Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

How Can We Overcome Problems Better?

528.01Question: How can the strongest friends deal with confusion and foreign thoughts without mutual responsibility and a covenant between them?

Answer: How can we overcome all problems better with the help of mutual guarantee? We are obliged to share not what is happening to us, but to discuss what is written about it in the sources, to remind our friends, and thus prevent their wrong actions.

And if they are already experiencing wrong states, then such discussions will help them understand where they come from and how to correct it.

A person cannot move only on one leg, the right one, he must also walk with the left leg. But the left side should be very short.

But when we try to reduce it, we naturally increase its intensity to that extent. The less time the obstacle takes, the more intense it will be, because its strength, multiplied by time, gives a certain additional egoistic power above which we then rise in the right line.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam “There Is None Else Besides Him”

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Playing Spirituality

938.07In our world, which is built not on giving but on receiving, if we create a union of several people who wish to interact with each other in the quality of bestowal, then these people form a structure that can be influenced from outside by the quality of the Creator—bestowal.

Therefore, to begin attracting the quality of the Creator to us, we need to seemingly create a kind of quality of bestowal between us. Seemingly. In reality, it is not the quality of bestowal, but we still act as if it is. Just as children play at being adults, we as egoists, play at spirituality between us.

When each person tries to restrain their egoism and unite with others altruistically, in mutual support, this state is called the mutual guarantee. In this way, we create a certain system of forces.
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From Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/19

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What Moves the Group Forward?

938.02Question: Can we say that our common feeling moves the group forward?

Answer: What moves us forward is precisely our unity in the effort to reveal the Creator within it, which is the most central point, the point of our balance.

When we together wish to bestow to one another and receive from one another in order to maintain dynamic equilibrium, we build a platform from our ten that constantly rises.

Within this process, some experience the egoism of the left line while others experience the bestowal of the right line. In this way, we continuously ascend as if on a disk that varies and elevates due to these movements. The key, however, is the central point of the disk where we are all united. It is in this unity through our connection with the Creator that we reveal Him.

At the place where the Creator is revealed, we begin to construct a Partzuf with the help of restriction (Tzimtzum), a screen (Masach), and a striking connection (Zivug de Hakaa) with the Creator. All of this must be mastered by us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam “There Is None Else Besides Him”

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Like a Pendulum

630.1Question: The unification of the right and left lines is similar to a pendulum. How can we guide it more quickly to the point where one transforms into the other and regardless of the amplitude, create a mechanism to help transform it into the middle line?

Answer: Indeed, on the spiritual path, we are like a pendulum swinging from side to side. First, it moves to the negative, toward the left side, accumulating egoism within us. Then, as we work in the group, study, and engage in dissemination, we draw the upper light causing the pendulum to swing to the right.

How can we increase the amplitude so that the pendulum swings in proportion to our actions and we gain control over it? This can only be achieved in the ten. There is no other way.

If we desire to be similar to the Creator, it must be through our mutual interaction within the group. For this, at least two people are needed: one works against the egoism of the other, which in turn means working against one’s own egoism. After all, as soon as someone appears before me, my egoism is triggered. Otherwise, I am in a purely animalistic state, merely seeking corporeal fulfillment.

It is only when I am faced with someone like myself and feelings such as envy, jealousy, competition, or various mutual relationships arise between us that true egoism is activated. It is through this that I can move forward.

The only way to accelerate this process is in a group, understanding that this is our collective challenge and acting accordingly.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam “There Is None Else Besides Him”

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Where Is the Fulcrum?

938.03Question: The fulcrum in spiritual work our inner feelings: is what we consider bestowal,  bestowal for us?

Answer: Our spiritual fulcrum is not a sensation within ourselves, but a feeling found in the center of the group.

It appears, disappears, and reappears depending on our efforts. Yet, it is precisely this point that serves as our support.

There cannot be a point of support within me personally as that would simply be some egoistic point. I need it too, I must feel it, but it is not the fulcrum.

The fulcrum is outside of me, in the center of the ten. When we strive to find this shared central point among us, it becomes a profound discovery—the center of the soul.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam “There Is None Else Besides Him”

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Work at the Congress

942Question: What can serve as additional glue for our group on the eve of such a unique event as the congress?

Answer: What can be the glue for a group on the eve of such a momentous event as a congress? This is a problem.

Let us say this is your group; you know each other well and you want to enter and leave the congress many times stronger. How can I use it for this? Do you want to stay at the congress as a separate group or, conversely, to mix views with everyone? What is the best way?

