Rabash, Shlavey Hasulam (Steps of the Ladder), “Judges and Guards”: It is said: “You should post judges and guards at all your gates.” When a person wants to start the work of the Creator, he goes through two stages:

1. Theory. He first makes himself a plan: what he should do and what he shouldn’t. That is, this is the clarification of good and evil, and this theoretical part is called a “judge” who tells him what to do.

2. Then he has to put theory into practice, and it is already called a “guard.”

It isn’t a single day’s work, but one has to exert himself in the work daily. Therefore, the plural form is used: “judges and guards.”

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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention” 

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Question: What is the importance of the conventions that are intended not only for us, but mainly for the world?

Answer: The point is that we need to take advantage of each convention in two ways: to advance upward toward the Creator, to the attribute of bestowal and love, and simultaneously to move downward, towards the remaining 99%. Essentially, we need to separate the two and afterward to connect it all into a single whole. This is what we have to do.

Thus, at each convention we will talk about our advancement forward, upward, and also about our movement downward to all of humanity since one cannot exist without the other.

We received the disclosure of the wisdom of Kabbalah, the disclosure of the condition of unification, the attainment of the spiritual quality, because we need to call for the unification of and connection with all the others, to rescue humanity from the state it is in. This is why we are like this; otherwise, we wouldn’t have been given this.

We connect all of humanity: the 99% and the Creator. Under no circumstances can we forget either of them.

Between ourselves, we must go forward, to the attribute of bestowal and love in order to become one whole. For this we need the connection with the Creator. And all of this is in order to bring humanity to the same state.

It is precisely because the ego and the crisis have manifested in the world enough that we were given the opportunity to bond between us, to work with the book, to understand the system, to discover the world, and in this way to advance it forward. This is the only reason we exist.

We represent Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), and all of humanity is the AHP. If we advance forward, we will be able to attain only a small illumination. Our advancement needs to be as follows: We need to advance toward the Creator, and the Creator will lower us down toward humanity. Afterward we will advance a little more toward the Creator and then back to humanity.

And thus it alternates. Otherwise GE won’t have the Kelim (vessels), desires, since GE do not have enough Aviut (coarsenss or thickness of the desire).

All of the Aviut comes from the AHP, from humanity. Thus we must, like from Egypt, take from there all the Kelim and “drag” them with us. When we bond with them and begin to transfer their Aviut, we will begin to advance forward with the help of descents and ascents. Thus we will move all the time, in a circle, until we bring the entire humanity to connection with the Creator.
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From the Lecture on Unity Day “To Acquire a Desire to Give” 1/29/2012

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Baal HaSulam: “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: And while one sees how one’s environment slights His work and does not properly appreciate His greatness, one cannot overcome the environment. Thus, one cannot obtain His greatness and slights during one’s work, as do they. Now you can understand the verse, “In the multitude of people is the king’s glory,” since the measure of the greatness comes from the environment under two conditions:

1.            The extent of the appreciation of the environment.
2.            The size of the environment.

Everything depends on the connection with the group. From it a person draws the strength to connect, and it is there that our might grows until we reach the Creator who is in the center of the environment.

But if a person doesn’t connect with the environment, he has no one to receive the strength from, and so he doesn’t find the upper force in the center.

Many details make up our connection: positive ones and seemingly negative ones. They belong to different levels of Aviut, meaning the coarseness, “thickness” of the desire. A person cannot do anything with his Aviut by himself. He must receive stimuli from the environment, such as needs, obstacles, and problems. When he overcomes them, he turns to the friends again because it is impossible to advance without enough negativity either.

So there is a lot of work to do and it is all in the society. Only there does a person gradually acquire the thickness and the purity of the desire. Eventually, his efforts add up to the necessary measure and he discovers the Creator within the unity with the friends.

If a person doesn’t see the Creator among the friends, it is a sign that he hasn’t connected with them yet. If he doesn’t understand that the Creator is revealed specifically there, it means that he is still far from unity. A person must at least believe the sages that the Creator is revealed within our unification, in its center. On the way to it one must acquire great thickness of the desire, experience many disappointments, and at the same time overcome many obstacles and refine himself.

Both things are necessary. If a person doesn’t despair, he can very quickly discover the Creator, like in the exodus from Egypt.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/2012, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Question: How can we plead with the Creator correctly? I encounter my egoism everywhere….

Answer: You have to realize one thing: Everything is ready for your birth, but if you don’t start acting and fighting, Pharaoh will keep you in prison and won’t let you free. On one hand, your egoism gives you an opportunity to develop, but on the other, it doesn’t let you exit.

