No one comes to a group of Kabbalists because he is looking for it by himself and needs friends. If a person needs company he will look for it in a pub or in some club, but not in a group where people study the wisdom of Kabbalah.

A person reaches this group according to the inner demand. This desire is evoked in the heart and makes a person feel intuitively that here he can find the answer for the inner call. He feels that there is something here, although he doesn’t know exactly what it is, still this is how he feels it subconsciously.

So he comes to this place, when he feels that it is somehow connected to his inner desire. A person doesn’t know why he comes; he is brought there from Above. As it says, the Creator puts a person’s hand on the good fate and tells him, “Take it!”

However, after he studies for a while and goes through different states (which can take months and even years), and he finally understands that he doesn’t have the power to advance by himself and that it may be possible only if he connects with the same desires that are in others.

From that moment on, it means that he is looking for a group, meaning that he understands better that he will not attain the desired goal by himself, and so he needs all the others. He feels that he needs the group, the love of friends. Accordingly, he begins to build a special connection with other people that study with him,so that it will be possible to call them a group.

Until then, it isn’t a group, but simply a number of people sitting together…if you don’t feel your connection with those who study with you, understanding that without it you cannot achieve the goal, then you have no friends and you have no group. You need to build these relationships if you want to succeed.

All this must be clarified and so it takes a lot of time. There are people who can study and listen for 20 years and even speak about it, but they still don’t have the inner desire, the understanding of the heart, that there must be a connection with others, because otherwise you will not be able to fulfill yourself. They don’t have this inner decision, and the goal and the group do not connect.
[63685]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What if I have chosen an environment, but I can’t concede to it, can’t bring myself under its influence? Does it mean that I am destined to external suffering because I lack internal achievements?

Answer: Suppose that according to the root of your soul, the time has come for you to develop spiritually. This is possible only through mutual connection with a special environment that will enable you to acquire the attribute of bestowal and to discover the next, higher state. Suppose you have already approached it, that it is your turn in the general system, and you have been given a chance.

In this case, if your personal efforts to be in contact with the general system are not enough, you are behind, and then nature’s external forces, which you didn’t activate by the right work in unity and in mutual guarantee, automatically pressure you. They have already been activated, but it’s as if they are unemployed, and so you feel these forces as suffering until you activate them.

There must be a special connection for each of them: here in love, here in unity, here in dissemination, and here in studying… Put everything in its place and you will feel peace. Otherwise, these forces are left without use, without the right connection, and these discrepancies with your present level of development affect you negatively.

The forces that you should have activated (but didn’t) summon the suffering that you feel. In other words, they make you pay attention to them and to correct the defects, to make the necessary connections. This is the difference between the right path and the path of suffering.

With the help of the group we can discover these opportunities and do our best to include them in the unity. If it’s the opposite, we will certainly suffer, both individually and as a group. This means that I suffer because of my external and internal forces by which I should have already connected to the general system.

No one is stopping me except me. There is the group, and instead of judging its advantages and disadvantages, I have to see it as ideal. So the problem is only in me.

And by correcting myself, I also correct the group. I awaken the friends to bestow upon me even more strongly, but actually I awaken myself to demand more from them. One way or another all the correction takes part internally.

Question: I understand what I have to do, but why is it so difficult?

Answer: Actually, you haven’t clarified to yourself what you should do. This is what makes it so difficult. If you accurately discover what you have to do, you will see that you have to be in a close, inner, and “intimate” contact with the environment.

This contact frees you from all worries. It’s as if you open a small screen, connect one heart to another, and you get everything that you need from the environment. You connect to the environment, and together you become a whole—and the problems disappear: Now all the forces that pressured you in the form of suffering become friendly and desirable.
[63476]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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Every given moment with all its data comes from Above. Everything in it is predetermined, and I am under its control. However, the next moment is in my hands.

I begin to analyze what is the meaning of life? Can I understand it? Suddenly, I realize that not only can I understand it, but  I can change it as well. Moreover, I not only can change it, but I can attain the highest possible degree of perception, sensation, awareness, and control of the situation.

It turns out that among the thousand buttons, there is the one, the most important one. All the other 999 buttons will not disturb you when you press that single button. It is your free will.

You have to find that button over and over again, to move step by step, each time doing different work and performing different analyses. You can’t just grab that button and hold on to it until the end. No, you have to look for it each time anew, among all the other buttons. Now, it was here, so how can I reach it? On the next level, it is in a totally different place.

