Question: How did Kabbalists of the past keep up the importance of the goal
and support each other?

Answer: Just as we are doing today. I need the support of the group because otherwise I cannot attain desire for spirituality. I advance only with the desire I receive from my environment, from society. Therefore, I need a suitable environment.

I must pressure them, flatter them, love them, literally dust them off, all in order to obtain from them—in a positive or a negative way—the enthusiasm and importance of the goal.

It is with this enthusiasm that I can turn to the Creator. Therefore, I need an environment that is on the same level with me as a source of desire with which I turn to the Creator. And from there, I receive the force that corrects and elevates me.

Question: But there were times when Kabbalists laughed at each other and at themselves, for example, stuffing crumbs into their beards. What for?

Answer: They laughed at themselves. This was all special self-irony about the state they were in. Yes, that happened.

In general, humor, satire, and self-mockery are inherent in the nature of the Jewish people. Actually, all the jokes about themselves they create themselves. This is a necessary condition for self-control and analysis, which helps them move forward.

Question: You say that the group as if intentionally pressures a person, creates numerous obstacles for them. Yet at the same time, it gives him the importance of the goal. Why is such a path necessary? Why get on each other’s nerves?

Answer: The thing is that we initially consist of two parts. I consist of one part that is egoistic and wants to use everything for itself, and the second part, the point in the heart that desires to aspire toward altruism, bestowal, adhesion with the Creator, that is, toward equivalence with the properties of the absolute in bestowal and love.

In accordance with these two parts, I perceive the surrounding world in a dual manner. Therefore, I always experience this imbalance, difference, dipole, both plus and minus within me. Moreover, I see plus and minus in everything around me: there is no good without evil and vice versa.
[340571]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Support in the Group” 6/13/10

Related Material:
The Ability to Laugh at Yourself
Humor In Spirituality
How To Win In The Struggle With Yourself?

Filed under: Group Work, Structure of the Universe, Thoughts on Twitter - No Comments →

The very first step in attaining love and bestowal is to attain awe.

It is similar to a mother who is constantly in fear, worrying about her infant and everything that happens to him. This natural, innate fear constantly vibrates within her and does not give her peace.

We must attain the same attitude and care toward the Creator. We need to have constant worry and awe. I need to check myself if i am thinking about Him or if I can add anything more to my care?

If I want to attain the quality of Bina, then the one to whom I want to give is like my child to me. It does not matter that I call Him the Creator! I worry and care for Him as for an infant because I want to be a bestower!

This is where a person’s connection with the Creator begins. But before that, we must attain the same awe-filled connection with humanity or at least with a small part of it, with our group. I must learn to care for it as for a very beloved and dear person.

We are given similar examples in our world in caring for our children or parents, that is, for someone outside ourselves but bound to us with unbreakable ties.

An inner fear, awe must live within me: will I be able to help them and bring them good? This is the quality of Bina from which everything begins, and upon it, we start to build bestowal and love.

The Creator gives us such exercises inside our egoism so that we can gradually attain another reality, an altruistic one, so that we have examples and a foundation from which we build within ourselves the quality of Bina, of bestowal.
[17905]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/10, Writings of Rabash “You Stand Today, All of You”

Related Material:
Love and Awe
The Difference Between Awe And Fear
Real Awe

Filed under: Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: You say Rabash was the first to outline the rules for working in a group. Didn’t Baal HaSulam describe them?

Answer: Kabbalists did not talk much about it; they hid such things, considering them very personal.

They simply described the structure of the upper worlds so that by reading their works you could attract the upper light. But prior to that, how you should shape yourself, you and the group, the desire to move forward, and the ascent to greater bestowal for which you need the upper light was practically not discussed. This is each person’s inner work, his work in the heart.

Therefore, before Rabash, humanity did not need a massive explanation and the implementation of group work. Rabash described the rules of interacting in the group very clearly, but did not disclose his writings because the time had not yet come.

We see that his method of working in a group is the most important thing he has done for the world. In fact, he has done a lot, but this is the most important and most necessary thing for us. Right now, this technique can be implemented in our organization and in us.

