If I admit that the system of the universe that appears before me is actually more corrected than what I see, it means I relate to it by faith above reason or above my vision. I understand that I don’t see the true state of reality because right now my reality is what I feel in my desire, my broken vessel. And indeed, “A judge has nothing more than what his eyes see,” and what I see is a broken world. In order to advance I have to ascend above this “judge.” So who is my judge? It’s the group.

That is to say, besides me there is one more judge – the opinion of the environment. If after checking myself I accept the group’s opinion, that means I accept this position despite not really seeing it. What I really see is what my eyes see. And two opinions cannot exist simultaneously. There can only be one or the other. You cannot look with two eyes through different glasses and see the same thing. You see that the pictures are different! However, you understand that the view of the environment is more advanced because it goes against your egoistic nature.

Thus, you continuously advance by accepting the group’s opinion instead of your own. You ascend to that opinion and make it your own, and then you once again replace it with the environment’s opinion that is higher still. That is how you ascend higher and higher, as it is written, “The group today is you tomorrow!”
[23418]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The Zohar, Chapter “VeYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 675: Zebulun was rewarded with preceding Issachar in the blessings because he took bread out of his mouth and gave it to Issachar’s mouth. Thus, one who provides for one with Torah receives blessings from above and from below. Moreover, he is rewarded with two tables, with which no other person is rewarded. He is rewarded with wealth—blessed in this world—and with having a share in the next world.

The Zohar speaks of the types of connections existing between the souls for only this is concealed from us, and this is what we need to reveal. In the connection between the souls, which we reveal, we clarify the picture of forces (desires) of bestowal, the web of connections between them that manifest the degree of their bestowal to one another above the egoistic forces of each particular soul. The connections between the souls are the forces of bestowal, the desires to bestow, while every soul is an egoistic desire to enjoy.

It follows that if we work, everyone in his desire, so as to actualize it in bestowal to others, this means we are working with the right desire (Kli) equipped with a screen so as to be connected in mutual bestowal with everybody. This is the way the system of desires (Partzufim) of every soul works with respect to other souls (Partzufim). Mutual bestowal and its general force, the Creator, become revealed in the connection between them, while within every soul there remains its inherent desire to enjoy.

The Zohar speaks not of the desire to enjoy embedded in each of us, but of what happens between us, where we reveal the web that connects us. Initially, this web is called the world of Assiya, then Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the World of Infinity, where the connection between us has no end or limits. As we strengthen our connection, we reveal the Creator, the Light, inside it.

Therefore, when we read The Book of Zohar we must think of what The Zohar speaks of: the connection between us wherein the Creator is revealed.
[23083]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/10, The Zohar

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The stage of preparation for the revelation of the Upper World stands for the attainment of the property of bestowal. This is because there is Light all around us, and receiving it depends only on the similarity of our desire to it.

Preparation is a complex process that requires the correct approach. First of all, one needs to understand that preparation is possible only in the group because all corrections result from the unification of souls into one common soul. Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Freedom” that love for one’s neighbor is a common principle, the collection of all the corrections. And its entire realization can only be done together.

Secondly, we assume that we can correct ourselves, and when a disturbance comes it  seems like I am supposed to resist it with my own strength. In reality, our work consists of uniting with the Creator, and not in conquering evil; only in this way will evil be defeated. Therefore, I do not run from evil like from the powerful Pharaoh; rather, I use this Pharaoh as a means of uniting with the Creator.

It is written that it was Pharaoh who brought the sons of Israel closer to the Creator. To me Pharaoh is like a reward because it means I have merited his force. Thanks to it, above it, I will unite with the Creator. It is impossible to do without it.

I operate in a system, a field of forces. These forces are neither good nor bad, the question is how I apply them while being between them. Everything depends on my ability to use them for advancement.

This way I never fight alone. At first, I do not have any other “weapon” but the force of analysis. When I correctly use my strength only for analysis, then I correctly identify the situation and am thus victorious using the Creator’s force.

All the situations come from the Creator in order to “train” us, like in an educational game. While “playing,” I only need to find the best means to lead me to another step towards unity and adhesion, towards love of others. In this case I see that all the forces have been summoned to serve me in this. There are no mistakes or malicious intents, only merit and good. I justify everything and I feel that everything is there to help me.

A person must constantly hold this attitude, and then the path is rolled out before him like a red carpet.
[22813]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, “The Righteous Feels Good and the Righteous Feels Bad”

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Question: We are speaking about collective correction. But there are people with a lot of experience in the group who have already been studying Kabbalah for 10-15 years and also those who are just joining it now. How can new members compensate for this enormous distance created by years of studying in order to unite into one group with the advanced students?

Answer: Every person, when he comes to the group, receives from it as much as he invests into it. If we had here Rabbi Shimon with his students who have attained the final correction, you would also receive from them only to the extent of the efforts you apply.

This does not depend on the level of your friends in the group, but on your attitude. You cannot drink from the source of infinite heights since what you receive from it corresponds precisely to the similarity of your properties to it!

Infinity is always right in front of you, but how much do you receive from it? You receive one drop at a time through a tiny opening. Why is that so? It is because you are unable to make a bigger opening (Nekev), you lack the desire (Nekeyva) for it.

This is why the level of the group does not matter. Two hundred years from now, when the world will be closer to the end of correction, will it really be easier for a person joining the group? No, it will not. The Creator, the upper system of governance, cannot forgo even man’s smallest effort because he will lack this effort in the final corrected desire, and it will be incomplete.

Every person will have to complete all the corrections. His time of awakening depends on the order of the correction of souls in the common system. But everyone does the same work.

Subsequently, from the state of Infinity, you will perceive the perfection of calculations of every state for every soul, in absolute equality among everyone, regardless of the part of the common soul of Adam they belong to. This is because every soul attains the entire common soul of Adam.
[22736]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Being”

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I exist in the midst of the force of Light and the force of darkness. In other words, I am between the force of the desire to bestow and the force of the desire to receive. I was given them to correctly unify them. The correct unification of these forces is called the “soul” or “Adam.” I assemble him primarily by utilizing the right line, the line of the Light.

With this force, I turn to the broken egoistic desire that is opposite to the spiritual reality and give it the form of the Light. Hence, desire has to always remain restricted and neutralized: I am not using it with the purpose to receive. It is not mine; it is not I, but something totally alien to me. I rise above it with the power of Light. And then, to the extent of my understanding of bestowal, I give the desire its form.

Only the environment can help me with this. It will constantly guard me from the tricks and temptations of the will to receive that I am working with. The environment will hold me above them by any means possible.

To remain above my desire means to be in the desire of the environment and to be subject to its influence. Identifying myself with the friends and aspiring toward unity and love, I correct the distortion in my perception and anticipate that which seems to be outside of me, thereby beginning to perceive the entire reality within.

Here, every detail and rule exists solely to bring us closer to the correct perception of reality. While connecting together internality and externality, I annul my ego and bring the other person in. That is when the common corrected desire emerges, and I feel the Creator in it.

For as long as I am separated from another, the Creator is concealed; after all, He dwells in our oneness. The final correction will show me that I am the entire reality and the Creator is in it.
[22621]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/10, “What to Look for in the Assembly of Friends”

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Question: Why does everyone remember about 613 commandments, but forget that above all of them there is the singular commandment of love?

Answer: There is only one commandment: a directive to attain love of others since by doing so we prepare the vessel of our soul to be filled with the Light and to attain adhesion with the Creator. To “love others as I love myself” means to unify all of the desires that are opposite and hated by you into one and in doing so, attain the magnitude that would allow you to reveal the Creator and become one with Him. Thus, we overcome the entire abyss that separates us from Him.

This commandment of love is divided into two parts: “repentance from fear” which is the level of Bina and “repentance from love” which is the level of Keter. I have to apply these two gradual corrections to all of my thoughts and desires, one by one.

The first correction is to stop hating the other person. I hate him from the start, but when I correct hatred, I cover half of the distance from the negative state, hatred, to the neutral state, zero. This level is the property of GAR de Bina where I don’t wish anything for myself, having risen over my entire enormous egoistic will to receive. I don’t wish to harm anyone. Even though it is revealed to me that I can, without any consequence, take everything away from others and destroy them, I want none of it; I don’t wish to put a scratch on anyone.

Then, from this level (the spiritual degree of GAR de Bina), I ascend to the level of love and correct my desires to the level of bestowal (the spiritual degree of ZAT de Bina). ZAT de Bina is the womb of a spiritual Partzuf, so I desire to bestow to all and fulfill all desires. In this way, from hate, I attain love.

So it turns out that there is only one commandment of love which we attain in two steps. Initially, we are opposite to love, and before anything else, we have to attain the neutral state. Then we ascend to love.

613 commandments are corrections of one will to receive pleasure, which has many properties and, therefore, requires various corrections although all of them exist to attain love. I must constantly think about this final destination; otherwise, I will not draw the Light that Reforms. Hence, we have to constantly think about the final, corrected state where I, the Light that Reforms me, and the Creator (Israel, the Torah, and the Creator) are one.

It may seem to a person: “Why should I be thinking about the Creator right now? He is so distant from me, so let me fix my relations with the society first!” But we can’t correct anything in society until we draw the Light that Reforms. It is the Light in particular that has to perform corrections, and the Light of correction is, in fact, the Creator, so we can’t forget about Him.

Hence, in all of the “613” corrections, the thought of  love of others (the main commandment of love for the Creator) must always be present. Without it, we do not draw the Surrounding Light and neither correct nor connect anything.
[22637]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: What is the request to unite?

Answer: The only request (MAN) that will be heard and answered Above is the request to unite. No other plea will receive a response! A request must be raised to the place of the breaking which only lacks correction of the breaking: unity. That’s why a call for unity will be immediately fulfilled under the condition that it is right.

The correction occurs depending on how and for what you ask. Suddenly you will take part in it, and then you will understand what is going on. The rest of our requests are simply “screams into the wilderness” that are meant to bring us to the understanding that they are wrong and useless. This is called, “All gates are locked except the gate of tears” which open only to let us unite.

What else can the Upper Force react to if you are supposed to ascend on your own by the middle line and connect the right and the left lines together? Previously, they were connected into one line by the power of the descending Upper Light which “reconciled” the left and right lines, but now the Light has disappeared and the left and right lines have become disconnected. A person has to connect them back together into this point by ascending from below upward because by doing so, he instigates activity from Above.

In the beginning, both lines originated from the Creator and were kept together by His power (this is called Adam HaRishon, the First Man), but as a result of the breaking they separated into the left and right lines. You are in the middle, between them, with a spark that remains from the time of their connection.

If you reveal the need to return back to the same place and raise MAN for that purpose, then you once again summon the action of both forces or, more precisely, compel the Upper Force to influence the same point of connection (Ohr Makif [OM], the Surrounding Light that Reforms).

So, when you raise a request to the point of connection, the point in which the left and the right forces appear, then the power of unity, the Surrounding Light, the Creator that once existed in this point descends to the same place from Above, and all of them come together to reach unity. There is nothing else but this action, and that’s why it is said: “All gates are locked except the gate of tears.”
[22640]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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If I perceive all disorder taking place in the world and in my life in the light of bestowal and not reception, then everything works out and suddenly falls into places. However, if I view it all egoistically, I see multiple problems and a solid line of suffering. Start treating everything with love, and the whole picture will suddenly get pieced together and unify.

Imperfection lies not in the external world, but within me. The entire world is just my shadow (copy), and only my attitude toward it needs to be corrected so as to see the world as perfect. Everything I see in the world as negative is a sign of my own flaws, no matter what it is related to: the still, vegetative, or animate nature, and especially the relationships between the friends.

If I accept, by way of faith above reason, that the whole group, the friends, and the world are perfect and only I am not, then I begin thinking solely about my correction. I lack only connection with them, and therein lies my correction until we all become one whole. This is what is called the love of others.

In other words, I can start working! We were given an illusion that we exist in this world in order for us to start our journey toward unification. However, we are not ready yet to work with the entire world, so we have the group for this job. The group reflects my corrected state, according to the saying, “The group today is you tomorrow.”
[22646]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day

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Before you enter the group, you have the freedom of choice to enter it. After you enter it, you have just one choice: to strengthen your connection with the group. You must decide for yourself that this is your free choice, and you must always continue doing this. Therein lies your freedom!

Freedom is not when I do something I want, but when I continuously add my efforts to this connection. We don’t have any freedom of will in any other regard; everything else will happen automatically.

This is a very important principle. I don’t have any freedom in my entire life. I am a complete puppet. There is freedom of choice only in one regard: After the Creator brings me to the group and gives me a spark in my heart, I have one single freedom: to include myself in the group, to grab onto it with my hands and teeth as much as possible.

Once you "latch on" to the group correctly, you depend on it, on the influence of the environment, and you don’t have freedom in this regard. So where are you free? You are free inasmuch as you add your own effort to strengthen your connection with the environment in spite of your egoism. You thereby increase your dependence on the environment and its influence on you. There is no other freedom but this!

This is the mutual guarantee and we must always add more and more principles to it including love for friends, love for the neighbor, and your justifying them by faith above reason. Everything is inside this freedom of will, this approach by which I attain the goal.

The rest of my life unfolds according to a specific "script." You can even go to a fortuneteller who will be able to tell your future. You can predict everything in advance besides the one thing that belongs to your freedom of will. Everything else is driven by "blind" faith.

It is forbidden to predict the future because then a person might think that he has freedom of will in his regular life. However, if you know that there are no free actions, then the future becomes revealed to you. Yet, you can never reveal the future that relates to your freedom of choice because it depends on you.
[23360]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/12/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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