This is how you change your life. This isn’t some superficial work. It throws you from one place to another, from one end of your data matrix to another. With the help of this button, you have to activate all others. This button is the access to them.

Eventually, free will merely obliges you to come to the group. It isn’t complicated. Enter the group and bring yourself under the influence of the right environment. Thanks to that, together with the environment, in mutual connection with it, you will find the right button and change your fate.

Reality is much more simple than what we imagine. It says that the Creator created man simply, but people have made many complications.
[63484]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: What does the law of loving the other give us?

Answer: By means of loving the other we can reach love of the Creator, which is the purpose for which we begin our development. The purpose of creation is to reach love of the Creator.

The Creator initially had a perfect love of the creature according to His nature of good that does good. Bringing the creature to this goodness means bringing it to the point of adhesion with the Creator.

It turns out that love of the Creator is the purpose of our development, its final point. It is reached through keeping the 612 commandments (various preparations in our 612 egoistic desires in order to turn them toward bestowal), which are necessary to reach the last, 613th commandment of love and bestowal toward each other.

Each rule consists of a connection in a variety of details. Following the example of the “holy group,” that is, the society built on the laws of bestowal and consisting of a few people united by one goal, our aim is to reach a higher purpose through giving to each other.

Giving in itself is not a purpose. If we gather together only to give to each other, we build an egoistic formation by enjoying each other. Such a union is advantageous to me because ten of us can reach more fulfillment than one. Everyone will receive pleasure from the other nine.

However, such bestowal doesn’t take us out of the egoistic law of receiving for oneself. Only if we bestow upon each other in order to bestow upon the Creator can we be called a holy group that wants to reach bestowal. Otherwise, we would build an egoistic society in order to mutually profit from each other.

A perfect spiritual structure should consist of not less than ten people, according to the ten Sefirot of a spiritual body. Then bestowal of one toward the other will bring us to bestowal toward the Creator since together, we want to become the full ten Sefirot.

Malchut is included in the first nine Sefirot (Tet Rishonot). Thus, ten Sefirot of bestowal (ten Sefirot of the Direct Light) are formed. And the first nine Sefirot get included into Malchut and form ten receiving Sefirot (ten Sefirot of the Reflected Light). Thus, we come to mutual bestowal. The need for such an action gives us the right to receive the power, the fulfillment from Above, and is called a prayer.
[63207]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, Writings of Rabash

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After the convention we are in a vague state, as if in a fog, but this is good. This is the way it is supposed to be. After a heavy lunch you become fat, awkward, and cannot move.

It’s the same after the convention: You have filled your “stomach” with all of the wonderful fillings that were there, and now you gradually begin to digest them. For this reason you have slightly relaxed. It’s like an animal that having eaten his fill is now sleepy, laying, and waiting for the food to be absorbed by the body.

You’ll see how you return to your normal state after a week or two. No state should be neglected. They need to be studied from the side. Now you are in such a state when you don’t care about anything: neither the friends, nor the teacher, nor Kabbalah, nor the whole world in general. You don’t want anything, only to sleep, and you cannot and do not want to come out of this hibernation, willfully submitting to this flow.

Yet, don’t resist and at first try to study this state, like a research scientist. Now you are indifferent to everything and want nothing but to enjoy your idleness. You feel that you are a complete zero with the fog both in the heart and head, as if half-asleep.

So study this state well and very seriously in order to clearly understand: Why you are in it, what the Creator wants from you this way, and what is the benefit of such states? First of all, study the state, do not annul it. Afterwards, you will understand how to proceed further on.

These are inevitable states. It’s like a lion that caught its prey, has filled himself, and is now resting. That is, after receiving the fulfillment, you need time in order to digest it. There is a long period that is required to put all of the systems back in order. However, you must keep this whole process under control and not try to cross it out immediately.

Don’t be afraid that you’ll never wake up again. We’ll help you. You only need to constantly check your state, not even fighting it, but only to account for where you are. Don’t eat yourself up for being such an insensible animal, but simply look at yourself from the side, at your state. This is enough.

If a person starts to eat himself up, it’s not good. This doesn’t help or correct! After all, in the end, he begins to justify himself, comforting himself by the fact that he does not agree with such a state. Here, the protective force of egoism begins to function. However, if you look as an unbiased scientist at your animal body that is now sleeping, like a full lion, then you see the kind of a process you that are going through. And the awakening will come.
[63308]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, TES

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Question: Is the point of unity situated between spiritual and physical unity? Or does physical unity not exist at all?

