Question: If we yearn for the Creator and want to discover Him, why is it so important to go out and work on the unity of the whole nation?

Answer: It is our duty since whoever belongs to the corporeal nation of Israel has sparks from the spiritual levels that he attained in the past. We have been through the exile in Egypt, we have built two Temples, the first and the second, and we were in contact with the Creator.

So these sparks exist and we need them in order to attain the power needed to breakthrough upwards. Abraham couldn’t come out of Babel by himself. He needed to take people with him in order to fulfill the goal of creation. The goal is fulfilled among people, and therefore we need a great power. 

What is the quantity of sparks that we need? What general power do we need in order to exit the ego and to start feeling the influence of the upper force? I cannot say. We are going to perform a totally new action that has never been performed before.

It says that there should be 600,000 souls, but we don’t know what it means. It can be a thousand, a hundred thousand, 600,000, or 6 million people. It is impossible to know now what the number of the people should be since 600,000 is a power that exists on the level of Arich Anpin, in greatness that we need to awaken.
[132558]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/14 Talk About Dissemination: Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Question: How does the descent called the Shaar haTuma (Gates of Impurity) come to be expressed?

Answer: Everything depends upon what we think is a descent. In the beginning, at the first gate of impurity, I simply see that I have no power, I don’t want to do anything, and I have lost the taste for life.

Whereas at the 10th or 15th gate, I lose the desire to learn, to be connected with the friends, to carry out acts of bestowal, and to be involved in dissemination; I lose faith in what is written in the books of the Kabbalists. I simply want to lie down and get away from everything or get drunk and pass the time idly.

Yet together with this, I begin to understand that these are not my states; rather they come from some external source. They pass me through them intentionally so that I will consolidate my relationship to the Source, to the Creator and to what He does.

So I say to Him, “Do what you want! You can create darkness around me—even this is good! When it’s dark I don’t want anything, and this is better than chasing after pleasures. But together with this, give me the possibility of being aware of you, the one who creates this darkness for me.”

It means that the Creator makes the heart of Pharaoh heavy. Here I begin to differentiate between my desire, the condition that is felt with it, and the Creator who arranges all this for me. This is already an internal separation, a crossroad.

That is how we continue to work and the darkness doesn’t dissipate. On the contrary, we pass through the 49 gates of impurity and arrive in the darkness of Egypt. Yet thanks to the exodus from Egypt, the darkness stops being darkness. We change our relationship to darkness.

Indeed, we are found in the same condition all the time, changes only our perception of it. It’s as if I put on other glasses and see the state differently, advancing further, whereas the state itself hasn’t changed. We are immersed in the Light of Infinity. 

However, one starting point is given to us in order to feel the world that we see now within the Light of Infinity. And the changes depend upon what I think is good and bad. Indeed our substance is the desire to receive and it’s up to us to decide what is good or bad in relation to it.

If we change the perception of reality, our relationship to it, then the whole world is different. What was hated becomes loved. Imagine that a big man clothed in a white robe approaches a little child, takes out a menacing syringe, and gives him a painful injection. How must the child relate to his actions?

But when we grow up, we understand that the monster in white is not a cruel demon, but a doctor who must give me an injection and it’s for my own good. This is unpleasant, but must be tolerated.

Reality is unchanged, it is complete; we must change. In our day this is what the world has to understand. The changes that result from the inner development of the ego are over. We have developed our ego to the end. It has reached its maximum point and doesn’t have anywhere else to develop in the physical world.

We have reached the limit beyond which we have to begin to change our relationship. So we are found at a very unique point: The ego has nowhere to develop, on the opposite, it begins to deteriorate and bring us down. Indeed, it wants nothing more from life. So if we want to advance, this is possible only with the desire to bestow.
[132385]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/09/14, Shamati #54

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Question: Last year I did not attend the lessons, but I have been studying for 11 years and want to know where is the revelation of the Creator? I have already given up, my life is going by, and I have not attained revelation. Where is the Creator? I must find Him during this lifetime.

Answer: Where is the Creator? The Creator (Bore) is called “come and see” (Bo–Re). “Come” (Bo) means to prepare a place with characteristics that make it possible for the Creator to become revealed. The form of your vessel must be in the equivalence of form with the Creator.

If you want Him to be revealed, you have to prepare the appropriate form. Suppose you came to a store and bought a fishnet but instead of using it to catch fish, you want to pour a hundred pounds of sugar into it. Will this work? No, because you need a sack for the sugar.

You come to a store and buy a sack, but this time you don’t need to buy sugar, but water or juice. Is a sack suitable for water? It isn’t suitable.

Every time you advance in this way, reaching the next state and clarifying that meantime, your vessel is not a vessel. Ultimately you need to bring your deficiency, your vessel, to precise correspondence to the first minimal amount of Light.

This correspondence is essential, and this is what is called “come” (Bo). Therefore it is said, “Come unto Pharaoh,” “come (Bo) and see” (the Creator). Pharaoh is a part of the Creator, His preparatory level, the Achoraim (posterior).

There is nothing you can do about it, it is a prerequisite. You don’t agree with the entire creation, and I understand you. Thousands of people pass my way, but whoever remained, remained. I am even happy about those who have left, for in spite of it all, something is left within them. Some day they will come back and continue, if not in this generation, then in the next generation.

Through your complaints you will not change the laws of nature according to your desire. We have no choice: only bow our heads and work. The main problem is that we forget that all of the work is not done within the person, but between people. Instead of a vessel, a mug, we come with a fishnet and wonder: “Indeed I want to get it, so why doesn’t the Creator give it to me, why isn’t He revealed?”

But what do you want to get, and where do you want to get it? If you want to acquire the power of bestowal, it becomes revealed in a place in which there is a need for it. And the need for bestowal is found between you and someone else. Prepare a place like this and you will see that bestowal is revealed. It is no simpler than that.

It is not very simple to do this with our egoistic nature. But the solution is really in our hands: The Creator is between you and a friend. Please, go ahead and reveal Him!
[132512]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/14, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What is the inner meaning of “and they shall build cities of storage”?

Answer: The desire to receive builds these cities and thus advances towards the goal that seems good and worthwhile to the ego. I have this world, but in it and in this life, I also intend to attain the next world. I expect to rise above this life and to see the two worlds, to get rid of all my problems and of the question of life and death.

Death is the worst problem for man. A person has everything today and the world is abundant. If we gave people who lived 100 years ago what an average modern man has today, we would not be able to describe the great joy they would experience.

Imagine that you had to do the washing in the river, eat only bread and onions, drink filthy water and live without facilities such as water and electricity, and also live only one-half or even one-third of the life expectancy we have today. Today we have everything, and see the despair and loss of interest in life that people everywhere feel. How can that be?

A person today doesn’t ask about life itself and how to manage in it. In the past, his major concern was providing food for himself and for his family, and he didn’t think about the fact that he might die someday.

But today he does think about it and asks, “What am I living for if eventually I will die?” In this case, life itself isn’t worth much and so there is a growing demand for antidepressants and drugs. This is a crucial question for a person since if we lived forever, we would have no worries at all.

Thus, people who wish to discover the secret of life are attracted to mysticism. The secret of life isn’t part of life itself—there is no secret in life. The secret is in the point of death, in which we disappear when the spirit of life leaves us. This is from where the question of “what is the meaning of my life?” stems. It asks, “What was my life for if it has now come to an end?”

A person wants to find an answer to this question, and if he cannot do so, he is ready to destroy the whole world. So when people come to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, they are very happy, thinking that now they will understand what life and death are about and that they will see the next world while still alive. They rush to acquire new attainments and acquisitions.

This means that the ego, Pharaoh, swallows the yearning for the Creator called Yashar-El and uses it for himself. He allows a person to advance in studying the wisdom of Kabbalah: to study more and be active. Most important is that he reaches the goal, discovers the next world, and brings it to Pharaoh. This is what Pharaoh, or the ego, says. And don’t all of you study for this goal?

Sometimes we yearn more for spirituality and then Pharaoh pulls everything to himself. We then fall and rise again. The contractions and expansions alternate, like the lungs or the heart, like a pump or phases of alternating current. Every dynamic process and every movement has to have two polar states.
[132208]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/08/14 Shamati #86

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Question: Why are physical problems added to us if we are trying to connect with each other?

Answer: Physical problems are added to us to help us connect more and more. So how else is it be possible to help you and which problems should be added? Spiritual problems? You don’t even pay attention to them. Do spiritual problems concern you?

If a disaster were to happen in some distant city, and you were to regret this as if this happened to you, then you wouldn’t need to have troubles brought to you. But you don’t regret the troubles of others and therefore, problems are brought closer to you.

If you were to regret what happens far from you, as if these were really your problems, then you wouldn’t need anything more. You would suffer and feel pain from what happens in another city as if this was happening to you, without any difference. To the degree of your spiritual advancement, you will feel the troubles of the whole world as if they were yours.

It means that you connect with them. Then you will be ready to ask for their sake, and it won’t be called that you are asking for yourself. There is something and its opposite here. On one hand, you feel others’ deficiencies as yours, and on the other, you can ask on their behalf.

It won’t be considered that you are egoistically asking for yourself because you acquired these deficiencies of others through your efforts. You connected with all of them and you felt their deficiencies as yours. Since you paid for these deficiencies with your effort, you are allowed to ask for their sake.
[132052]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/06/14 Writings of Rabash 

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Question: Which parts of our appeal to the Creator should we clarify in order to make it right and accurate?

Answer: It’s like speaking to me on waves which I don’t perceive, such as radio waves or TV waves, and every sort of radiation wave that I don’t perceive. I don’t even notice that you are saying something to me.

The appeal has to be strong enough, from a whole heart, and it also has to be in the right frequency that I can perceive. When I perceive the appeal in the right intensity, I also have to decode it. There are several filters in my mind which it has to go through until it reaches my heart and penetrates it.

So I have to know something about the issue of which you speak. The Creator has only one issue: to bestow upon the created beings, since He is good and benevolent. If you speak about bestowal and about doing good to the created beings, He is willing to hear you. This is how He is arranged!

The upper Partzuf , which in regards to us is called the Creator, is arranged that way. If you speak about an opportunity to bestow upon the created beings, He immediately hears you, and later He will hear you more and more, depending on the level you are on, an upper or a lower level. This is how He hears.

To hear means to take your prayer, the deficiency that you raise upwards and to raise it even higher. The Book of Zohar says that a special angel, a special force, does this. The Light from Above dresses in your deficiency and this whole package, the deficiency with the Light that fills it, is conveyed downwards to the created beings.

Question:  Do I have to clarify exactly to whom I appeal?

Answer: You also have to clarify to whom you appeal. First you should prepare yourself and express your gratitude, bless and praise Him, since otherwise you are not focused on the upper one. All these prayers are necessary only in order to arrange and to help you focus, and to prepare you for contact with the Creator. Therefore, you should sing to Him, and praise Him, and this will give you the right direction to Him. Otherwise you won’t know which way to go.
[132031]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/07/14, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we work in the group so that on the one hand we will remain creative and on the other, make decisions in a circle: listen carefully and hear everyone’s opinion and get everyone’s consent? These two processes usually don’t go along together.

Answer: Undoubtedly, we should aspire for a collective decision, but since we have to advance quickly, we cannot involve the whole group in decision making. That’s why there is the concept of the plant: We are divided into departments, into work groups and each group has its own job.

It’s impossible for the whole world to discuss and to be involved in every decision that is made. Therefore there are governments. When the nation of Israel was on a spiritual level, there was the Sanhedrin, a spiritual government that was made of sages, Kabbalists. Everything is always arranged in the form of a pyramid.

So there have to be groups that will engage in different projects. For example, I don’t know how dissemination, the editing of the books, or the movies are organized. It isn’t my job. I am asked about a direction, about the general strategy, and according to it those in charge work on a specific work plan.

We should learn from everything we have been through that all our decisions don’t operate in one direction or another. If a decision was accepted full heartedly, by trusting the friends, by being ready to devote ourselves so that they will do whatever they want, it’s a right decision. If we make any mistakes, we will correct them later. Then we will fall again and correct things again—our whole way is made up of mistakes.

It’s enough to see what the Torah tells us about the wandering in the desert: There were always problems that came up and which needed correction. This is also our way. So if we don’t succeed, we shouldn’t think that we have failed. If we discover that we are egoists and that we were wrong, it’s the right way and that’s the way it should be.

So regard all the problems in a balanced stable manner. Don’t panic as to what may happen to us if we don’t make the right decision. On the contrary, our advancement is a sequence of ascents and descents, in discovering evil and in correcting it. We have to accept the fact that we are headed towards our correction, and so we should relate to all the problems that arise in a balanced manner.

We shouldn’t worry too much about certain decisions that were made. No matter what you decide, whatever has to happen will happen. Be a little fatalistic, do whatever you can and accept whatever happens afterwards gladly.
[132105]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/03/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Question: All of our thoughts come from the Creator. How can we be sure that we truly engage in spiritual work, and not in unattainable fantasy?

Answer: At the beginning, when a person is born and raised, he has no free choice. He is born into some family, he is being taught and given certain education that shapes his attitude towards the world and life. This initial program that a person adopts during the first 15 years of his life determines the development of his personality, and he can’t move beyond that.

One may ask: “How can it be? We don’t choose after all.” Indeed, we don’t choose where to be born, when, and in what family—we don’t choose anything. So what can we do with our spiritual development? You have to be at the place where your heart leads you to. But if you came to us, you have to strictly follow everything that you are being told.

How can you be sure that you are on the spiritual path? You can’t. Until the Creator becomes revealed to us, and clearly, not in a mystical way, as some vague inner sensation (which you are still unable to comprehend), until that you can’t be sure in any way. That’s why I can’t appease or support you, but on the contrary, I stir up even more doubts within you. It is said: “Come and see how wonderful the Creator is.”
[130114]
From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention,” Day Three, 2/4/2014, Lesson 1

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