Love has turned into an emasculated concept, devoid of real meaning. Thinking about it, we turn away from its deeper essence, which is diametrically opposite to the commonplace views. In fact, we are talking about the wholeness of the entire creation, all the worlds, the entire reality, how to align all the opposite forces correctly. However, today, this word completely negates a serious attitude.

In fact, love is the power of unity. Don’t confuse it with the feelings and associations that our egoistic world triggers. Here, we “love” what pleases us, fulfills us, but true love is the essence of a partnership between the Creator and the created being, between the opposite parts, between the “plus” and the “minus” at various levels of the still, vegetative, animate, and human nature.

Love is a special force of a higher order, linking the positive with the negative. It is said that it “covers all transgressions,” i.e. the gaps between the opposites. It is the third factor that unites them into one. It is the middle line that is given to us from Above. It is the force of the Creator that belongs neither to the “plus” nor the “minus.”

It is in this light that we need to interpret the famous principle of love of others as for oneself. We and the others are opposite to each other, and that is why we need the third force that will connect us. That is when we come to love one another as ourselves.

In addition, this principle appears to us as the duty to reveal the Creator, to adhere to Him. After all, in order to overcome the hatred for others, I must appeal to the Creator for the Light that Reforms so that He becomes a partner, testifies to my connection with others, reinforces, and safeguards it.

Thus, at first, adhering to the Creator is our means to becoming united, and then we understand that all the breaks between us are intended precisely to reveal the Creator and adhere to Him.

Moreover, we adhere to Him on the basis of neither the positive, nor the negative, but on the basis of the middle between them. That is why it is necessary to seek the center of one’s group of ten, one’s group, and there and only there demand the Light that Reforms.

In the end, everything is connected in one action…
[108597]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Rabash, “On the Matter of Suffering in the Work”: How is it possible not to fall to a low state? Advice for this is that if the person takes account of himself, he will see how far from adhesion to the Creator he still is in his thoughts and desires. That is, at a time of ascent he already begins to seek advice how to raise his level.

But usually the order is that at the time of ascent, a person doesn’t want to search for his shortcomings. Therefore from Above they are compelled to give him descents. The sages said: “An old man walks around bent over, always looking at the ground as if he is searching for something.” An old man is someone who has acquired wisdom, that is, sees a new state being born. …He begins to seek how to rise spiritually even before he loses an elevated state, and hence he searches for shortcomings in his current state. And so there is no need to throw him down.

If the opinion of society, the opinion of the environment, will not support a person and will not hold him, he cannot relate critically to ascent. When he is in ascent, when he feels perfection, it is very difficult to search for shortcomings. On the contrary, a person wants to maintain this perfection.

However, it is necessary to understand that searching after additional shortcomings does not destroy the past, the perfection that he has already attained. A very subtle approach is required here. Therefore, he must connect to the group more strongly, be included in the studies more to attract more Light that will illuminate for him his lack of connection.

After all, he has not yet attained the final correction, and he has more to add according to the root of his soul. The Light that is added through learning will reveal to a person the places that need correction so as to advance.

The search for deficiencies should be conducted above the previous perfection achieved by the person, meaning happily. He has no feeling of deficiency now, so through his search for additional unfilled shortcomings, he finds possibilities for satisfying the Maker. Specifically now, at a time of ascent, he searches for deficiencies because he is sure that he has been cleansed of egoistic calculation. In this way a person advances.

The essential work is done at a time of ascent. However, if the person already has fallen and is in descent, he loses all the Light, and it is difficult for him to have the right intention. Only the group can hold onto him if he communicates with it correctly. However, at a time of ascent, a person has to exert more in his studies in order to hold onto his ascent and to add to it. He adds more and more to the right line until the deficiency in the left line is discovered.

We always need to yearn for the right line, for connection, as much as it is possible, until hatred becomes revealed. It is necessary to work with an ascent specifically using this method.
[104600]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/13

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The Book of Zohar – Introduction, “Mother Lends Her Clothes to Her Daughter.” The Mother is Bina or YESHSUT. Her daughter is Malchut. Malchut is the desire to enjoy, which does not exist in Bina. Malchut may be associated with Keter only if it receives from Bina the screen and the Reflected Light. This is called the “clothes,” the main garment, the dressing of Hassadim.