Answer: Physical unity makes no difference here. When we meet, we constantly subconsciously search for this point within us. Now we will begin to work with this and will understand it.

It was important to reach the state of our point of contact. Now, when it has been achieved, we just need to develop it. And even those who have not reached it can come to feel this contact since it’s already our common acquisition.

Now we just have to broaden this point in spite of all the obstacles. We need to understand that the obstacles are meant precisely in order to broaden it, to make it grow. I hope that over the next few months we will form the first ten Sefirot from it. And that will be the first demonstration of our soul.

In these ten Sefirot we’ll begin to feel the forces, plan, flow, and the entrance and exit of the Light. We’ll begin to feel all the movements in them like in a live organism, and we’ll begin to live our common inner life. A soul, rather than just a point of contact, will emerge within us. The Creator created one creature, and each of us will begin to feel himself or herself in it. In other words, it will be our “hostel.”

And gradually we’ll start to perceive our physical bodies as something that accompanies us. The broadening of the point of unity, the expansion of this higher quality will begin to prevail over everything to such an extent that we practically will not associate ourselves with our bodies. We’ll perceive ourselves as living only in the point of unity. Meanwhile, our bodies gradually will become more and more distant, irrelevant, and unneeded, until they dissolve completely as if they do not exist.
[63446]
From the Sunday Virtual Lessons Series 12/11/2011

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: Take, for example, a stalk of wheat that has rotted in the ground and arrived at a state of sowing many stalks of wheat. Thus, that rotten state is deemed the “source,” meaning that the essence of the wheat has stripped off its former shape, the shape of wheat, and has taken on a new discernment, that of rotten wheat, which is the seed called “the source,” which has no shape at all.

Why is the stalk of wheat of the previous degree not deemed to be the “source?” It is because it still possesses a form of its own and is not the root of the next state. The seed of wheat must disintegrate, turn into “power,” the potential of the future state, and then it will be able to germinate as a new sprout. Thus, the state of disintegration is necessary in the middle.

Answer: To lose the previous form in order to take on the next form. It cannot happen in another way. This way Keter turns into Malchut, which springs into a new Keter, over and over again.

Question: What should a person aspire to in his work: to lose the current form or to acquire a new one?

Answer: To accelerate advancement, that is, to increase the frequency of change of states. And every time I should strive for a new form. Let the stage of disintegration be on the way to it, I do not care. I understand that it is necessary.

It’s the same way that we need to sleep, as if disappearing into nonexistence. Is it not a pity to lose these hours of life? However, we know that without sleep the mess of the past day will not get organized into shelves and drawers inside our head. All my experiences need to go through processing, indexing, and storage. Only then will I be ready for new work and new perception.

Question: So how do you accelerate the speed?

Answer: Through the help of the environment that forms the right desire in me.

Question: And one always needs to strive towards the next state?

Answer: One always needs to strive towards unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. This is the next state. The same unity every time, only on a higher degree, more powerful, more “juicy,” of better quality: I, the group, and the common force of bestowal, the Creator, in us.
[63230]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, “The Freedom”

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I am optimistic. I think we are advancing forward wonderfully. I am pushing more and more, but I am certainly happy each moment that everything is being revealed so quickly.

We must maintain the admiration and the joy, not leaving a place for sadness. Even lack of satisfaction can appear only from happiness and longing for something greater. In other words, we need to be happy from the desire burning in us, and even if we don’t have a desire, we should be happy that we feel and understand this. If a person connects to spirituality, even a little, he is already on his way. One can criticize and to be sad only for a moment, in order to immediately return to happiness and determination.

According to all calculations (in spite of it being impossible to make them), we are on the brink of salvation. Even Baal HaSulam wrote about this, and this is even more correct today, after such a long time, after so many efforts were invested.

I am sure that we are going through a wonderful period of preparation now before the breakthrough which can occur at any moment. It is not so dependent on the events we plan in the future.

We maintain a wonderful and strong connection. The convention tied new strings of this connection between all groups, and in spite of the physical distances, the warmth is already dissipating among us. There is already a welded point that connects between us, which previously didn’t exist. This is already the beginning of the spiritual Kli (vessel or desire), which is what will maintain and save us.

We will overcome the obstacles and in so doing add new efforts to this point—and will be born.
[63457]
From the Talk during the Meal 12/17/2011

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Question: According to the Kabbalists’ prophecies, when will the majority of the nation of Israel start studying the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: This will happen when the whole world demands it. Israel cannot awaken if the world doesn’t demand it because Israel doesn’t have any need to awaken unless it is working for the whole world.

That is why we, the keepers of the method and those aware of what is happening, must disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah as quickly as possible in the whole world in all forms, whether we’re mentioning the word “Kabbalah” or not.

We must explain our states, the correction, and what we can achieve through the corrections. This will awaken people and will give them the understanding of how to correct the crisis, and as a result of this, as it is said in the Prophets, “The Nations will come and carry Israel on their hands to build the Temple.”

Without such pressure there won’t be an advancement—the nation of Israel will not feel a need in this. Before the ten plagues of Egypt, one doesn’t flee from Egypt. But we’ve got an opportunity to convert this pressure from ordinary suffering into the suffering of Love, when you yourself long for something you don’t have.

But in any case, the pressure has to be there. The Gog and Magog war has to take place in order for us to be born on the next degree. But we can cause the birth pains and the birth due to our desire to exit this world instead of being due to real birth pains—wars and suffering for the whole world.

The Prophets tell us about blows that are in store for us on nature’s part. But at the same time, we have the wisdom of Kabbalah in order for us to accept these blows as purposeful and helping the birth.

The minute I connect myself to the goal, the blows become a remedy. I don’t feel them as blows anymore. But I have to go through all the forces and all the states. However, if I change my realization and attitude towards them, I go through them with joy.

I go through it all consciously, I see the goal and I desire these blows; it’s as if I’m giving birth to myself.
[63575]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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It is written, “There is none else beside Him.” This means that there is no other force in the world (there is no other power, beside the one Upper Force, neither in the smallest of deeds, nor in the entire universe in general), that has the ability to do anything against Him. And what man sees, that there are things in the world that deny the Higher Household, (the Creator’s power over me), the reason is that this is His will.

We become confused when we supposedly think that there are friends, a group, people, a big world with its supposed “rulers,” and even I, who makes decisions. The Upper Force wishes for me to think this way, to think that I control things, and that there are other people and another power beside Him.

And it is deemed a correction, called “the left rejects and the right adducts,” meaning that which the left rejects is considered correction. In other words, also the things which appear bad to us—rejection from the spiritual, the path, and the group, when I forget about the goal and do not want it, when I think that the group does not want me—all of these problems come only from one force, which rules over everything, regardless of whether I can see it. The Creator controls the external world and inside of me, all my thoughts and desires.

I want to advance, join a group and to attain the Upper Force through it, I want to reveal Him, cling to my friends and reveal the Upper Light within them, the quality of bestowal. But even when I strive towards this in the most direct and sincere form, with my whole heart, I still experience descents and confusion in the most sincere point, which I rarely manage to attain through hard work. I suddenly fall from my very direct path.

I could understand it if I were to go in some wrong direction and I were being returned to the direct path. But no, it is when I am already standing on the very direct path that I deviate and fall.

A person is pushed away from the goal and the group, suddenly becomes confused and loses the desire. He thinks that his friends are no good, the path is wrong, and the entire system does not work, and it is unclear who has ever reached and attained the spiritual world. But it is this kind of rejection that helps him acquire an absolute desire. Next….

And this is exactly what we need. Right now I have a small desire for spirituality, but I do not feel that it is not enough. Everyone thinks that his heart is about to explode and that he is ready for anything! But in reality, in order to achieve spiritual power, we need a much stronger inner pressure, inner desire, and thirst.

And we become rejected in order to increase our aspiration to the sufficient level—to acquire a complete desire and understand that there is nothing we can do without the Creator’s help.

We need to reach a state when our scream passes through our unity, our connection, and is directed towards the Creator—with the request for the upper force, the Light which returns to the source, the common force of bestowal, which encompasses all of nature, to help us! Let it correct my only egoistic part in nature and pull it forward.

Otherwise I see that I am doomed. In other words I must reach a state where I see that I have done the most I could for the sake of my connection inside the group, that I have put all my effort into attaining unity, a connection with friends, those with who I wanted to reach the connection with the Creator, to reveal the power of bestowal, so it would reign in us and fill us with this unique quality.

And here we lack a common cry to the Creator, the upper force. We must feel lost so that a single scream of ours would be enough. But it must really come from a state of despair, when we see that we will never achieve success without His aid.
[63568]
From Lesson 4, The World Arvut Convention 12/7/11

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