Question: How is it possible to hold on to the same feeling of unity that was born among us during the workshop?

Answer: We should always look for what the term “center of the group” means, whether it is a kind of feeling, an understanding, a vessel, or the revelation of the Creator. This question shouldn’t wane; it is as if this tempting and attractive point is playing with us, hiding and then revealing itself to us. In response to this courting, you are constantly burning with desire and chasing this point, like a person in love.

We should constantly clarify the feeling of unity that was born by penetrating into it deeper and deeper, investing into more mind and feeling, the forces of connection, and revealing different details. The connection that we attain is varied and includes many particularities, elements, and parameters. Therefore, it constantly disappears and reveals itself.

The type of exertion the friends invest in this is crucial, no matter if they succeed or not. Thus we influence one another, and this is all our work.

But it isn’t just an aimless search in total darkness. We have to clarify in advance what we are looking for. If we cannot imagine what the center of the group is, it means that for the time being “Israel, the Creator, and the Torah” are not perceived as one point by us. This indicates that we don’t understand what the goal, the connection, and the mutual guarantee are—it is still impossible to perceive this on the part of the Light and on the part of the vessel. All these discernments do not intersect at one point for us yet. But that’s fine since we’ve nevertheless started the real work.

If the feeling of unity is attained, we should try not to lose it after the workshop is over. If everyone constantly thinks about it, no one will lose this feeling. Everyone will be under the influence of the general field that we have created, and they will not be able to free themselves of this thought even if they want to. Even if the external conditions around a person pull him aside, it won’t happen.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/2012, Talk about the Seminar

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Question: You are saying that the center of the group is Malchut of the world of Atzilut. Does it exist now, when we only study these things theoretically?

Answer: These things exist only when you attain them. Up until then, they stay in potential.

For example, you have a newborn son, and the potential for all the following generations that will come from him exists within him. They don’t exist yet, even in the drop of his semen, but they still are provided for by the program of a higher order. That is the “potential existence”: There is a program above us, a cause and effect order, and we can change nothing in it. Gradually, this potential is being realized.

Everything that happened with everyone up until now was transformed from potential into reality. Thus, good and evil are similarly conditioned by the upper program; it couldn’t be any other way. With regard to the past, we are all fatalists.

When it comes to the future, we can change it. We should not have faith in fate here. It is true that Reshimot (the informational genes) will certainly realize, and the Lights will certainly be opposite them, but I define their relationship through my efforts. If my desires are equivalent to the Lights, to that extent I change my sensation on this path, up to the opposite one, and then I move forward comfortably at a good rate. This is what is meant by “changing fate.”

Everything is determined by the rate of advancement. If you slow down the realization of the Reshimot, they cause very unpleasant sensations in you, as compared to the accelerated option. Even the most joyful tune sung slowly sounds like a mourning march and vice versa. By accelerating time, it is as if you convert your sensations from negative to positive.

The world today is going through the crisis for the same reason. It is as if people are shocked by what is happening and unable to make the necessary decisions. This is because the rate of development suddenly increased, but man has not adjusted yet.

I am not “round,” not integral. I cannot take into account numerous parameters simultaneously. Everywhere, something is happening, everything is interconnected, but I am still trying to go along the line laid out by my egoism. We cannot get along with the modern world because our rhythms do not coincide with each other.

Thus, the end of correction is predetermined; however, how I realize my development depends on me: whether it is through the path of suffering or the path of sensible, conscious advancement. The rate determines everything.

That is why it is said that Israel accelerates time. Realization of the same Reshimot could be accompanied by positive sensations or fatalities, wars, epidemics, and other misfortunes that will force us toward the next step. Everything depends on preparation, for lessons as well as for life.

As it is written, “I awaken the dawn, and the dawn does not awaken me.” We must desire the realization of new Reshimot since each of them is an opportunity to rise toward greater bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/2012, “Introduction to TES“

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Question: Is there a difference between making a covenant with the Creator and with a friend?

Answer: There is no difference, but with the Creator this is possible only on the condition that the covenant is authentic and eternal. However, with a friend this might just be a game for now. This is the entire difficulty, that in spirituality only a perfect desire is accepted, meaning one that is absolute and eternal and that you definitely won’t go back on.

If a person ascends to the next degree, this means that his demand or request for it was accepted as perfect, meaning that he really wants this.

We continually renew our covenant, as if making it anew. But if a person rises to a certain degree of the covenant, then he cannot fall from it anymore. When it seems to me that I fall, this means that I am receiving more difficult conditions to preserve the covenant, like a renewed contract. And I am a loss as to where to get the forces to continue that contract.

The Creator constantly makes the conditions harsher, while we have to adapt to this renewed contract on new conditions. However, if a person uses the group, the studies, and dissemination correctly, then he also finds additional desires and forces, he values the new state as a higher one, and therefore overcomes the difficulties.

We have to view everything happening in life from this point of view. All of the worst and stupidest situations come to us for one purpose: to teach us something and move us forward.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How should one use the workshop in order to see the world through the prism of the group?

Answer: It will happen when you create a point of connection. This means that the force that is created between us will reach such an intensity that it will not let us disconnect from it. I will constantly want to be within it. I will understand that only from there can I judge everything within the light of truth and not be mistaken.

Only what I see through the shared focus of the group, the central point of the circle, constitutes the real world. In this way, I can judge and never be incorrect in my judgment.

All of this will be revealed to a person. Thus, he will not want to leave this connection, but will constantly aspire only to strengthen this same point of our unity. In this way, we begin to ascend the levels.

To the extent that we join together and intensify our connection, both quantitatively and qualitatively, we rise higher and higher on the spiritual ladder until we discover the Creator and the connection between us in the form of Partzufim and Sefirot. Then, we begin to see how everything that is described in the sources takes place between us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions” 

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Question: During the workshop should we stress the point that we want to achieve in the beginning and the conclusion we have reached in the end?

Answer: In general, we should always draw a conclusion. The fact is that we don’t have enough time to ask everyone what conclusion he has come to and to give him an opportunity to share his impressions and what he has accomplished. But in any case, everyone should be making a conclusion.

It would be good if everybody would write about their impressions and wishes and would send them to our general email address. It doesn’t matter if you don’t receive a response. The fact that you are writing to our single general email address and are trying to add it to our common bank, and you reacted to this somehow this will receive a reaction.

At the end of the workshop it is desirable to hear impressions from each group, but if many groups participate in a workshop we at least need to hear impressions from a few of them.

The workshop ends with a common song, a melody. Those who have an opportunity can signify the end of the workshop with a small festive meal.
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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Question: What should I do if during the seminar I’m thinking a lot about unity, but it’s difficult for me to feel it?

Answer: Our work is happening between the feelings and the mind, in the middle line. One needs to keep to this middle line in one’s thoughts, desires, intentions, and relationships, in everything. A one-way bias in any direction is not acceptable. Since all of this is being revealed in creation opposite to the Creator, it must be revealed in the middle line.

The whole of the nature exists only thanks to the fact that it is in some medium, the intermediate states between the absolute plus and minus, in a balance between extreme states.

However, on the human level, balance is not reached by averaging, like it is on the still, vegetative, or animate levels, but by the means that the minus and the plus are uniting together! The left and the right lines do not balance themselves out in the middle, but are united at the center, and that is why this middle line turns out to be on a higher level than their simple sum. This is the difference between the middle line in our world and in the spiritual.

It needs to be understood that all of these concepts, which we are studying on ourselves, will arrive at a balance and will provide the right approach for us towards the solution of any kind of problems.
[78484]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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Question: It says in the Torah: “I am thy Lord,” what does it actually mean?

Answer: It means that the Creator controls everything. If you consider any thoughts, or desires that you have or actions that you perform as your own, it is only because you are confused and have the illusion that it is you. Actually “you” don’t exist at all.

Question: So when do I become myself?

Answer: If I become equal to Him, then He and I “sound” in unison. My self actually doesn’t exist. My free will, my independence, is only to perform consciously and willingly what the Creator does with me.

I am merely a “zombie,” but I was given the chance to grow a “head,” a mechanism, an understanding, and a recognition so that I will understand where I am, who created me and who performs all these actions. I am given that so that I will agree or disagree with His actions, so that I will accept Him and feel Him as good, will identify with Him and will only want His full control. Then I will see that He withdraws and doesn’t want to control me because now I want to control myself exactly as He controlled me and no other way.

This means that I am in adhesion with Him. He makes room for me to the extent that I agree with Him. He created me, I am totally under His control, and He only wants to build this “head” from me, the understanding and the recognition, so that I will resemble Him, and be like Him.

With this goal I can join the game—I constantly agree or disagree with Him alternately, in order to understand Him through these changes and eventually to want only His control over me with my heart and soul.