There is a need for external pressure, greater suffering, wars, and misfortunes—just so you will desire to be born. A spiritual birth is not a mechanical process; it is impossible without your consent. You reveal your desire from within and then you feel a new life. Without it, you can’t transition to a new stage.

And hence, two possibilities exist: Either the developmental factors will pressure you or you yourself arrange the pressure of the group. Then Pharaoh, who doesn’t let you breathe, becomes a good environment. Moreover, this environment also pressures and obliges you. What’s more, you yourself demand this from the friends, until you begin to scream: “I want to be born!”

So, everything is ready for your birth, and everything depends on you. Clearly, we are now numb, dormant. How can we awaken? For this we need to spur everybody to action. We need to apply effort, which doesn’t pass in vain, but accumulates into a critical mass.

The path to your birth, if you accelerate it, is not a gradual ascent to the summit whereby you rise higher and higher. Rather, you experience a sequence of ascents and descents, until their sum (∑) brings you to the point of birth. It happens all of a sudden, you are not aware of it until the last moment—suddenly you are born into the world in the escape from the Egyptian exile.

This way you don’t need to grow by experiencing the intensifying misfortunes and birthing pains. A few pangs that you arouse yourself are enough. After all, you do it consciously and sensibly; you see what is happening with you and hence don’t have to rise by the degrees of suffering. The understanding of the process covers and compensates your misfortunes, and torment turns into a yearning for the Light.

Instead of suffering from wars and other corporeal disasters, you are burning with impatience: “Why haven’t I been born yet?” A small pain at the human degree replaces huge misfortunes at the still, vegetative, and animate levels.

A tiny effort in conscious progress is a billion times more effective than forced efforts on the long path without acceleration.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/2012, “The Peace”

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Question: We are saying that the Arava Convention requires one to be serious. What does it mean to be serious during the convention?

Answer: This means that I do not allow myself to deviate to any thought or desire outside of the goal. I must be united with others and reveal the Creator in this unity.

Along the way I see that I lack desire. Sometimes I want it, and sometimes I do not. And then I come to prayers and questions, I analyze my state, and this, essentially, is our preparation. As we arrive in Arava, we need to feel a constant need for the Reforming Light, so it would give us unity.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20,  “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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All of our study and work are dedicated to the clarification of our deficiency, the clarification of our goal in life, to what it will lead us, and who I want to be. This is all a person is. Everything is determined only by a person’s deficiency, and only what one adds to what was received from nature.

If certain desires are simply evoked in me to go somewhere, to do something in the group or to connect with friends, these are not my desires. I am incorporated in a group that influences me now by its desire to go to the desert; I am impressed by the friends, but it isn’t me. In that I am like a rock. Does it receive anything from the environment?—almost nothing.

But if I want to invest my powers and am in the right environment, I begin to grow in it like a seed that was planted in the ground from which a whole tree will grow. I only need to add my own efforts and not just wait for those around me to wake me up.

I evoke myself and the others. I rouse all of them so that they will influence me. And what I receive from them is my spiritual vessel. A spiritual vessel is always received from the environment, and it is always the result of a person’s inspiration and working for the society.

There are those that are in the society but are totally isolated from others, as if they have surrounded themselves with electrical tape. So how can they benefit from the environment? In such a case, a spiritual vessel will not be formed in a person. He will be impressed together with the others from the general mood that the environment will put him in and will be swept away by it, but his individual spiritual vessel will not develop.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/12, The Zohar

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Question: There are states that you cannot exit without the friends’ help and there are states that depend on a person. How can you distinguish between the two?

Answer: Receiving from the group is like receiving from the Creator because He is dressed in all my external reality. If the friends simply impress me and inspire me, it is exactly as if the Creator awakens me.

But it isn’t my spiritual vessel. My spiritual vessel is the addition I receive from them for my demand, for my efforts in “buy yourself a friend.” Here everything works according to an accurate account: The more efforts I make, the more I demand from them, and the more I receive.

What I receive is thanks to our connection, our yearning for connection, and working above reason, and the more I see myself as less than everyone, as a zero, and the others as greater than me, as 1, accordingly I am evoked, like the 1 with the addition of many zeros, 1000000; this is how my spiritual vessel is measured.

Nothing is done by itself. Everything is done according to an accurate account: My desire is taken into account, the desire of the friends or the desire of the Creator, and the force that was received from me, from them, or from the Creator. Everything is calculated accurately.

But if I am awakened by accidentally hearing friends singing or talking, it isn’t counted as a result of my work. I can be impressed by it and ignited to want spirituality, to want to connect with them, but it will all be on their account. It is registered on my account only if I develop my yearning by myself when I don’t feel any interest and would rather not get out of bed, and not move at all. Still I must worry about how to add a certain movement on my part towards them. Otherwise it won’t be my vessel.

Therefore, it may seem to a person that he has done a lot, but if he could see the actual account, he might find no “income” in it. The spiritual world exists only as a result of the acceleration in our efforts. But if I move at a constant speed, it is as if I am standing in one place. Only the addition counts, the coefficient, the acceleration.

The acceleration shouldn’t be constant either, because it may be counted as a stop. There must be a constant addition. If we could calculate this “formula,” we could see that we didn’t invest very much into our account.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Is it possible to pave the way to spirituality in a way that the disturbances will be of assistance and not seen as obstacles that we can’t respond to?

Answer: The problem isn’t the obstacles. You reveal exactly what you can overcome. We are speaking of a systemic formula of the connection between the Lights and the Kelim (vessels or desires). No one here decides anything according to his understanding. After all, the Creator is Nature. In the opposition between the right and left lines, you are always given from above the middle line, and you need to build from below an identical relation to what is happening.

If this doesn’t happen, then that’s another matter. But in general, everything is realized optimally, according to various calculations. We live in a perfect world, in a complete system. At each moment, the best conditions for correction are created for me. Even if I forget and detach, it comes from me because this is the way my situation has to be right now. Thus, whatever comes to me, the problem is: How do I respond to it?

It could be that my lack of response comes from not worrying about the group, about the factors that need to awaken me.  But from above there are no delays and postponements. Ein Sof (Infinity) operates us. All of our requests (MAN – Mayin Nukvin – Female Waters) come from there. And all the answers (MAD – Mayin Duchrin – Male Waters) descend from there, at each moment. This connection never stops, but all the time the Reshimot (informational genes – reminiscences) are renewed. We envision a very long line of connection that goes through all the 125 levels, but actually everything is much simpler.

Question: What should our response be to the actions of the system?

Answer: We need to raise a plea for correction, MAN, and not more than this. I ask from the system to be similar to it, and I ask this according to my powers. After all, the entire system of Ein Sof is the Creator, perfection. We only yearn to Him.

Question: Let’s suppose that I encountered a serious problem: money, health or family. How should I respond to this with a correct request?

Answer: You need to operate on the physical plane in order to solve problems that awaken, even though it is clear to you that everything comes from above and that everything will be solved at the spiritual level. It seems to us that we encounter corporeal problems, but actually, it is certain that their background is spiritual.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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In order to acquire the attribute of love and bestowal, we have to undergo a certain preparation. We have to gather together, to influence, to encourage, to spur each other to activity, that is, to do everything so that the Light will begin to awaken us according to how we awaken each other. It’s possible.

And for this we need a great deficiency for bestowal, for love. There needs to be a longing for it, meaning a desire for a deficiency. This is called “a prayer before a prayer.”

It is a little misunderstood in our world since we usually long for fulfillment, and here the fulfillment is the deficiency. This means that if I want to bestow and love, that is enough for me.

Imagine to yourselves that you love someone. What brings you fulfillment? It is your relation to your loved one, and that is enough for you, it fills you. And this is the attribute of the spiritual world, the attribute of bestowal, the attribute of love. Thus the desire to obtain a deficiency for bestowal, the desire to obtain a deficiency for love, is, in fact, our preparation for the convention.
[69632]
From the Lecture on Unity Day “To Acquire a Desire to Give” 1/29/2012

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It is said that if the method of Kabbalah if used correctly, it becomes the elixir of  life, and if not, it becomes the potion of death. A potion is not meant for pleasure, it is a medicine that can give us life or turn into a potion of death.

Question: How can I know that I am using the potion correctly?

Answer: If you take it together with all the friends, it helps you. Do you open your mouths together in order to receive the medicine from the Creator? Do you create a collective vessel for the potion of life? After all, “life” is the Light, bestowal, and so it can only be revealed in such a vessel.

Question: Does that mean that as long as I am in concealment I drink the “potion of death?”

Answer: No, you drink the potion of death if you want to use your friends only for your own benefit. The two concepts,”the potion of life” and “the potion of death,” refer to those who already have free will, those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah in a group with a teacher.

Question: How can we use this medicine in the Arava convention in order to live and not to die?

Answer: At the foot of Mt. Sinai the people of Israel were given the choice: If you unite as one man with one heart, you will receive the Torah, the Light that Reforms, and will aquire life. If you don’t unite, the Light of the Torah will become death for you and here will be the place of your burial.

Well, are you coming to Arava? Or are you scared now?

Question: But still, how can I check whether I am using the medicine correctly?

Answer: No one can know except you. Buy yourself friends and they will help you.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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