Question: How many people must hold the intention simultaneously in order for the spiritual connection to get revealed?

Answer: Only I. If I uncover my desire to unify with the others, I discover that they are already united. It seems to me that they are not unified in order for me to work on them and them on me. Yet, all of this is in relation to me.

As long as I am not corrected, I see my corruption in them and work on them so that they influence and strengthen me. Thanks to their support, I correct myself and then see that they are becoming more corrected as well. After all, “every person judges according to their own flaws.”

It turns out that I must worry only about my own correction. What about the others then? If I see that the world is broken, I have to correct it. This means that I correct myself. In this case, if I treat the others with the intention to bestow, I don’t see them in the broken state. Rather, I see the Shechina (divinity) in them, the revelation of the Creator Who fills the entire world.
[27298]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
A Human Is Defined By His Intention

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: What can be done if, during the reading of The Zohar, the intention weakens because the mind keeps trying to understand the content of the text?

Answer: We shouldn’t pay attention to it. Intention must become increasingly stronger during the lesson since the friends should think about it together. And if each of them holds the intention, it cannot be so that someone drops out of it.

Here we truly get connected in the spiritual communication network between us, not in the material one. If I hold the intention to bind myself to “Israel” (those who aim directly to the Creator), the Torah (the Light), and the Creator are one” so that I, the Creator, and the group became as one whole and reveal the Light that fills the entire reality; if all of us strive to experience this condition and, due to reading of The Book of Zohar, the Light has to reveal it to us, then this intention will “burn” in us more intensely. But if I feel that my intention has become weaker, in this, I depend on the all the others 100%.

In this respect, we are truly working inside the spiritual network. Thereby, we enter the spiritual world and act in it to the best of our ability to hold the intention and bind “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator” together.

We already act this way in the spiritual world and only have to uncover it for ourselves. Therefore, we demand the Light to reveal it to us.
[27301]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
What Should You Spend Your Time On?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: When we read The Zohar, we try to imagine something that we are not able to perceive as of now: the general soul of Adam HaRishon and unity. Doesn’t this mean that we are transgressing the law of the Torah by “creating an idol”?

Answer: This isn’t so. I don’t picture any material images of this world. I simply wish to sense a connection with others. For the time being, I picture this connection in my limited imagination and therefore see it as conventional relations. But being described is a feeling, a desire, and not material images. Though it may be egoistic, we are nevertheless trying to draw closer to a spiritual form. A person builds himself out of what he has.

We have to strive to reveal your connection with others. It already exists, only it is concealed from me. I try to find this connection through darkness and fog and wait for The Zohar to lift the veil that’s covering my senses and reveal the true picture.

I will see this picture with my heart rather than my eyes. Then I will truly feel everything that The Book of Zohar describes. Right now, I don’t know how it will be exactly, but it certainly will be in a form of interconnections.

After all, nothing exists but the types of interconnections among the parts of a spiritual desire, which are called “the soul.” The Light of NRNHY runs between these desires. Ultimately, this Light is the Creator.
[27415]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride)”

Related Material:
Format Yourself For Spirituality

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →

Using the example of the article “The Night of the Bride,” we can somewhat understand how The Book of Zohar was written. Its authors were attaining Malchut as a whole while uncovering fragments of various parts in it, such as the desire to enjoy in order to receive (angel Dumah), the part working under the Second Restriction (Tzimtzum Bet).

The male part of Malchut is regarded as “King David” and the female part as “Bat Sheba.” Kabbalists were uncovering the Light that Reforms Malchut which can feel divided into two parts and work only in one of them. These two parts of Malchut are “MI” (מי) and “ELEH” (אלה). We are constantly working on their correct combination, and by doing so, become similar to Bina and the name of Elokim (אלה-ים) that consists of them both.

Seeing our roots in the World of Atzilut and their correct performance, the authors of The Zohar discover the appellations or the numeric symbols (Gematria) of these parts. Afterward, they colorfully describe them to us and explain that once in history, when the spiritual root descends and clothes in the corporeal world, we undergo the same states.