In any case, we are never detached from the Creator—He is the first and He is the last, and there is none else besides Him. The only thing missing is our recognition of the force that controls us.

Question: But doesn’t a father want his son to be independent? Doesn’t he leave his hand leave him alone for a moment? Can’t we operate on our own even in bestowal?

Answer: If the Creator left us we would disappear from HaVaYaH, from existing. He creates the illusion of whether I agree or disagree with His actions in order to allow the growth of a “head” in addition to the “stomach.” First you worried about filling your desires, and now you are given doubts, and a space is opened from which He seems to be absent. Thus the Creator raises you in small portions of imaginary independence, while you may be satisfied or dissatisfied with His control.

And so, in contrast to religions, we arrive at a critical clarification and examination and eventually reach an agreement, and from that we reach adhesion when the Creator’s control over us is felt as undividedly good and absolute. This actually stems from the initial disagreement and my rejection of His actions. “As the benefit of the Light from the darkness”—I constantly try to clarify things, have doubts and resent the Creator, disagree with Him and curse Him, until I reach adhesion with Him.

This is why it says that “the opinion of the Torah is opposite from the opinion of the landlords.” A person who develops by the wisdom of Kabbalah seems like an actual “offender,” since he goes through such doubts and serious questions, but without this he cannot reach adhesion.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: The human psyche is designed so that it allows a person to accurately estimate the time of speaking: If he is given three minutes, he will talk for three minutes; if he is given an hour, he will talk for an hour.

What time allotment is better: a little shortage of time or should it be sufficient for everyone to speak?

Answer: Certainly there should be a little lack of time, but it should be just a little. It is not good when people feel that they only just started talking.

Usually each question winds in a spiral: becoming deeper, and better, and more. Therefore, there is never enough time.

However, we have to understand that in general this is given to us only with a purpose to “kick off” the unity between us, but then all of it should be passed into the daily lesson. There we realize everything that we created, that we begot during the workshop.
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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Question: What is the elevator by which we rise to the center of the group?

Answer: I rise by absorbing the desires and aspirations of all the friends. I subdue myself and raise the others by seeing them as more important than me, and thanks to that, I receive power from them.

This power pushes me and enables me to adhere to the center of the group correctly. First, it helps me imagine this center, because I am always confused and keep losing this concept. I have to hold on to it like to a gun sight and constantly correct myself.

We started from this central point because we will deal with it all the time. We grow only on its basis, starting from this point and rising higher and higher. The growth doesn’t simply represent a physical height, but an increasingly growing concentration of the inner connection.

Therefore, in the future workshops, we have to clarify what a desire, a feeling, and an attainment are, how they are connected and to what extent, so that we can attain our root in them, the Creator.

This is practical work which we have to perform all our life and not only in the workshops. I am constantly in a workshop with myself: before the lesson, after the lesson, 24 hours a day, in order to connect “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator.” I have to listen to the friends, not just when they say certain words, and hear what their hearts say. I receive all these impressions through the center of the group, through everyone.

The Creator treats us as a corrected system, but I can’t see it this way. Instead I judge it according to my deficiencies. If I correct my egoistic defect just a little, I will join the corrected concept of the group, as the Creator sees it. In order to do that there is no need to wait for the specific time of the workshop: Our whole life is a workshop called internal work, the work of the Creator!
[78967]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/12, ”Talk About the Workshop”

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Question: What do we give birth to together in the common center of the group?

Answer: Every time in the center of the group, we give birth to the force of connection, unity, guarantee, bestowal, and love above our egoism, on its foundation, but rising above it. And so, we create the condition for the revelation of the upper Light, a place for the revelation of the Creator. It is called Shechina, because Shochen, the Creator, ascends the throne in it.

The center of the group, from the perspective of desires, is a sensation of the extent to which we want to connect all these desires together. Man sees that the whole world depends on him, and on the other hand, he sees the extent to which he depends on the whole world. It is a twofold feeling. One moment, I feel myself standing in front of a perfect system; the next moment, I see that the system is all broken because of lack of my participation in it.

We always reveal two polar opposite qualities. But by reconciling them by compensating with the upper Light, we reach the middle line. This middle line includes in itself a multitude of components; it is not necessarily a direct path but something in the middle between the right line and the left line. It is not simply their averaging-out but their compensation of each other to 100%. A 100% thief and a 100% altruist-philanthropist connect in the middle point and use both qualities in all their force, not by half.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/12, “Talk About the Workshop”

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