There is a reason we are called by his name: Bnei Baruch. Indeed, apart from that, we do not need anything else. As Baal HaSulam said, love of friends covers absolutely all our problems.
[340769]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Virtual Community, Part 4” 5/17/10

Related Material:
The Articles Of Rabash
Imperative Link in the Chain
To Be Worthy Of The Name “Sons Of Baruch”

Filed under: Dissemination, Group Work, Q&A, Spiritual Teacher, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

We must somehow cultivate in ourselves a preliminary desire for unity, for love. This is done with the help of the light. Initially, we do not have such a desire. But if you wish, the light will do it.

But how can you want something that you cannot wish for? For this, you are given the group. You can tune yourself so that it artificially influences you.

What does the group want? The group does not want any ascent either. But it will methodically train you all the time, saying: “If you bestow, we will respect you, if you think about us, we will love you, if you are a good friend, we will play with you,” and so on.

In other words, you have no other choice. You are a social being; you cannot exist without an environment. The Creator has ignited a point in your heart—the desire to be in this society. So you must, together with the group, engage in a kind of a game where you deceive each other. But this deception, whether you want it or not, will be perceived by you as absolutely real.

For example, the group might say: “We have now agreed among us to value spiritual elevation, which consists of bestowal and love. If you truly want to bestow to us, to love us, we will value that in you. Otherwise, you are not our friend, and you should not come near us.”

You might say to them: “Guys, but you do not have this either! Do you really love me? Do you promise to be good to me?” They might even reply: “We promise you nothing.”

But if they are willing to position themselves this way before you, then you will begin to desire it: “Why don’t I have the quality of bestowal and love?”
[340634]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Virtual Community, Part 1” 5/16/10

Related Material:
To Wish For Bestowal
What Will Make Me Love Others As I Love Myself?
Grow Playfully

Filed under: Group Work, Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

We have yet to establish a living connection between each of us and the group. Sometimes, such mutual inspiration arises at our conventions or for a few minutes during gatherings, but this is not the right way to advance.

Many say: “Why not create a permanent convention?” But you cannot spend your whole life at a picnic, that is not the right kind of development. A convention where everyone gathers and connects is not about moving forward, but about unleashing a previously accumulated potential. The desire that has been formed manifests in this environment like a seed in the soil.

However, we must reach a state where we constantly feel the desire to be connected to the environment, and this environment can continuously influence us. This is only possible by creating a virtual connection between us where a person can connect to others through a computer or personal phone.

These means of communication are available to almost everyone 24 hours a day, and through them, we can provide a person with a simulation of his continuous spiritual connection with us.

We have no other options than to implement what the Kabbalists have written. Their sources are open to everyone. Therefore, from everything I see in our world, the only way to position a person against the group is to make this connection possible 24 hours a day or at specific intervals—say, five times a day—is through the Internet or the phone, which are always with us.
[340720]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Virtual Community, Part 3” 5/16/10

Related Material:
Life in Virtual Space
Society of the Future: an Example of Communication
A System that Emanates Goodness

Filed under: Group Work, Internet, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

It is said that envy, lust, and honor take a person out of this world. These qualities are intentionally created within us. And these seemingly most unpleasant, most disrespected traits suddenly turn out to be the most effective.

I suddenly begin to feel how much they can help me, how envy can be positive. I look at my friends, and they are doing something together, discussing certain matters, and I envy them.

They can respect me only when I love and bestow, when I sacrifice myself, when I feel my connection with them. Only in them, only in mutual guarantee, will I find myself and my life. Unexpectedly I begin to value this abstract state as something very necessary for me.

This is what we need to somehow act out among ourselves. But the group is not yet capable of doing this. We need to take action and organize some kind of scene for each friend. After all, we do not just whisper among ourselves in a corner: “Now we will start acting on you this way. Let us see how our experiment turns out.”

One, then another, then a third person begins to work on you, deliberately set an example, and you start reacting. “What do they want?” Sometimes you suddenly justify them, but mostly you do not know what to do.

This is how a person’s complete dependence on the surrounding group and on society is revealed. In novels, it is often said that some hero enters a large society and easily interacts with it. But in reality this is very difficult.

That is why we need to create such a place. I mean a virtual space, an environment, where we could act out this condition, society and each of us as an individual with desires for pleasure, envy, honors, fame, power, everything that defines our relationship with society.