However, only the effects manifest in this world, while Kabbalists tell us specifically about the roots to which we have to become equivalent. Therefore, while reading The Book of Zohar, we must visualize the properties, forces, and actions that they discovered at the Upper degrees and not characters and events of this world.

How do we get to see spiritual acts after all? To do this, only one condition has to be met: We must develop qualities similar to theirs. We wish to unite and uncover between us the attributes of this mutual bonding and fill with the Light of Yod-Kei (י”ה) the part of the desire that will unfold in every person.

Then, we will understand and feel how to sort our desires and separate David’s part which we can work with from the part that we cannot work with. However, we will attach the corrected female part, Bat Sheba, to David.

Everyone will find these parts within himself in order to unite with the others and correct the collective Malchut where, in accordance with correction, the Creator gets revealed. All worlds manifest between the souls in the place where the restriction and lessening of the Light occurred.

When we yearn for oneness, the concealment disappears, and we find the forms of communication that The Book of Zohar describes until we reach unlimited interconnection, the World of Infinity.
[27177]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride)”

Related Material:
The Windows Of Your House

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Zohar - No Comments →

My Good Environment – Questions of the Day

Filed under: Group Work - No Comments →

Question: Spirituality requires completeness and joy, but in the group we sometimes deem it as gaiety. How does it fit in?

Answer: You drop into the group after your mundane, “civil” life. There, you would enjoy food, sex, family, wealth, respect, power, and knowledge. Here, however, you are placed before a goal that you don’t achieve and people you didn’t pick.

In the outside world, you would individually decide with whom to work and spend leisure time, but here you see the faces of the friends. Look, would you invite them into your circle? You have no choice. Moreover, there is no benefit. You find neither a reason, nor place, nor ways to feel the joy you used to experience in the outside world.

Now, you need to replace all your ideas. What am I here for? Why do I need all these people? How do I find fulfillment? What is the goal? How important is it? Having gathered and arranged these questions and their answers correctly, you must simply burst with joy, and soar to the seventh heaven because you are so happy.

After all, you are in the only correct place, in the company of the right people who yearn for the same exalted goal as you do, which cannot be reached on one’s own. Look, they all came together just for you. They exist solely for you to attain perfection.

Then, looking at the friends, you start loving them. They become important, close, dear to you, and the goal isn’t that distant any more. If we all unite, we will find it among us. It isn’t in some distant galaxy, but right here behind the partitions separating us, which we must crush.

The goal is to reveal the Light in us, but it cannot flow as long as there is a gap in the net. Because of the torn wires, the spiritual current doesn’t pass through any of us. So, let it shine; close the circuit. Everything is ready for us, and, if you see the events correctly, you will definitely get filled with joy.
[26037]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/5/10, Rabash “The Matter of Schechina“

Related Material:
Cling To The Source

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

I must “force” myself to unify with the friends and constantly keep in mind that success lies solely in unity. This is what our common, collective aim should be: unified desires turned to the Creator. Unified, they become one shared desire aimed at the Creator, the property of bestowal, so that it would unfold and dwell within us.

We have to act as if that is what we yearn and beg for. This “as if,” bubbling all around me, saturates me with true desire. This is the rule of how the environment affects an individual.

As a result, having gotten inspired by the environment, everyone begins to cry out. It may not be an authentic action yet, but it is enough to draw the Light that Reforms. We cannot cry naturally. If we could, we would already be in the spiritual world and have the correct desire. Hence, our crying is insincere, but the Surrounding Light still illuminates us and brings us what we pretend to be asking for.

That’s the kind of game we are voluntarily playing, “If you plead as if you desire it, I will do as you ask.” Yet, I have to try to the best of my ability to imagine our corrected state as close to reality as I can. Thus, from Lo Lishma (not for Her Name) I transition to Lishma (for Her Name).

On the spiritual degrees, the Light responds even to an insincere plea. It is called the plea for correction. I am corrupted, and I ask the Creator to fix me. I ask reluctantly, specifically because I am flawed.

Herein lies the bridge from the corporeal to the spiritual world. While below the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality), I am unable to beg naturally, but I am willing to exert effort to unite with the others.