This is the fundamental, basic principle of the wisdom of Kabbalah: how to get all the abundance that the Creator wants so much to give us.

The entire spiritual world is the system of relations between the upper Partzufim, from Malchut to Arich Anpin. Malchut of the world of Atzilut is contact with this world. Arich Anpin is the final correction (Gmar Tikkun). Thus, we are moving all the time between these states.

Malchut, standing at the point of the Parsa, must change all its garments in which it is located below the Parsa, leaving only one point from itself, and instead of this receive all the garments above the Parsa. This is called that it advances by faith above reason, the loyalty of the soul, and no previous garments remain with her—no mind, no feeling, no proof, no approaches, nothing that belongs to it below the Parsa, nothing that is personally its. There is no “mine!” There is only a point that remains, colorless and shapeless. And everything that I receive, I receive from what is above the Parsa, and this becomes my “I,” my reality.

This is the transition into the spiritual world: to replace all existing under the Parsa with all existing above it. Nothing is left in a person from the past—no memories, no proof, no reason, no feelings.
[107826]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/13, The Book of Zohar – Introduction

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Question: What does it mean to be the “chosen people?” Why is it chosen? Is it in order to suffer?

Answer: It is chosen to do a special kind of work in the world, and it is expressed throughout history. Yes, its mission is difficult, and it is performed in different ways.

First, the Jewish nation gave the world the Torah, the connection with the Creator. This connection was adopted in different ways by different parts of the general Malchut, which are called the nations of the world. They lost the original idea and used it for self-benefit, each in their own way.

Thus, religions were formed: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as we know it after the destruction of the Temple. Different beliefs and methods also stemmed from this, whose origin sometimes even precedes Abraham.

On the whole, the concept of Godliness is interpreted in different ways by each of the seventy shattered vessels and their descendents. On the individual level, we also perceive life and our relations with the world and with Godliness in different ways, each relating to life in his own way.

As for the chosen people, although their vessels are shattered, they can perform actions that are aimed at correction thanks to their preliminary preparation.

It has experienced almost anything one can imagine and has been thrown to the strangest places! However, it finally has reached the “finish line,” the last phase of self-fulfillment. This phase can last for decades and involve processes that I would rather not talk about, but that’s the way it is, and the finish line is getting closer.

These are the results of the preliminary preparation of these vessels in which there are sparks of the shattering, and therefore, they respond differently to the Light that Reforms. The Light pours on everyone equally, but every nation awakens according to its uniqueness, and everyone advances in his own way. The Light reaches everyone, but the pace and the type of changes are different.

If you saw the Surrounding Light that comes and advances all of humanity, if you knew the inner essence of every nation, you wouldn’t have to watch the news. You would know exactly what is going to happen with every nation and every individual even without following the news.

Question: But, still, what is the “chosen people?” Who belongs to it?

Answer: It is about a group of vessels, desires, that have a certain Aviut (thickness). They are connected in a group in order to perform collective work and thereby move forward. There is a spark in this nation that is separate from the egoistic desire, a spark that in the future, can be turned into a force of bestowal that grows in a person’s general desire.

Question: Does it have anything to do with the people who live in Israel?

Answer: It has nothing to do with a geographical location. However, at the same time, this nation has special external conditions in the land of Israel and, accordingly, inner conditions that are different from the conditions of other parts of the nation who are dispersed all over the world.

Generally speaking, there is an order of development of the different parts of humanity. First, it is our global group, and then the nation of Israel living in the Land of Israel, and then the nation of Israel living outside the land of Israel, and then the rest of humanity, and this is according to the order of people’s attraction to correction.

In the past, the nation of Israel was the corrected vessels that were beyond the Machsom (barrier), beyond Parsa. Then, it was shattered and sank into an egoistic intention in order to mix with AHP and eventually, to reach the highest general level of the correction of the world.

Before the destruction of the second Temple, these vessels belonged to GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim). They had to be shattered and penetrate the vessels of the nations of the world since the Creator actually wanted to give them the Torah first. The “nation of Israel” is the phase of preparation, the link. It must go through all the diversities of its fate so that it now will finally ensure the correction of the world. This is what we are trying to do, to be the forefront, the pioneers. Therefore, the Jewish people have received the chance to return to the land of Israel and from here, return to their roots and start the correction.

Question: Is the land of Israel holy in any way in the geographical sense?

Answer: No, but the connection to it, even on the still level, already includes the altruistic intention.

A person sanctifies the land. A person sanctifies the still, vegetative, and animate nature. However, we don’t belong to the “human” level since we are still on the animate level. So, the “Land of Israel”—which means the desire to receive on the still level—is not holy. After all, I don’t attribute this desire to myself and sanctify it. I live in the land of Israel simply because I feel comfortable here. If I feel pressure here, I will leave this place, just as it happened two thousand years ago.

I met many Israelis during the New Jersey convention, and none of them wants to come back, except a few individuals who are connected to us. Polls show that the Jews in the U.S. are drawing away from Israel and don’t want to be identified with Israel. They prefer to be American Jews, like members of other nations. Although they are angry that I write about this in my blog, these are the results of polls that they actually take part in. I see the same thing in talks and lectures that I give in America.

I don’t blame them in any way, of course. It is quite natural when you live in a certain country and you are connected to it egoistically and want to feel good there. You may remember your homeland once every few years. Most of the Jews in America, including those whom I have met, have never been to Israel. What have they actually got to do here?

Question: So, does a person have to live in Israel in order to complete the correction?

Answer: Baal HaSulam says that a person who is attracted to spirituality is attracted to the land of Israel. After all, there is something here. This attraction cannot be expressed in words, it is caused by the spark in us. This is why people who study the wisdom of Kabbalah come here, even if they are not Jewish. They feel that the source is here, that this place is different and unique, and that you feel differently here than in any other place. This has nothing to do with the dynamics and the quality of the external life, but with much deeper reasons.
[107411]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 05/14/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What does it mean to work on myself in order to love the friends?

Answer: You need to imagine that the friend is an important person, nice and special. Otherwise, why should you love him? First, you must find a reason. What can be a reason to love the other if you hate him? To be honest, it isn’t even indifference, but actual hate.

You can check the following: Imagine that your friend has won a million dollars in the lottery. The very next day, you feel differently about him. You will envy him and hate him even more. Isn’t that so? What does it mean that you hate him? It means that you prefer that he didn’t win, and that is already enough. It is very simple to check this since you would think differently about your son.

So, can we work in order to love the friend if you hate everyone in the world except yourself? Now, you wake up to a sublime goal called “the Creator,” and you want to attain it. It makes no difference that you don’t know who the Creator is. You yearn for higher knowledge and power in order to climb up to the summit that is more sublime than this entire life. It is just an egoistic desire.

However, in order to rise to the summit, you must fulfill a condition: to love the one you hate. The Creator gradually explains to you that you cannot love Him because if he is revealed a little, you will hate Him since your nature is opposite to His. This contrast will evoke repulsion and hate in you.

So, in order to avoid such bad relations with the Creator, you have to learn to improve yourself in a different state for the time being. You are given this world: the still, the vegetative, the animate nature, and people, so try to get along with them.

The Creator tells you that He will help you the more you try to love the other above the hate you feel. Now, you disrespect everyone: “Let them burn to ashes,” but the Creator has made you feel that on purpose. The moment you want to ascend above your hate, He will help you so that you will manage to do so. Just try and He will help you. Thus, together, you will switch your previous nature to another nature. The second nature will not annul the first, but you will make yourself an attire, a form just like the Creator, and will become like Him.

You will be able to get to know the Creator. Then, you will be able to embrace, to connect, and to merge into one body. This is why He has created the environment that you hate, and the moment you try to love it, He will make your efforts successful. If you manage to reach the slightest achievement, not even love but at least cause less damage to others, meaning you neutralize your ego, He will be revealed. It’s because then you will not harm Him either, and you will be able to get closer and to connect.
[108112]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: You have said that while reading The Book of Zohar, we have to let the book operate on us. How should we do that?

