of NHY, the essence of the Thought of Creation itself. This is because the wisdom of Kabbalah begins with the question about the meaning of our lives, about knowing the Creator, about attaining Godliness. All this is revealed on our degree.
[72131]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7

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Egoism refers not to an average person’s drive to fulfill his physical (food, sex, and family) and social desires (money, power, and knowledge), but to his resistance to unity, bestowal and love for people. This rejection manifests only during one’s participation in the group of integral upbringing, to the extent of one’s efforts to unite with the group members.
[72264]

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You do not understand who you are! You are the first people who began the general correction practically. What can you do? A child who was born a prince does not understand that he is the king’s son; he runs around the royal palace and plays like ordinary children.

You do not realize how special you are—the first generation in history that has started correction. Everything that happened before was only preparation: Abraham’s group and Moses’ group. Similarly, the worlds were broken only for preparation, in order to build the system.

And we are the first generation that began the real correction of creation, and we have no choice but to disseminate it to everyone else. And all the generations, until the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun) all of them will come after you. You will have to rise every time so that they rise after you, into your place. Every generation will push you higher and higher. We will always be at the top because new broken vessels will come and gather below.

I clearly understand this and feel how it should happen, but I have no practical experience of attaining such correction in the group. It has never happened before; you are the pioneers, and I would love to go through this together with you. Please take me!
[72223]
From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson 5

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Question: Yesterday we finished re-watching all seven lessons from the convention in the Arava desert. Could you please sum up our state and assess the stage we’re entering?

Answer: For our next stage, starting next week we’ll be working on articles about the group by Baal HaSulam and Rabash, adapted to the modern reader. I hope that this will allow us to better feel and implement them, as well as to clarify the most suitable form to express them.

After all, it’s possible to make tons of mistakes here, which is exactly what people have done with the wisdom of Kabbalah over the centuries. It is the oldest science; indeed, there were no sciences in the world before Kabbalah. And it is precisely its breaking, meaning its incorrect interpretation, which has led to all that we see today in humanity. These consequences are manifested in absolutely everything: education, culture, family, economy, and political structure, in the entire world.

Kabbalah speaks of natural phenomena, the Creator’s actions, and our lack of understanding thereof results in our erroneous, egoistic development. Let’s hope that we will succeed at clarifying all these matters in depth, which will help us move forward. And then we’ll be able to develop the point to which we were able to ascend at the convention.
[72228]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2012, TES

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We have gathered here to catch our intention and not let go of it, even for a second. It is what’s called man, the head, the clarification; the rest is not important. If we immerse ourselves into this analysis deeper and deeper, we will suddenly feel that we exist in the common space. One is better, another is worse, but it doesn’t matter. Most importantly, we are all in one collective field and we clarify our intention together.

Each person may be in their own state, but when all analyze their intention, the inner prayer arises about how to clarify it better and in a more intelligible way: Whether my intention is egoistic or bestowing in where I looked, what I said, what I smelled, how I sat, or what I did—absolutely everything, on all levels. It can come to a point when we will begin to feel how the blood runs through our veins, how the nervous and other systems work inside our bodies.

A person will see the entire creation inside out, as transparent, and will realize that everything is working for the sake of egoistic reception. While he, seeing this, wants to clarify what “for the sake of bestowal” could mean.

As a result of the efforts to clarify the intention, we begin to feel the group. And then each individual effort adds up to the rest—in clarification of the intention and yearning to achieve the quality of bestowal. The intention to bestow cannot be private, individual. It is always connected with others’ identical intentions.

Hence, in this intention to bestow, in aspiration toward it, I suddenly begin to feel that I am not alone. Next to me are enormous forces that I suddenly notice, great sources of bestowal: the souls of Kabbalists of all generations. I feel like a little child who wants to join them: to grab their hand so they could lead me, just like a grown up takes a child by the hand, directs, and teaches him.

It is said: “A person’s soul will teach him.” My yearning for intention to bestow puts me into the collective circle. Then we achieve the connection, and any thought about my intention, which could be wrong, as well as my search for the right intention to bestow, everything together is included in our common prayer. And this prayer will be awarded an answer.

If we succeed to unite within this intention to bestow at least a little, we will understand the need for mutual guarantee when every one influences and helps each other. Each of us adds to the rest their own desire for bestowal. Then this prayer will reach the upper root, and this root will reveal to us the possibility to live in the intention to bestow.

Only then will we realize that this entire reality is, in fact, egoistic. Nothing changes between this and the upper reality, everything stays as it was: the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature. We only begin to see them from an altruistic perspective, through the prism of bestowal. Then we will indeed be looking through this reality, even through our own body, and we will see a reverse world operated by the opposite intention. We will see the infinite, perfect world, in addition to the one we see today.
[71246]
From the Arava Convention 2/23/12, Lesson #1

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Studying the science of Kabbalah with the altruistic intention, the people of Israel must prepare themselves and all inhabitants of the world, until they evolve in order to take on this high work of love for others, which is the ladder towards the goal of creation, adhesion with the Creator.

This depends not on us, but on the root of the soul. On one hand, we are huge egoists with a coarse and ruthless desire, and that is why we are corrected in the last generation; on the other hand, we are characterized by the finest phenomenon, the purest Reshimot (informational genes), and hence we belong to the head of the last generation.

This antagonism, this contradiction takes in us extreme forms, compared with all other generations. Relative to us, it was easy for them to reveal the Creator, to attain bestowal and unity. They had an affinity for and understood this; it did not trigger so many rejections and disturbances. Perhaps, they experienced more material problems, but fewer spiritual obstacles.

Besides that, we have no alternative; we have not chosen our task. Anyway, in order to guide the world, to understand it completely, and lead all its inhabitants toward the goal of creation, we must know the whole system of the universe, the entire program of the Creator, and be able to realize it with all the souls that will be opened now and after us.

Until now, there was no correction in the true sense of this word. Everything was limited by the vessels of HBD (Hochma, Bina, Daat) and HGT (Hesed, Gevurah, Tifferet), which belong to Bina, bestowal. They were broken and corrected only in order to sustain the wholeness of the Partzuf, the force of bestowal. But where does this force act and what does it correct? It acts and performs corrections in the vessels of NHY (Netzach, Hod, Yesod) whose turn comes today.

Thus, we in fact belong to the most powerful, the worst and simultaneously the best part. So, it is not easy. Our path and analysis requires such efforts that are immeasurably greater than the efforts of our predecessors and successors.

However, it is said: “For the suffering, reward.” And this reward is an understanding, feeling, and attainment of the fullness of the world. Only we can understand and feel all of the Creator, absorb Him. And thus, we should be proud.

Peace in the world precedes the gathering of the exiles. As long as self-love and egoism prevail among people, the sons of Israel will not be able to serve the Creator in purity. Peace in the world is the only vessel that let us obtain the blessing of the forefathers.

We will reveal the Creator, but a complete picture can be seen only at the end when the whole world follows us and comes to correction. After all, the world is our vessel, and we will have to help the nations become corrected and join us. Only then will we correct the entire vessel, and all the nations will join in the work for the sake of bestowal, in unity.

As the head of this whole system, we will have to work, coming again and again as representatives, responsible managers. The Creator Himself puts us before that, and we should be proud of our unique mission.

No one knows why he has been entrusted with that, what reincarnations he has gone through, and why namely he and not his neighbor was given this role. And therefore, we need to respect all our friends, to love each of them because everyone is my partner in many reincarnations, that is, of corrections that await us. We will be included in a single system and become close to each other. That is why we need to understand more, strive to feel more internally, to be included in each other. Thus altogether, we come to the goal. Baal HaSulam and Rabash write a lot about this in their articles.

We need to see the friends not in their material form, but as various kinds of souls, sparks, points in the heart. It is interesting how the Creator arranges them. We will understand the correct order later, what the system HBD is, designed on the one hand to grasp the entire coarseness of the desire, and on the other hand, to understand what the Creator is and how to work with this vessel, which opens for all its depth.

The general order is following: The Creator is first revealed in us, in the desires of HBD; then, we adapt the purpose of creation for the desire of HGT, and from there, correction comes to the true vessels of NHY.
[72127]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7

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Question: Where is the group in the events of Purim, in the story of Haman and Amalek?

Answer: You find your Mordechai, your Haman, and everyone who prevents you from connecting to the group and through it pleasing the Creator—in the group.

First of all, it is necessary to find the direction to the North, to find out, do you have this very internal attitude with which you strive to please the Creator? Did you discover this point in you, the weakest and very delicate inner desire? Do you have it?

But if you do not have it, it is not terrible, it will still come; it will be revealed through the Reforming Light, and eventually you will begin to feel like you somehow pertain to the Creator. And above all we need to find this aspiration in us that determines the main direction, and this can only be done with the help of the group.

For this reason, everything we do in the group, with our friends, all our gatherings, everything must be done with the purpose to at least come closer to pleasing the Creator. And when we do not act with this purpose, we will be nothing but “a gathering of fools.”

This is because the fact of unity in a group does not yet mean anything. It is a fact that when different groups like the army or a football team are being trained, they go through special psychological training which prepare a person to give his life for his group. He begins to feel that the group is above him. And then he operates through a simple calculation, he compares himself to the group and sees that it has a greater value, and thus he is willing to kill himself.

This is false altruism, which allows a person to sacrifice himself simply because he has developed a new scale of priorities, which determines what he deems to be more or less important. But this has nothing to do with bestowal; it is just a result of a psychological manipulation.

And this is a dangerous trap because many believe that they are on the path of bestowal when in reality they are participating in a gathering of dissemblers—a group, which instills the value of bestowal to the group. Essentially, this is even greater egoism because it is a common group ego, which pulls you forward. It is above a person but does not lead in the direction of the Creator. And this is a mistake many people make. All religions have developed as a result of this kind of mistake made sometimes in the very beginning.
[72156]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/12, Writings of Rabash

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We must realize the importance of spirituality from darkness, from the absence of its perception. Only in response to such a way of relating to it, does the spiritual world appear from the fog and is born from non-existence. It penetrates into my feelings awareness, and understanding; I am holding it and working with it, but only to the extent of its importance to me. Raising this realization of importance, I “pull” it out from the concealment into the light.

All of this is to ensure that my approach would be altruistic. Otherwise, I can never reveal the spiritual world, since I will always keep aspiring towards it with the intention for the sake of receiving, like towards everything in our world.

So how can I realize the importance of something that I do not see? How do I approach the hidden with the intention for the sake of bestowal? For this, the Kabbalists say the environment is needed, a society of friends. When they exalt the importance of something, even though not even one thread may be connecting me to the object of their praises, in any case I begin to value it.

It is the same in our world, what people around me think and talk about, what is important to them, becomes important to me. This happens to such an extent that I suddenly begin to value what I have never seen and felt. And now I start talking about how important and wonderful it is. Looking at me, many wonder: “Where does such an enthusiasm come from?” And I sometimes catch myself in a sudden reverence toward something I have seen on television and something I heard from others… This happens to everyone. Why? It is due to the common opinion. Society considers something important and it passes on to me.

Why is this the way we have to go into the spiritual? Why has advertising become so widespread in the 20th century right before our common spiritual ascent? It is so that we know to what extent we must use the environment.

For decades we have been convinced that the environment is capable of influencing us and through advertising can raise in our eyes things that do not have even the slightest importance. There is nothing in them except for social prestige. What others praise will be important for me as well. We are constantly being manipulated this way; they jack up the price for something, and the public is ready to pay three times the original price. The mass media, sociologists, and political scientists are doing this job very well and they have created a whole industry of artificial importance.

What’s more, we do not suspect that we are also “calibrated” in all of our internal parameters, qualities, and opinions. We have been “adjusted” and “configured” so that we would look at each thing in a certain way. In reality, I see the world with foreign eyes. And there is nothing that can be done here, I have already been “blinded,” I can no longer come out of this formatting. The same brainwashing is being experience by our children as well.

So what have we gone through the whole of this process for; after all, nothing happens by chance?

It is in order to understand that we are completely dependent on the environment and with its help we can raise the importance of anything. Thus, we know how to raise the importance of the spiritual world in our eyes although we do not see or feel it.

Advertisers show me, say, a small bottle of water and they describe it as if it were holy water. So if we were to study this mechanism, we would be able to do the same thing for our spiritual development. After all, nobody knows what the spiritual world is, nobody sees it, whether it is important or not, how important it is, how beneficial it is for us. We only know one thing, if we l attach importance to it in the circle of our environment, then for everyone it will be elevated to the highest place in our scale of priorities. We will absorb this feeling of importance of the spiritual world from “social advertising” and then it will be easy for us to feel it.
[71877]
From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson 5

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