Yet I do not see this society in my friends. For some reason, they cannot organize themselves, they cannot influence me, something is not working for them.

But if I had such a simulator on my computer, I would be required to enter it five times a day, which is something I cannot physically do with my friends. And this simulator would impose certain demands, whims, and conditions, it would impose its influences and questions on me.

It would show me what it wants from me, like a capricious group that demands a certain attitude from its friend: “What is more important to you—this or that? How would you progress—this way or that? How would you act in such a state? In which source is it said that this is so and that is otherwise?” It would pose questions that seem completely illogical. But otherwise you will not succeed, the group demands this from you. Do you agree or not?

Such a simulator is necessary, even just to theoretically force a person to understand what the property of bestowal is and how much they are opposite to it.

Moreover, the daily tasks must necessarily include both states of descent and ascent so that a person can see and determine where they are and how they would react to this in the opposite state.

The computer plays out the relationships between me and the group, and I begin to treat it like a Tamagotchi. It leads me forward, I am attached to it, I am interested in its opinion, its attitude toward me and its evaluation of my actions.
[340638]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Virtual Community, Part 2” 5/16/10

Related Material:
Replacement For Physical Contact
Wonderland On The Internet
A Real Virtual Environment

Filed under: Group Work, Internet, Q&A, Spiritual Work, Structure of the Universe - No Comments →

Question: Is it enough for us to correct ourselves in order to correct the whole world?

Answer: No. Since there is a connection between all souls, no soul (degree) can complete its correction without correcting the parts of the next degree. No person lives for himself; this entire system is a system of mutual bestowal.

Therefore, it is impossible for someone to correct himself for his own sake. Everyone lives in order to provide correction and fulfillment for others. It is impossible for a soul that corrects itself not to have a part that its predecessors corrected for it, and a part that it itself is obligated to correct for others.

It is known that the upper part of each soul, its GE, is in the lower part, in the AHP, of the previous soul (Partzuf) that is the upper part for it. And its lower part, its AHP, is inside the GE of the lower soul.

Therefore, our free choice is where we are not connected with the upper soul and the lower soul, meaning, in the middle part of our soul, the middle part of the Sefira Tifferet.

There, a space free from all souls is formed, our freewill, and in principle, it represents a special connection in our soul of the upper and lower souls, in this connection they are equivalent and therefore provide us with freedom of choice.

And outside the middle part of the Sefira Tifferet, parts of the soul do not belong to it: the upper one relates to the higher soul (the previous Partzuf), and the lower one relates to the lower soul, to the continuer. Therefore, the calculation is always made on bestowal to the upper and the lower. And the decision about this bestowal is made in the middle and there is no other freedom!

Except for this artificially created middle point, called Klipat Noga, formed by the connection of Bina and Malchut, the point of my choice, everything else does not belong to me, but to the upper or lower Partzuf. And I stand in the middle and have to decide all the time how I am connected with them.

But this point, making the decision, is the I – “man,” “similar” to the Creator. On the one hand, Malchut, and on the other hand, Bina, and therefore at this point there is a special contact of Bina and Malchut (the properties of the Creator and creation), from which a free decision arises to make the creation similar to the Creator. It is called “Adam” – “similar.”

Until we reach this decision, we are not “Man.” A man begins with one, the awareness of the difference between Bina and Malchut and two, the connection between them.

From this point, he grows to the extent that he can serve others with his 613 desires: the upper ones (248 desires) and the lower ones (365 desires). If you do not do this, then you remain just a point. And if you do, then you develop your GE and AHP, and they spread to the common soul: all the souls that are above and below you.
[21095]
From Daily Kabbalah lesson 9/12/10, Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
The Spiritual Elevator
“I Dwell Among My People”
Walking The Tight Wire Straight To The Creator

Filed under: Adam-The Common Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

To open the lock to the Creator with the whole ten means to achieve the closest connection of hearts, when everyone puts their whole heart into it. This common heart will become the key that opens the lock.

Each of us is just a part of the key. The mechanism of the lock and key must interact and influence each other in order to open the door the Creator is behind.

At the world congress, everyone who wants to engage in spiritual work will have the opportunity to open their hearts and connect with other friends from all over the world to realize this together.