Thereby, I carry out the agreement: I perform an action in response to which the Light comes in. In the corporeal world, I arrange a situation, a link, which allows me to trigger a reciprocal action in the spiritual world.

The same rule applies when we ascend a ladder in the corporeal world. However, the key lies in the qualitative transformation of my nature when the property of bestowal descends and starts governing me.
[27148]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/10, “All Who Suffer for the Public”

Related Material:
The Goal Is Not Half Of The Way

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

The Book of Zohar speaks of how Zeir Anpin and Malchut unite, how everything becomes one. This makes it clear that we all have to aim at the final action: bestowal to the Creator.

It is hard to imagine something outside of our current desires. However, the Light gradually impregnates us with this necessity. Suddenly I feel that I am drawn to the Creator. I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I want to think about Him and bestowal to Him.

It is like an unknown neighbor shows up, one that I never cared about before, and now occupies all my thoughts. A relation toward him is awakening within me, and we are becoming connected. Again and again I am reminded of him.

Where did it come from? It came as a result of my studies and the influence of the environment. Either on its own or artificially, a thought about the final, even if distant state visits us. This is how the intention to bestow to the Creator is born, an intention that we try to realize on the spiritual degrees.
[27294]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/10, “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride)”

Related Material:
All Rise for The Incoming Light

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Question: Where may the prayer for our unity and correction come from? How do I start asking for it?

Answer: We cry and beg for correction, but it is a pretense and falsehood. We, ourselves, don’t even realize that it is just lip service.

However, if I am working in the group and allow it to influence me, thereby exercising my only free choice, then it passes to me its enthusiasm and motivates me toward spirituality. At that point, it isn’t a lie since I am inspired by the friends. Even though I tried to connect to the group artificially, when they worked on me, I started to take it seriously.

This is how I am made: I am a particle in the collective system which has been functioning this way since the beginning of creation. That is why I cannot escape being affected by the environment, try as I might.

However, in this case, it was my wish to be influenced by the friends, and I made an effort to achieve it. If I now turn to the Creator with the desire received from the group, I will immediately receive an answer to it, a response. After all, this desire has a unique nature: the will to unite.

When I try to unite with them on my own or cry to the Creator to get this wish granted, it is a false demand. It isn’t regarded as a true prayer (MAN or Mayin Nukvin, Female Waters), but a lie. Although it is also beneficial, I will eventually see that it doesn’t work.

However, when I turn to the group, exalting it and reducing my own importance, and receive from it a new desire, a request that I further raise to the Creator, this is called MAN. As a result, there will be an answer from Above called MAD (Mayin Duchrin, Male Waters), which will truly connect me with the group, and there, inside it, I will find the Creator.

Inasmuch as I contribute myself to the group upon my own request, to that measure, the Creator will be revealed to me. However, no altruistic desire or action can come directly from me.

The group stands between me and the Creator, and we meet inside it. I raise my prayer to the Creator through the group. In response, He channels the answer to me through the group, with the help of which I may now rise to the group and find the Creator in it.

Between the Creator and me, there has to be the group. That’s why it is called the “place” and so is the Creator because there, He and I meet.
[27184]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

Related Material:
Now Is The Time!

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A, Spirituality - 1 Comment →

When we talk about “commandments,” we are referring to the desires that connect me with other people. There are 613 (TARYAG) such desires, and I have to correct them with the help of the Light that Reforms (called “the Torah”).

If I don’t work on establishing the connection with my neighbor, then I have nothing to correct. If a person is alone, then he has nothing to come to the Creator with, only a spiritual spark and animalistic desires which do not require correction.

If you want to correct yourself, then you have to “show” the Creator the place of breakage, yet you do not have it. One person cannot experience the breaking; it requires at least two for this. Therefore, all of the 613 desires which we correct with the Light that Reforms is the correction of our broken connection with the others.

The Light that used to fill the connection between us and sustain us has disappeared. Now we have to attract it back and return it to its place. When the Light returns, it will correct the place of our connection first, and then it will fill it.
[27200]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

Related Material:
Why Don’t I Sense The Spiritual World?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →