Question: What should we do about friends who don’t awaken? Should we be patient with them just as with the outside world?

Answer: No. In the group we have signed a mutual agreement just as in the past Kabbalistic groups demanded newcomers to sign a statute. Do you want to be a friend? “A friend” is a person who puts forth all his energy working to unite. After all, the only way we will attain the goal is by means of uniting.

We do not have the ability to accept every person who is not yet ready for it as he will simply “water down” our forces, or might even confuse us and lead us astray. Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Peace” that a person might understand that he cannot steal, yet not see anything wrong with not carrying out bestowal.

In spirituality, if you do not give the group everything you have to give it, it means you are stealing from it. Therefore, people who desire to enter the group have to know that they are signing the “bestowal declaration.” They are taking on the obligation to put in their contribution, to give all of their energy for the sake of unity.

Otherwise a person has no place in the group. So let him sit home in front of the television set.

This has to be understood and the group has to demand it from everyone and from each person. We will not attain anything without unity.
[28902]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, The Zohar

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A person cannot avoid being influenced by the environment, which elevates or belittles him. It is impossible to resist if I am important in my eyes.

If I don’t wish to conform to this opinion, I have to construct another image around myself, one that will become meaningful to me. In that case, I will measure everything in relation to it: If I am being reprimanded or praised, foremost, I will check whether it is beneficial or harmful to this image. And then, let me be scolded, but if the image benefits from it, helps me to achieve it, and come closer to it, I feel good.

If I am being scolded by the people whom I hold in authority, I value their opinion. But if I regard them as foes, then the more they scold me, the more it convinces me that I am correct. I am glad they are criticizing my path. In this case, the most horrible condemnations may sound as blessings to me.

Let’s say you are being cursed by the Pharaoh, it’s great, because he is opposite to the Creator; it all depends on whose influence you choose. Hence, I must remain only under the influence of my environment that I chose for spiritual growth. I should be very responsive to it since with its help, I can aim myself in the right direction.

Upon entering such an environment, its opinion must become sacred for me. I copy all its values and live in accordance with them instead of with what used to fill me before.

If I wish to receive the mind of the Upper One, the Creator, instead of my own, then I unfold my entire future world in the head (Rosh) of the group, in their desires. I don’t have anything else: They are that very Kli which I receive the future world into. Therefore, the collective opinion of the group and its values, start prevailing over everything else.

In fact, I will never be able to uncover the tiniest particle of the spiritual world unless I step out of myself and exchange my head for the common head and heart of the group. Therein lay my sole choice and chance to reach spirituality.

You need to be responsive to their mind and heart and keep trying to find within what the true environment is. As a result, you will suddenly get to realize that they have it all although they themselves are unaware of it. It is this particular group in relation to which you have to nullify yourself, and that is where you will find the entire World of Infinity.
[28504]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/10, The Writings of Rabash

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Question: Do I have free will to ask my own questions, or it is also done by the Upper Governance?

Answer: Free will doesn’t lie in your asking one or the other question. Free will means not sitting inside your ego getting blows. After all, submerged in your ego, you are unable to understand anything because you lack one more factor existing on the outside.

Identifying yourself with someone or something outside of you, you will be able to see yourself from aside. It will teach you to recognize two conditions: the Light and the dark. And then you will be able to advance faster.

But if you don’t enter the group, live in bestowing to it, and being affected by it, you do not advance. It is so because spiritual advancement lies in understanding the process of creation. In order to gain it, you need two initial points: one is within, the other-outside yourself. Hence, the group is given to you so that you may find this second point.
[28275]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/10, Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot”

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Question: How should I work with faith above reason if the heart doesn’t open?

Answer: You need to be patient. It is hard work we do while in Egyptian bondage when we keep building new “pyramids” by exerting the greatest effort until the heart suddenly starts feeling. And in this work, the circulation of Kabbalah helps tremendously; it is beneficial to the person himself. The more he invests in the others, even if the motives are diversely egoistic, the faster he starts feeling how his heart unfolds.

I see this in the example of people who put much effort in studying but don’t get involved in the dissemination of Kabbalah. It is not enough to simply study and stay in the group: the heart doesn’t open! Everybody has to find himself a unique job, no matter how small, in order to make it his constant concern, so that he knows: This is what I bestow to people; through me, this wisdom gets spread.

This is a magical instrument as I have seen from my experience: A person who is involved in dissemination advances much more rapidly. Therefore, I recommend it to all.
[28501]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/10, The Writings of Rabash

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If we used even one percent of the environment’s influence, we would be in spirituality by now! In all, this is called entering the Upper World, the transition from my individual desire into the desire of the environment.

Where else can I experience it? The deeper I delve into the desires of the environment, the higher I ascend in the Worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut. The instant I cross the barrier where the environment is more important to me than myself marks the passing of the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality).

Right now everyone is preoccupied with their own desire. The environment affects a person, but only in the degree that he nullifies himself before it. The environment isn’t at fault for what is happening with a person; it depends only on him!

As for the environment, it is completely corrected; it cannot be uncorrected since it is arranged by the Creator! It is He who brought you here and said: “If you wish to have contact with Me, you have to include yourself into that environment, like an embryo in the mother’s womb. Enter this environment, and if you succeed, you will find Me.”

When you nullify yourself in the smallest degree, you will ascend to the first spiritual degree. This is a crucial step, “bestowal in order to bestow,” like an embryo inside the mother. It doesn’t seem to exist on its own, and that is why the mother provides all the necessary nourishment.

The more she gives it, the more it grows and nullifies itself. Hence, it grows inside the mother without disturbing her, seemingly non-existent. And the more it annuls itself, the more she can give. Therefore, she doesn’t view the embryo as a foreign object; on the contrary, it is close and dear.

When it grows to the extent that it is unable to completely nullify itself before Bina, it is born; it exits outside. From now on, it will annul himself in relation to her in a different manner, like a little child in relation to an adult. But nonetheless, it is nullification in order to receive nourishment, and later, education. All levels, through adulthood, receive by way of self-nullification.

The mother is the group, Shechina, the collective assembly of souls. Nullify yourself and you will enter it. And when I become an “adult,” it doesn’t mean that I don’t need them anymore; rather, I am able to take this collective desire and start working with it, drawing fulfillment to it.

I nullified myself in relation to all souls, this entire collective desire, and received this Kli (vessel), all the examples and forces from the mother. Now I can begin revealing this enormous desire, Malchut of the World of Infinity, and work with it by receiving in order to bestow, which is the level of “love” at this point.

All of this work takes place in relation to the environment, the collective soul. Where else is there to work? There is nothing besides it. Everything occurs in the same place, and that is what the Creator is called: “the place.”
[28489]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/10, “Mighty Rock of My Salvation”

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When a person desires to enter the group and to unite with it, then precisely there, inside the interconnection with the friends, he reveals the four phases of the expansion of Direct Light, the ten Sefirot, the forms and degrees of unity that the Kabbalists describe. The stronger he merges with the desires of the friends by the principle of loving his neighbor as himself, the more the Light is revealed inside him, filling these desires. This is the revelation of the Creator to creation.

As Baal HaSulam writes in item 155 of "Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot," we have to desire for the material we study to become revealed and come alive inside us. We study the correction of creation so that inside these texts we will reveal the Light, the Creator, the goal of creation.

To correct creation means to correct a person’s connection with his environment. All the worlds lie on the path between myself and the group, on the line of connection between us. The higher I ascend, the more connected I am with the friends. The power of our interconnection corresponds to the degree of my inclusion in the group. To this degree I reveal the spiritual reality and acquire the vessel of the soul.
[28766]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/10, The Zohar
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A person thinks that he has to independently overcome his ego, advance toward spirituality, and aim himself toward “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” This, however, isn’t so!

In our world, we are always waiting for a small child to complete an action independently by either following our example or thinking of something on his own, such as building something out of blocks.

In spirituality, we are developing on a degree that is above the physical world. There, we must obtain a second nature, while in the physical world all we have to do is advance, learn about what is already within us, and realize what is ahead. This is because everything already exists in its final state; the entire reality is disclosed.

We have to somehow “grab on” to spirituality, begin sensing, seeing, and revealing it. For now the spiritual world is unclear to us.

We have to understand one very simple notion which happens to be extremely difficult to implement: When we speak about overcoming, aspiration, attaining the goal, revealing the Creator, and our efforts, all of these things must be in our plea to the Creator in order for them to be heard. We can’t do anything except correctly ask the Creator.

For now we haven’t reached the point of realizing that “there is none else besides Him,” that He is in charge of all actions, and that we are simply the objects of these actions. We can only raise MAN (Mayin Nukvin – “female waters”) so that the Creator will carry out these actions.

We’re still relating to spirituality in the same way that we relate to this world, where we feel we can do things with “our own hands.” We scatter our efforts in different directions instead of appealing to the Creator.

If we aren’t formulating an inner plea to the Creator, then we aren’t aspiring toward bestowal. After all, it’s quite evident that we aren’t capable of bestowing on our own. This is why we have to appeal to the Creator. The group can’t correctly realize and explain to each person what action we must all make together.

It is said: “The sons of Israel cried from this work.” They wanted to build the beautiful cities of Pithom and Ramses themselves. After building them, they saw that everything was consumed by their egoistic desire to receive pleasure. That’s when they called out to the Creator so that He would make changes.

In other words, we’re only expecting it to happen. But the executing force that will change us will come only if we ask it to come. We can hear these things hundreds, even thousands of times, but only the Upper Light can give us the ability to perceive them.

However, the group’s opinion can bring us closer to this. If each person will constantly try to remind himself and even force himself to think that we have to unite in our plea to the Creator, then this is considered to be everyone’s effort. It is the prayer of the many (Tefilat Rabim) that will open the path to spirituality.
[27533]
From Preparation to the Lesson, 11/19/10

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We began our preparation for this convention many months prior to it; we anticipated uniting with one another, breaking our ego, and attaining unity. In spirituality, one always needs to strive for perfection; anything less is impossible. After all, if you want to jump on the table, you need to prepare yourself to jump higher than the table, and then you will land on it. This applies to everything.

We set a goal for ourselves at the convention: to attain the revelation of the Creator. Naturally, every day this needs to be our goal. But this time we really aspired towards it, and this is why we have taken a big step forward. We have acquired a new status. We created a new Kli (vessel) in which the sensation of connection, unity, the goal, and the way of reaching it has already manifested.

Some felt that they have come a lot closer to it, while others not as much. Some experienced it from the side of the Kelim (vessels), and some already from the side of the Lights. The people who felt that they are not yet part of it acquired the realization of evil; they discovered how much they are yet to correct.

We have experienced a multitude of different states together. We discovered that the environment by acting upon a person can do anything with him because a person is completely susceptible to its influence.

Of course, we lack the environment’s constant influence. Of course, for now we are unable to cancel ourselves in relation to it. And, certainly, the environment is not displaying a force strong enough to determine everyone’s direction.

However, we have definitely developed a connection between us. And I think that soon we will also begin to reveal more and more fulfillment in it.
[27530]
From the Talk during the Closing Ceremony, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/11/10

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Studying Kabbalah provides us with a connection to the Upper World. The split between our and the spiritual worlds is an abyss, a barrier, an iron wall, which is impossible to move. Only the Upper Light is able to break it.

Therefore, we cannot connect to the Upper, spiritual world other than by studying authentic primary sources: the writings of Rashbi, the Ari, Baal HaSulam, and Rabash. Only due to this will the Light that Reforms come to us.

We need to constantly study their writings, thereby giving the Light an opportunity to continue its work. You will feel that the unity we achieved at the convention will spread out from its beginning to the ten Sefirot, and it will obtain fulfillment. I expect this to occur very soon, and in regard to every participant of the convention.

We have yet to feel what kind of mutual inclusion into each other we have achieved, the men, women, and even the children. Each of us acquired a broader, multi-layered, and complex Kli (vessel), in which one can already prepare himself to receive the Light.

Now, after the convention, if we all live in one theme by studying the works of the Kabbalists at the lessons, we will be connected to the Light that they contain. In addition, we will unite with all the friends who are going through the same material as we are, the same day, during the same 24 hours. Nothing can unite us more than daily presence at the lessons.

Because we will draw continuously new portions of the Surrounding Light every day, what was born between us at the convention, that for which we laid the foundation, that seed which we sowed into the ground, will continue to develop, and it will give its ten Sefirot. We will feel the Upper Light, the revelation of the Creator, in them.

We are now at the threshold of this. It is an accumulative process, as it is written: “Penny after penny accumulate into a big account.” Unity that arose at the convention, a connection that took place between us is a great achievement. It is the beginning of a new stage of our spiritual development.
[27526]
From the Talk during the Closing Ceremony, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/11/10

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