Awe of heaven is my fear: will I be able to insert the key into the lock so it corresponds to all lock forms at all levels (inanimate, vegetative, animate, human)? I will turn the lock so everyone would see themselves conform to the advanced state, and the door will open.

Awe of heaven is the connection that exists between me and the Creator. The more I feel the awe, adjust  my key to the shape of the lock, and turn it, the more I connect with the Creator.

According to the forms I create in the key, the lock begins to open for me with this key. I hope the joint preparations for the congress will allow us to get closer, connect, and find the right shape of the lock and key in our connection, in a common embrace, thanks to mutual help and support. The ideal state at the congress is when absolutely everyone, without exception, participates in the common effort to open the lock.

The key is striving for the future, which everyone imagines a little differently. After all, not everyone is in the right state; in some way everyone’s state is incorrect. Therefore, one connects in the common key, wants to push himself and turn in the direction to the point where the lock opens.

A person alone cannot open the lock; we need to unite all our desires to achieve this. A congress provides the opportunity to complement each other by bringing all aspirations together. And then we will feel there is one common key, and with the help of prayer, we can reveal it.
[340681]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/25, Preparation to convention “Connecting to Lishma”

Related Material:
The Key to the Lock of Happiness
Where Is The Key To Unlock The “Bank”?
The Key that Unlocks the Entrance to the Creator

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Events, Group Work, Spiritual Work, The Tens - No Comments →

To enter the state of Lishma (intention for the sake of the Creator), one must find the key that unlocks this specific door. This is where the test lies: am I in the right state? Can I open this door or not? If not, it is as if I am retreating, returning to my previous state.

The test is whether all my accumulated experience up to this point is forming the correct key that will open the entrance to Lishma.

In the corporeal world, we can clearly see a lock and a key that cannot open it. The same applies here. I realize that I am not yet ready to unlock this door: either I lack fear before the heavens, or the shape of my key does not yet match the lock, meaning they do not fit together.

The Creator gives us the Torah as keys to inner doors, but we do not have the key to the outer door, the fear before the heavens. Under special conditions, under the influence of external forces, I begin to feel that I must achieve the correct alignment between the key and the lock.

The key is my inner form, my friends, my tens. The outer form must be arranged like a house, so that the key fits into the lock and can turn it, that is, so that all the details of the house and the key align.

Together, friends build the form that I must align myself with. Each person adjusts himself through their own individual work, and after these efforts, we all unlock the lock together. But outside the ten, there is no key that can open it.

As I approach the correct form, I feel more precisely what is needed to unlock it. The right key is when my aspiration fits the lock exactly, and we merge in one desire. In other words, I seek to match the lock’s need and take on a form that completely fills its empty space so that I can then turn it in the direction required by the environment.

If the key does not fit even slightly, the lock will not turn. But if we, together with the friends, connect closely to all parts of the lock, we can clarify everything unnecessary that prevents us from fully inserting the key and unlocking the lock.
[340676]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/25, Preparation to convention “Connecting to Lishma”

Related Material:
In Order for the Key to Fit the Lock
The Key that Unlocks the Entrance to the Creator
Where Is The Key To Unlock The “Bank”?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work, The Tens - No Comments →

Question: If I interfere in some state of a friend and seem to prevent him from going through it, does this mean that I myself will have to go through it instead of him?

Answer: The passage of your states has already been mutually calculated. You and your surroundings are together in the same harness. You were brought in your generation, in your time, to a specific place, into specific conditions, because this is how the spiritual system in which you exist is materialized.

In your spiritual system there is me, close friends, distant friends, this entire world, all the surroundings, all of nature, the cosmos, and so on, and around that, there are also all the spiritual worlds.

And all this is relative to you; you are at the center of this influence, and you cannot exist without something or someone, it only depends on the extent. But in general you are connected to absolutely everyone, and the more you develop, the more you will begin to feel dependent on an ever increasing number of various sources.

You will feel more and more tied to an immense system with numerous parameters. They all influence you, and you influence them. How do you manage all of this? Only with love. There is no other way to find contact and control the situation except through love, through accepting others as a part of yourself. Then there are no problems.
[340629]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. In One Harness” 6/12/10

Related Material:
Attain the Common Soul
The Whole World Under One Umbrella
Why Love My Friend More Than Myself?

Filed under: Group Work, Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →