Question: In the convention in the desert we wanted to receive such energy that would enable us to reach connection. I think we actually succeeded?

Answer: I think that the convention was special since we’ve achieved a certain level of adhesion, and the Reshimo (reminiscence) from it remain in us, in the whole group and in each of us individually.

What takes place in spirituality doesn’t disappear, and this Reshimo symbolizes the spiritual vessel among us. Everyone feels it to some extent, more or less, but this vessel already exists. It has already been born! But in such a way that we have to make some more efforts in order to clarify it, to reveal it, and to feel it more and more clearly.

We should relate to this general vessel as to the Shechina (Divinity), to the place for the revelation of the Creator. The stronger we connect, the more contentment we bring Him. Thanks to our connection, the connection of our desires, we can bring the Creator contentment and so we begin to feel the Light in our desires, and accordingly we will feel our spiritual ascent and the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.

We should be more sensitive, pay more attention, and treat more subtly the general feeling that was born inside us.

None of us should stop for even a moment in one place. It all depends on changing the intentions and not on the number of actions. This means that it depends on our attitude toward the connection and unity we’ve achieved.

We have achieved unity and have created a vessel, and now the question is: “What do we do with it now?” This is the most important thing: a qualitative change in our work with it. This is the clarification, the search for a permanent solution.

You will have to think about that yourself. If I tell you about it now, I will be stealing your exertion. It is like bringing a child a box with a Lego toy and then pushing him away and starting to put the Lego blocks together myself.
[71517]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/12, Shamati #35

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We must not be ashamed of weakness, thinking that weakness can cool our desire for advancement. There is a “gate of tears” on every step, which only opens after the realization of one’s own helplessness. And how could we even have the ability? After all, advancement happens through additional power of bestowal. We do not have it; we must acquire it.

This is why I am right to discover that I have no ability to advance. And I am also right to discover that I have no desire to advance. What happens next? Just one thing: the right appeal to the Creator through the group for Him to correct the connection between us is made. And then, each time this is done, a new stage of our unity becomes revealed.

A person is unable to do anything on his own. No matter how strong he sometimes thinks he is, no matter how certain he is that he will attain everything; he will fail at everything. It is written: “Do not believe in yourself until the day you die.”

This is why having a group, which constantly awakens the person, is a necessary condition. And for this reason, when a person does not know how to advance and becomes desperate the person’s pride is usually to blame, thus he is unable to receive support from the group.

There is nothing to be ashamed of here; the person just needs to work with it. But essentially, this is the only disturbance. There is an enormous strength in the group. Like in the tale about Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma. He was a great Kabbalist in his generation, and his students were very simple people. But he received a lot of strength from them since he knew how to work with them. And he was a great person! And this tale speaks of small people.

This is why when a person says that the Creator is not helping him, it is his pride speaking. How does it manifest? It is in his inability to cancel himself before the environment to receive the value and greatness of spirituality from it, and to then perceive the power of the Creator who helps him and the realization of the greatness of spirituality.

This is why there is no reason to cry over disturbances. It is written: “My soul shall weep in secret” in concealment, in darkness. Crying is good, but everything depends on what you are crying about: Do not cry over not having help; there is help. You need to cry over the fact that your pride is not letting you lower yourself a little before your friends, the Creator, and receive help from them.
[71614]
From the Arava  Convention 2/24/12, Lesson #4

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Question: I made all the effort to connect with my friends at the convention, but I failed. When it started raining in the middle of the night, I asked the Creator why He opens the skies but will not open my heart? It must be because I “did not ask for it”… So what should we do, continue these exercises or already understand that we are unable to connect on our own and must turn above for help?

Answer: How can you turn above for help if you have not yet become disappointed in your efforts? What if instead of becoming disappointed, you manage to connect?

Every moment you will continue becoming disappointed; these disappointments must open before you in the forms of your broken vessel. Disappointment is not given to torture you and make you creep on your knees to cry out with your last breath to receive help from the Creator. This is not the purpose.

It is a known fact that you cannot do it on your own, but you must gradually collect these disappointments to discover the depth of your desire this way. They show the depth of your spiritual vessel; this is why you cannot escape them. The Creator collects all your efforts and saves them until the day, the special state, when they all collect into one whole vessel.

It is like saving money in this life, adding a dollar at a time. In our spiritual life, you must also collect your disappointments, your failed attempts, and learn from the way they all add up. But you must keep all this inside you, and appear full of strength to the group.

You must be so meticulous and put so much effort into collecting your disappointments, like a small child putting money in his piggy bank. They will later give you the flavor because “the benefit of the Light is attained in darkness.” You gather and collect these dark moments, which at the end connect in all different forms into such darkness that you are able to distinguish the Light. Light itself does not have a form—just the vessel you build for it.
[71638]
From the Lesson #4 of the Arava Convention Lesson 2/24/12

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Question: What is the right way to turn to the friends for help so they would ask the Creator to open my heart, and how should I carry out this request when a friend asks this of me?

Answer: All religions have a custom where a small person addresses a great rabbi or priest, asking him to pray in his stead and paying him money for it. And the latter then turns to the Creator with his request.

But just think: How is it possible to obtain a vessel, a place for revealing the Creator, if you have not built, felt, and realized it yourself yet? How can someone else create this instead of you, having a different root of the soul? How can they make the request and work for you? This is simply impossible. One person cannot do this for another.

Every person has his own root of the soul, so how can someone else, having a different root of the soul than me, carry out my work? He does not have the basis that I have, and neither does anyone else. We can only strengthen and complement one another, but no one can do the work for you.

But in that case, what does it mean to pray for the friends? When we pray for a friend, we ask all together for help to come to him. But after that he has to figure everything out on his own. It’s as if we are bringing him the medicine, our help. And after taking that medicine he can join us with greater force and become our partner. But no one can direct a request upward for someone else.

We can only unite all together and help one another. Therefore, a friend does not turn to the Creator instead of you asking for your correction. He can ask for help for your sake so you would receive the force and begin realizing it yourself.

That is exactly how we act in relation to the whole world, and this is how Kabbalists acted when writing their books for us, through which they conduct the Light to us. This is how every one of us acts in relation to another person. We depend on one another, bringing the Light of correction and fulfillment to one another. But we do not do the work for one another.

Everything happens only between you and the Creator, but with the help of the group. Through the group you come to the Creator. You attain the Creator personally, individually, but through the group.

If a friend turns to you for help, you connect with his desire and your desire becomes twice as big. And then you connect the desires of other friends to it, more and more. It’s preferable to have at least ten people, according to the ten Sefirot in the vessel, and then we make a request all together.

That is why there is a custom to gather at least ten people to pray around a sick or deceased person.
[71635]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #4, 2/24/12

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Question: You say that we should feel what The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) talks about, but to me it seems totally unrealistic. I’ve never felt what is behind these words, such as: “Partzufim,” (faces) “Sefirot,” “Bet D’Hitlabshut,” “Aviut,” (coarseness). Reading The Zohar and the essays arouses a feeling in me, but TES is like “a desert”; I have nothing to cling to. What am I doing wrong, after all I’m trying with all my strength?

Answer: What? You really don’t feel what Bet D’Hitlabshut is? It’s as if a cloud has clothed in you and released you from the burden of the ego, and suddenly you’re floating above the ground. It’s such a force that gives you the ability to detach from the ground, from your will to receive. Aviut, the coarseness, is obvious to all; it’s as if additional weights have been put on you.

Now think, what additional force you need from Above to elevate you along with all the extra burden you now have chained to your legs, and that is how you grow.

It only refers to the relationship between both desires: receiving and bestowal, two forces painting your entire reality, depending on which is greater and in what form they exist.

The same thing takes place in our world in which there are only two forces, “plus” and “minus,” stabilizing everything that exists. Whatever you feel consists of two opposite forces. And you feel them particularly as a result of their oppositeness, to the extent of which you can discern their oppositeness in all types of forms. Our entire reality is based on that, other than that we know nothing.

Actually, there are numerous additional things, but we simply aren’t capable of imagining them. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains the simple truth to us: Two forces exist and are constantly in all sorts of relationships between them.

And I stand in the middle between them and can determine the situation myself. First, I need to catch both of them and hold them. Now, I can decide how to manage them in order to paint a world for myself as I like!

At first, I need to see that no world exists. I have frozen this picture right now, as if I stopped a scene in a movie and there’s nothing else, the film doesn’t move on. And now I reveal how I can build a world like Harry Potter’s adventures by myself.

I build it myself, there I have all the means (desires), there is order to the actions, the rules. However, I learn this program and accordingly compose the reality by myself, as much as I can. The more I penetrate deeper, the more options I have until Ein Sof (Infinity), actually, from pole to pole. So, you can’t imagine anything else because you, yourself, are built in that form. Thus, you don’t feel any limitations in what you’ve been given.

In the meantime, you have been given one reality: small, beastly and temporary, so that you’ll learn to catch it, hold it and begin to build everything onward from it, whatever you wish. You have been given a single image, a frame in a movie; onward, proceed onward!

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches you this construction. It only includes two forces and a system that you are told operates based on the relationship between both forces: Hitlabshut (clothed) and Aviut (coarseness), the force of the Light and forces of the desire. Everything changes according to their cooperation, at one time one force increases, and another time the other does. You are taught the basic rules of the work with them.

Indeed, before you matured and emerged into life in this imaginary, corporeal world, you were taught how to exist in it. It’s the same regarding the spiritual world as well. Only instead of one small image, flat and temporary in this life, the entrance inside is being revealed to you. Would you like to? Go in!

However, it’s on the condition that you build your world by yourself. The spiritual world has no form of its own; you are the one painting it. You are ready, please, go in. You are given two forces to use to build in accordance with the extent of your equivalence of form with the Creator.

You may say that you’re limited somehow because you already get a certain image upfront. Truly, that is where your ability to choose is determined, yet you also won’t need anything else. If you choose the best relationship of current conditions to the extent of your abilities each time, then you’ll always build the steps of the ladder higher up and you won’t feel any limitations in them.

In our world, you actually feel yourself limited in everything. Here there are directions, but not there. Everything is open before you.

Thus, while studying TES, we constantly try to feel more. It’s a kind of physics of the upper world, and of course, we learn very dry, technical details: The Light expands, the desires act among them. However, that’s only because we don’t live in that world and don’t reveal it in our desires; hence, we perceive them as dry. Just understand that we’re learning how to build a world for each and every one!
[68856]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: Today an expert has to study his whole life in order to “catch up” with the changes in his field. One way or another, science discovers accurate absolute laws. Do such laws exist for those who yearn for spirituality? For example, are there clear, unchanging formulas without which we will not attain our goal?

Answer: What are you actually studying in the lessons? We can describe our egoistic desire as a “box.” This is the material. Above it there is the intention of in order to receive, and that is the problem. The material of the desire is stable, unchanging. It is only the intention that changes by changing all of our reality.

So ignore the material, it is unchangeable. But if you change the intention, then the feeling within the material will change drastically. You will be able to do that only by evoking it to change.

Today we fill ourselves by the egoistic intention. It is among us in our mutual relations. The desire to receive is aimed at itself; it wants to receive in order to receive. As a result, we all feel reality in the form of “this world.”

There are five phases between the intention of in order to receive and the intention of in order to bestow, or 125 steps. It is only about the intention! If I learn to use it correctly, a greater desire is revealed time after time. This is how I transcend the “Machsom” (barrier), I restrict myself by keeping myself from treating others badly, then I build a good attitude towards others, and then I bestow upon them. Then it turns out that others, and in fact the whole “field of work,” is actually myself that is gradually revealed to me.

All this is according to the stabilization of the intention. There is nothing we should worry about except the intention. The only remedy is to evoke among us a concealed internal power that will change our intention. Then, gradually, in our environment, we will discover the worlds of Assyia, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the world of Ein Sof. We will discover them here, among us, and not somewhere in unknown distances.

I should only discover an attraction, a vector inside my desire that is aimed at changing the attitude to others, which is the intention. Let’s hope we succeed in preparing and doing that in the Arava convention in the desert.
[68250]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, The Zohar

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Question: Suppose that during the time of our interaction we are singing, having put our hands on each other’s shoulders, and someone accidentally squeezes my shoulder until I feel pain. Can I tell this person that he is hurting me? Or must I endure it and work with this pain?

Answer: In this specific example, I would say that you need to endure it.

I must understand that this person is expressing himself in this way. I must rise above my feeling so that my kind relationship towards him would result in the neutralization of pain.

We know that all of these are perceptions, and I would not have felt pain if a person close to me would cause me this, for the sake of saving him. Isn’t it so? I would not have felt pain then. I would understand the necessity for this and it would neutralize the pain, meaning that the goal would justify the means.

This is how one needs to come to this. However, since we are still talking about the levels of our development, then in the process of interaction, perhaps, it is possible to somehow tell about one’s feelings.

But in general as people develop, they arrive at such a state, when any relationship, however it may be on the outside, is perceived by them correctly.
[71275]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #10, 12/16/11

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It says: “There are many thoughts in a man’s heart, but the salvation of the Creator comes in the blink of any eye.” So all our claims are justified, but they should all come down to one claim: We need to reveal the Creator; otherwise, we have no chance to understand, feel, advance, or achieve success. This means that we cannot remain the way we are, not understanding anything and not reaching anything, and we cannot come out of this state.

This desperate, hopeless state is the best; it is exactly the way things should be. It is the revelation of the vessel that really needs treatment. But it has to be revealed as a result of clarifying the problems, the intentions, the “there is none else besides Him” from the start, that everything that I do is in order to reveal the Creator. What do I need it for? Because this is the goal of creation and I bring Him contentment by that.

The revelation of the Creator can only be in our collective vessel, in a collective desire. We build this collective desire from the points in the heart, which we connect when we rise above ourselves. Except for the points in the heart, everything else is our beastliness, and we lower it downwards. Thus we clarify the total structure of our general soul. That’s the way it should be.

The revelation of the Creator takes place unintentionally, which means in great confusion, and it is good. We should only hold on to the thought, to the intention, to the search, and add it to the joy of “what kind of work we, of all people, were given.” You may be dreaming of another place, of sitting at home in front of the TV, in an armchair, watching some series, or something like that. But just think of how special you are of all the billion people in the world, in order to help them, in order to discover Him, in order to serve the friends and in that to find peace and joy.

Now I’ve probably confused you even more….
[71265]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #2, 2/23/12

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Question: Since I came to the convention I am talking with the “Pharaoh” in me; I ask him questions and he answers me. He says: “whatever you do, you are enjoying it.” I go to work in the kitchen, Pharaoh says: “it doesn’t matter, you are still enjoying it.” If I clean the toilets, I enjoy that too. Finally I say to Pharaoh that I have one goal for which I came to the convention, another goal to reach the state in which everyone is connected. Pharaoh in me says that even this connection I am waiting for, is eventually for me. If so, what should I do?

Answer: Enjoy! I say this seriously. If I can do different things for the society, both physical and mental, to think about them all the time and to enjoy it, that’s wonderful. Who says that we have to suffer?

But after several such actions, you will suddenly see that you don’t enjoy it anymore. Suddenly you will ask: “What do I need all this for, why?” and so on. Then “Pharaoh” is revealed.

At first there are the “seven years of satiation,” everything is nice in an egoistic manner. Indeed, your Pharaoh is right, he says that whatever you do, you do it for him. So do it for him, like in Egypt in the first seven years of satiation where everyone works doing everything for Pharaoh and then eventually discover that it is the force of evil.

Why does the evil Pharaoh suddenly appear instead of the good Pharaoh? It is because we advance toward the Creator. As we advance, the desire that previously looked good begins to seem evil. The group is good, the study is good, the friends are good, I want to be with them and to be on duty, to clean the toilets, to work in the kitchen, everything is nice and I enjoy every minute that I am in this society—this is how every beginner who comes to the group feels. Then suddenly he begins to feel disrespect, to explode, not to care about anything, he doesn’t feel like doing things and doesn’t want anything: “What duties? What for?”

Why? This is because the “seven years of hunger” begin. What is hunger? A person doesn’t feel pleasure in being in the group, in being with the friends—and this is advancement.

Everything is revealed according to the order of the degrees. We should be happy and serious and follow that line carefully, and accept whatever is revealed along the way. The Torah tells us about it; after all, the Torah is an instruction (they have the same root in Hebrew); it tells us where you will get stuck and what you should do on the way to the revelation of Godliness.

So you have no choice, you have to enter Egypt, you have to do this kind of work, and you have to come out. Only then do you receive the Torah, the instruction of how to advance more clearly.

This is because the Torah is only about the correction of the desires. You correct your 613 desires from the intention of “in order to receive” to the intention of “in order to bestow,” and then you discover the Creator.
[71268]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #2, 2/23/12

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Question: When you are incorporated in a collective action, you sometimes feel united with the friends even in your thoughts, but at the last moment you feel that something is missing, an effort within an effort, the last drop. How can we achieve this last drop so we can come to the general cry, so that we will be able to open our hearts once and for all?

Answer: That last drop is exactly the point of birth, the point of the exodus from Egypt, and it’s the most difficult. A person is ready to go almost to the end, and then he sees a wall in front of him, something he can’t overcome, and suddenly he has endless excuses. His evil inclination tells him, “You still have to take care of this and that, you haven’t studied all of the Study of the Ten Sefirot yet, you don’t know all the Shamati articles yet, there is still so much you have to do,” and so on.

And it’s the same in relation to the friends, meaning that when you actually reach the point that you can now break your ego and connect, to make the welding point between you and the friends, you can’t do it. To create a point of soldering means that this drop of glue will now fall on the connection between you and the friends, and glue you together in a single adhesion. You can’t do that. At the last moment you suddenly pull back.

Only a general effort will help here. Therefore the prayer of an individual doesn’t help. A prayer should be the “prayer of the many,” when you pray for the friends and not for yourself, and when the entire group or most of the group prays together. But you are telling us about an individual effort. You can tell me about an individual effort for another thousand years, nothing will happen to you. The direction is familiar but it’s wrong because you don’t worry about the connection with the friends.
[71426]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #3, 2/24/12

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