On the one hand, it is desirable to dissolve into everyone. That is, you go there, you go here, and so on. Not even to meet with my friends from studies of Kabbalah during the entire congress, “I want to absorb everything from everyone through the pores of my body, inhale completely everything that is in everyone, to dissolve into them.”

Or maybe it is better if I do this in my group, when we go on the attack in a ten to get everything from the others and give everything we can to them.

Frankly speaking, I do not know what to answer, and I do not hide it, because in Kabbalah it is impossible. You must understand my doubts. And although I have enough of them too, I still need to combine one with the other.

We always have an inner light and an ambient light, a connection of striking (Zivug de Haka’a), two opposites in the middle line. How can they be connected? I do not know. But the principle is the same as two incongruous, completely inconsistent concepts, attitudes, actions, thoughts, or desires, and they must come together. How is it done?

The best thing would be if after each lesson, after visiting another ten, you gathered together for at least 15 minutes or half an hour, exchanged impressions, and discussed what you learned from communicating with others among yourselves. To do this you do not have to wait for the end of the congress, but continue to connect with each other along the way.

I do not know if there will be time for this at the congress, but I think we should try. This would be the right combination of general dissolution with the personal assembly. Do not leave everything for after the congress, but it is here that such instant combinations are carried out: outside-inside, outside-inside.

I would recommend this to all tens. In principle, based on what I understand in Kabbalah, this is the most optimal approach: combine one with the other and always strive for the middle line.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/19, “Questions and Answers”

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The King of Sodom—Intention “For Oneself”

200.02The spirit and the soul mean the intention in the matter. This is why the King of Sodom said, “Give me the soul,” meaning the intention of a person, why he engages in Torah and Mitzvot, this will be for him (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 374, “He Touched the Hollow of His Thigh”).

Question: The King of Sodom says: “What is yours is yours, what is mine is mine.” Why does he need a true intention? Why does he ask for it?

Answer: He wants to make a person like himself. At each stage, a person reveals the “King of Sodom” in himself, but this state will not become apparent until a certain measure has accumulated in him.

Question: How should we relate to the negative characters in the Torah, such as the King of Sodom? Should we discuss it in the ten?

Answer: Why not? You can discuss it and find out how much you are still in the egoistic line or no longer in it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/24, Writings of Rabash “He Touched the Hollow of His Thigh”

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How Can You Awaken Yourself?

938.04If emotions burn out and disappear, it means that you are not integrated in the group, and you are not reading Shamati. Something is happening to you, and you are disconnected.

Sometimes a person goes through such states that he is as if dead, and nothing changes. These states need to be shortened somehow, by being physically present in the group, by physically doing something, and most importantly, by physically engaging in dissemination: “If I cannot do anything else, I will go and convince other people. I cannot convince myself, but I can convince others.”

When you use your egoism to convince others that Kabbalah is good, you are thereby convincing yourself.

And one more thing: teach students, those who are ready to listen. Act. This is the best way out of all problems.

You rise depending on how much your students gain from you because by this you expand your soul, and they are connected to you. You will see how you gather around yourself, not strangers, but the parts of your soul. If they respond to you, then you will feel that they are the closest to you in the structure of the soul. And then move forward.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/19, “Questions and Answers”

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How to Get the Most out of the Convention

938.02What can be done to be ready for the convention, to gain the most from it, and to give the most to it? How should everyone together and each one individually prepare for it?

During the convention, you should gather among yourselves. Do not disconnect, as if you are absent or completely dissolved, but focus on the idea that we are all moving toward a common goal. Absorb the maximum spiritual energy from this source.

Therefore we support one another, gather from time to time, and through this become even more united. By dissolving into others, we take in everything from them into ourselves.

Despite this, after absorbing the impressions of the collective convention, we gather again within our ten.
These movements “outward–inward, outward–inward” should not only strengthen us, but recreate us anew. Then your small group will leave the convention having absorbed everything from the world Kli. This is what you should aim for.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/19, “Questions and Answers”

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Before and After the Shattering of Adam

264.01We must think about how to absorb the quality of bestowal and love, the quality of connection, in order to connect the general system Adam” into a single whole.

Initially, we were assembled in the system of Adam without egoism, and then it entered us. Therefore the Creator says: “I created evil, and I created light to correct it.” The creation of evil means that the entire system was shattered into tiny particles and egoism appeared between them, like water that flows into cracks in the land and divides it.

So what should I do? By correcting ourselves we do not destroy egoism, but in spite of it we create connections between us. Therefore our connections are 620 times stronger than before. After all, the system  of Adam before the shattering was very weak. It existed like a small animal or like a small child, in the state of Katnut (small state).
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/19, “Questions and Answers”

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620 Times More