Question: Does the center of the group change constantly up to the end of correction, or is it that, once we have discovered it, we continue to work with it as it is?

Answer: Nothing stays constant. You must catch it, and it is lost immediately. You have understood something and suddenly nothing is clear again. However, you are happy about this; only then can you discover new details.

One needs to constantly apply effort. A person begins to enjoy what he has attained, the pleasant feeling of confidence and fulfillment, and he does not want to lose it. However, this does not benefit development.

If you want to retain the pleasant moment, then you will turn into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife. This should not be done as according to the spiritual laws, it is demanded of us to constantly add additional clarification and understanding.

That is why we constantly need to aim to strengthen the meaning of the center of the group, not to calm down once something has been attained. We should not aim to return to the past moment.

I don’t need to be recalling now how I once felt and understood. On the contrary, I need to erase all of the old impressions and aim for new ones!
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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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Question: How do we work during a seminar, how do we listen to one another?

Answer: A friend can say things that I might or might not understand. He can say things that I think are great or maybe something foolish. In any case, I now perceive him as a manifestation of a representative of the Creator: The Creator is influencing me through him.

If I am repulsed by my friend’s appearance, expression, the actual meaning of his words, or everything else, I might not perceive him or want him. And this is a wonderful exercise! I need to rise above this! If he is a representative of the Creator, since “There is none else beside Him,” especially at an event like this that we are participating in, then I need to elevate my friend and try to penetrate the spiritual essence through him, which is presenting all of this to me and also presents itself this way. I must rise above myself to a state, where I will perceive everything in it as absolute goodness, absolute bestowal, an absolute spiritual quality—despite anything that I am feeling on the inside, despite the fact that I do not have it.

And it is a very good thing that these two qualities are manifesting in me: my egoistic attitude towards my friend, when everything that I see in him does not take any criticism at all, and on the other hand, on the contrary, when I treat him through faith above reason, as a representative of the Creator, because nothing should come from anyone in the world that might be evil, bad, imperfect. And if it exists in me, then it is mine; I am looking at him with my own eyes.

This is why, if I am able to note these two states in me, then I have already done certain spiritual work. We must put together all the highest and lowest critical states in relation to one another, and we will have a common vessel—Malchut, which is on the bottom and consists only of unpleasant things—and it will keep getting brighter and worse in us, and we will be able to keep rising towards Keter over it. Then we will reach such distance between them, such tension, which will equal the state when the Surrounding Light will turn into Inner Light and shine there. And then we will acquire the first spiritual degree.

What does this do? We raise MAN towards Malchut of the world of Atzilut, which connects us together, and there we establish ourselves for the first time as newborns. And a person cannot be born alone, but only a minimum of ten people.
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Question: Baal HaSulam says in the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 155, that even if we don’t understand Kabbalistic texts, we draw the power of correction, the Surrounding Light, by reading it. So why don’t people who know these texts by heart ever reach attainment?

Answer: They don’t draw the power of correction because the Surrounding Light should turn into the Inner Light when you acquire a Masach (screen), which means the intention to bestow. The question is do you yearn to attain a Masach? Are you drawn to correction? Do you want to reveal the evil inclination? Are you ready to go through this although it is unpleasant? Do you see this as an obligation and a necessity? Do you invest all your energy in the society in order to be under the influence of the friends? Only then will they lift you from your desires and pull you out of this swamp.

When you hate someone you have to make an effort so that you will love him. It is as if he did you wrong and you rise above that although the feeling of hate remains, and you work only for love by wanting to give him more than you give to your own baby.

Do you do that and hold on to this inclination regarding these corrections? If so, you are drawing the Surrounding Light that operates on you and provides you with necessary attribute.

At the same time you are diverted from the path, and you are thwarted by more interruptions, but you still have to advance by subduing yourself before the friends and asking for their help. Thus you evoke the Surrounding Light upon you, yearning for that attribute—for bestowal and love—above hate and rejection. Even if you are absolutely right in all your claims regarding the friends, you still try to advance “above reason.”

As for those you are asking about, they deal with the wisdom and not with the Torah, not with the method of correction in which the Reforming Light is concealed. They read the texts without any connection with the evil inclination that will be revealed or that is already revealed. They don’t come to the lesson in order to correct themselves, and they don’t study the Torah, but wisdom. Therefore it says: “wisdom among the nations, believe.” The “nations” refers to those who don’t want to correct themselves. However, those who want to reach unity are called “Jews,” and this is the whole difference.

Abraham gave “gifts” to the children of the concubines, meaning intermediate methods. They studied for pleasure, received a slight illumination, but didn’t fulfill the correction and didn’t ascend the ladder of the spiritual degrees. Such people study the material by heart, discuss it, argue….

We don’t argue and don’t discuss anything, for us only the Reforming Light is important. It doesn’t matter how much a person knows, what’s important is to keep in contact with the text that brings him the power of correction.

Eventually, however, the correction is everyone’s share, and I don’t underestimate anyone. If a person opens Kabbalah books, even if he walks in the dark, he is still moving forward.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What is the difference between a lesson and a workshop?

Answer: The workshop serves as preparation for the lesson. And so, each lesson should also be similar to a workshop since we must prepare the common intention, the desire to become one, the one corresponding to the unified desire of one force. Without any preceding preparation like this, it would not be the learning of the Torah, but the study of wisdom.

The study of the Torah symbolizes the disclosure of the evil inclination that needs to be corrected. The correction of the evil inclination is the connection with others and the attainment of love, the correction of the breaking. Thus, each lesson needs to become an addition to the workshop and bring us to a higher level.

In the workshops, we learn how to prepare quickly for each lesson. Then, all of our lives will transform into one incessant workshop. This is so that we never lose the feeling of unity and constantly connect more and more.

In this way, we examine all the details in the common Kli and solve all the problems in life as a whole, both corporeal and spiritual. By our acting from within the center of the group, from within our shared feeling, we can perform real miracles.

The workshop is a clarification of our intention, the connection, our necessity to connect between us, mutual guarantee, responsibility, the commitment of each one for the other in the general group, and the obligation in regard to our teachers, the sources, and the entire world. Everything together determines our responsibility and the only obligation to the Creator.

Through our uniting in a circle, we create a place in this central point through which it is possible to break out of the material borders. Everything is in the hands of the group.

Thus, the subject of the discussion is not so important, but the main thing is how we try to connect via the subject. This means that it is just a means of searching after a greater connection.

All the worlds, Partzufim, Sefirot, and Reshimot are clarified only in the center of the group where the steps of the spiritual ladder are revealed. Nevertheless, only now are we starting the work from the beginning.

All of these workshops will go into the archive so that every person in the world can use them to emotionally participate in this work and advance. In the end, the entire world will become one group around one round table, one family.
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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: What kind of an effort do we need during the seminar? Should it be a burst like that of an attack, or a fine internal search?

Answer: The seminar and our path in general are completely based on feelings, since we are clarifying everything inside of our material, the desire to enjoy. The desire perceives itself through feeling, but in order to realize the different states experienced, we need the mind. The mind comes to us only on the elevated levels, when we begin to unite desires in hope of reaching a corrected vessel. And this is when we begin to form our spiritual mind.

Prior to this we are only at the disposal of the earthly, animate mind, which helps us to better serve our egoism. This mind does not ascend higher than the level of this world because the lot of a slave adjusts to his master. That’s why those feelings and the mind with which we exist now are completely limited by the level of this world and don’t have anything pertaining to the spiritual. And here, it’s not important how smart a person is. This absolutely does not relate to the spiritual.

With the new feelings and mind, which do relate to spirituality, we now begin to develop in the search for our common point. This sensitivity must localize in the area where we are connected to each other, in the center of the group. The mind will appear in order to uncover the various subtleties in this and to help us unite. These are already the spiritual feelings and mind, belonging to the spiritual ladder.

That’s why at the seminar the inspiration precisely for unity must reign, and not a simple enthusiasm in the hope of receiving new knowledge and for the development of the self. If I want my awakening and preparation for the seminar to join into this work, then from the very beginning I need to focus myself only towards unity. This means focusing on the importance of unity, the importance of the group and friends, and not to long only to attain something by and for myself. It’s a pity for those who exert such futile efforts, since they will be left out of the circle.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/12, “Talk About the Seminar”

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Question: Although you warned us that we cannot be late to a workshop, we still had latecomers. Did we do the right thing by taking pity on them and accepting them into the common circle instead of making a separate circle for the latecomers?

Answer: It’s baffling how people can allow themselves to be late for a clarification of this kind! It’s the same case as when the Ari invited his students to go to Jerusalem and perform the final correction, but no one came at the appointed hour. I don’t understand how a person can be late to a gathering devoted to spiritual work.

Everything depends only on the preparation, on concentration, on the desire for it to happen. We need to start thinking about it for several hours before the workshop. Nothing will happen without preparation, we need to prepare the desire.

In everyday life, the feeling of hunger and other needs rise up on their own thanks to hormones and natural processes in the body. But when it comes to the spiritual, I myself need to arrange my desire through the environment. There is no desire in me for anything spiritual that would arise on its own like the need for food, sex, money, power, and knowledge do.

I was given only a single point in the heart so that I could develop my spiritual hunger from it. And everything else besides that point needs to come from the environment. Before the workshop, I need to arrange such an environment that it would influence me and I would arrive with an already prepared desire. Otherwise I will miss all the opportunities, as though I’m suddenly invited to a festive meal bursting with food, but I didn’t know and had just eaten a full meal. I look at all this abundance and don’t know what to do with it.

Preparation is essential. Thus, people who come late and burst into a group from a different world, from their job, or from a store; they cause harm. They cannot penetrate the common circle right away, at best only towards the end of the workshop are they able to somehow grasp the common feeling, and they interfere with others for sure.

Therefore, you shouldn’t welcome them with open arms right away, but verify what has happened: Is it truly the most important event in their life? I would not allow latecomers to enter. It’s necessary to take care in advance about not being late since we’re talking about the salvation of the soul. After all, haven’t you come in order to build the place where a soul is received?
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/12, “Talk About the Seminar”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 141: “Now you can understand the meaning of the words, “Forsake Me and keep My law.” They interpreted, “I wish that they had left Me and kept My Torah—the Light in it reforms them.”

There is a link between you and the Creator, the Light, which is your corrupt desire to receive. If you correct it, you will feel the same result called Light or Creator meaning “Come and see” (Boreh in Hebrew) in the same material. The Creator is revealed in your corrected desire according to its correction.

On the whole the method by which you gradually correct your desire in order to feel, understand, and reveal the Creator is called the “Torah.” With its help you evoke a special force, the force of bestowal, that is external to you and which corrects your desire. To the extent that you ask for it, this force changes the desire dressed in it and you feel the Light, the Creator, your sublime state.

This is the only way you can advance. If you don’t ask for the correction and turn to the “Creator” that you have invented, your work will be futile, since it doesn’t match reality.

Question: What is meant by “keep my law”?

Answer: It means that all your actions should be aimed only at the correction of the corrupt vessel according to the principle: “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice for it.”

If you work correctly on the correction of the desire, it begins to take on the form of the Creator. Then you begin to understand, to acknowledge, and to adhere to Him. You have “material” that has taken on a new form, a form of bestowal and love. Thus, through the matter of the desire you reach adhesion with the form of the Creator.

Question: If we are speaking about having to find the point in the center of the group, what does that have to do with “keep my law”?

Answer: It is there, in the center of the group, that you correct your evil inclination. It is there and only there that you discover the Creator, your advanced spiritual states. There is no other place where the evil “matter” of the desire can be revealed except for the center of the group that should be revealed as a mountain of hate, as “Mt. Sinai.”

So by committing to mutual guarantee, to the alliance, and to mutual help, we begin to discover the Reforming Light. This is also called the “receiving of the Torah”: We receive it if we feel that we cannot correct our connection, but we don’t try to run away from the problem. Then we receive the Torah and correct the separation—and then the Creator is revealed.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How should I work with the evil that is being revealed?

Answer: The method of Kabbalah is intended for the correction of our evil inclination, meaning the corrupt desire that is entirely directed to its own benefit, instead of bestowal to another person. This correction helps us to become similar to the Light, to the Creator. According to the similarity of form, the Light becomes clothed in a vessel, and then we sense the upper reality.

Question: What happens in the relationship among the friends when I feel envy or hatred?

Answer: Despite the vices being revealed, you keep going and try to unite with your friends above this corruption. There is nature, but we must be above it. This is how we correct ourselves. We are not destroying the egoism, but we are working above it.

I cannot stand my friend, and I do not wish to interact with him. However, I am trying to connect with him above this rejection.

After all, this rejection is the result of my corrupt, egoistic desire. With my purpose being correction, I try to rise above it and treat my friend in the opposite way, with love.

Both of these forms coexist within me. I recognize my rejection, and, at the same time, I decide to express a different attitude, seeing my friend as a great person.

This is our work.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The confusion you feel after the lesson is good. You’ve gone through many states and don’t know what to do.

Come to our workshop in the evening and talk about your future. To the degree you’re able to unite, you will get an answer. There is no other way to reveal anything.

Let’s hope this is what will happen. So, let us prepare as we get closer to it, think about it more, while expunging all other thoughts so that we could best prepare to unite with the friends.

Also, don’t expect anything from me; anyone could sit here in my place. Everything depends only on the unity among friends. Obviously, I’ll try to guide the direction of the workshop, but it’s all up to you.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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We can feel something new every minute, not just once a year. The point is that many times we receive new things, but cannot feel them. We cannot perceive them since we have no vessel for them.

Miracles happen to us every day, and we find ourselves before “Mt. Sinai.” There are endless innovations because the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) is before us.

Everything depends only on our ability to perceive things, on our vessels. Therefore, a blessed innovation is when a person can feel. Everything is measured with regard to the person who attains, so we must work on our sensitivity, on the vessels.

The Reshimot (informational genes) are constantly evoked inside us. We go through many states, but at the moment, we are developing passively, on the beastly level, unable to feel the essence of these changes, unable to attain the intensity of the level, the connection with the Creator.

The difference in the levels can be compared to buying something new, bringing it home, and putting it in the living room, whether it is a flowerpot or a dog, or someone who came to visit me. This is what we feel when we are brought inside the King’s palace; it all depends on the form we have when we enter it.

Am I an object, a plant, or a living thing? Have I prepared my deficiency so that I can consciously enter the palace and understand where I am, thanks to the equivalence of form, like a human being that resembles the Creator, the host?

It all depends on the preparation of our vessels. We go through many states unconsciously in the form of an inanimate object, a plant, or a living thing, so we don’t feel anything new in them. Only the change a human being goes through is considered an innovation, when he attains, understands and feels in order to resemble the Creator
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/12

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