Answer: It is through simply reading and reading, hoping that it will influence me. It isn’t the book that I read, but a text that was written by Kabbalists who are beyond the Machsom (barrier) and not just beyond the Machsom, but in GAR (the three upper Sefirot) of the world of Atzilut.

I connect to them through these letters. My desire to receive, my mind and my heart somehow establish a connection with their heart and mind. Their heart and mind are already in adhesion with the Creator.

Thus, with the help of the book, I connect to the upper force. Now, everything depends on what I want from it. I may want to make money in the stock market thanks to its special quality, or to improve my health, or to get some other benefit so that I will feel good. If I want that “my actions be like the deeds of the forefathers,” this is actually the desirable intention.
[106515]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/13, The Zohar

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Question: Why isn’t a prayer for self-correction effective?

Answer: It is only a prayer of many that works. A prayer for oneself is needed so that a person will finally understand that it doesn’t help and that it is ineffective. This world confuses us since people who think about themselves succeed. A person starts a business, engages in sports, and the more efforts he makes, the greater his success. This is a real fact.

However, spirituality is opposite from corporeality. The more I think about myself and do certain exercises, the more it proves that I cannot succeed this way. The laws that operate in spirituality are opposite from all the laws of this world: It isn’t the wise one who succeeds thanks to his wisdom, and it isn’t the brave one who succeeds thanks to his bravery. Whereas these qualities are very helpful in our world: The more power, brains, or money you have, the more successful you are.

This world is based on egoistic bravery. However, in the spiritual world it is the opposite, and everything depends on how much I exit myself and remain powerless, brainless, and totally unable to succeed by myself, but only by investing in others, subduing myself before them, and being influenced by them. Thus, I teach myself that this is the way to advance.

It is a very delicate issue. We work in the integral system, and only through my connection to everyone else—to the extent that I can attribute myself to them—can I succeed. I never will be able to exit my “circle” and to be aloof with regard to the others, and I don’t want that! Advancement indicates a greater penetration into the group in order to be equal to everyone else.

It is actually opposite to the laws of this world. So, all the rules we read about in Kabbalistic texts are not just good advice and suggestions of a concerned granny to a child trying to persuade him not to jump around, not to fight, and to sit quietly. Rather, these are iron-clad rules of the upper system. We have to forget all the habitual egoistic systems and try to get used to and accept the laws of the upper system where everything goes through the group, through the “ten,” only through the environment.

You will attain everything, but the means, the rules for success, are different from the ones that are accepted in this world. Your success depends only on you to the extent that you subdue yourself before the environment, your wanting to bestow everything upon the friends, to worry about them, and to love them like the people who are dearest to you and most beloved. Even if you don’t feel that, you force yourself to act that way, as if each of them is a great person, the greatest of our generation, the one who is closest and dearest to you, even more than yourself.

Soon, you actually will feel that this is so and everyone will become very important and dear to you: his state, his health, and his success. You will understand and feel that you depend on this and will have no other worries except for their well-being and health.
[107914]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.20.13, Writings of Rabash, “Concerning Love of Friends-2”

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Having started to work in groups of ten, you can think about your big group only through your “ten.” The ten is now the cell through which you connect to the world, whether it is speaking to your wife or to your boss at work. Every action you make is through this group; you dress in them.

A group of ten is not about physical bodies, but about principles that we clarify and fulfill together. Gradually, you begin to feel that this invisible, airy formation becomes clearer, connects with the forms of your relationships, and takes on a certain weight, shape, stability, and a real, tangible existence.

Now, in the relationships between you and others, you feel things that you only heard of or read about before. It already becomes a reality.

A group of ten is a sensible, materialized image of your unity, like a family. Indeed, what is a family? There is a woman who lives with me, and I have several kids who live in the same house. A family, however, is not separate people, but something that is a single whole: our relationships, our dependence on one another, the mutual bestowal, and the concern. It is a whole system that is called a “family.”

I don’t worry about someone personally, but about the well-being of the entire family. This is the feeling I should have with regard to my group of ten so that I will approach every discernment and feeling only through it. Otherwise, I never will see the upper world. I must start looking at everything through this focusing lens, through an aperture adjuster.

It limits my sight, and I look at everything only through it, through this very narrow aperture. If I look through a very small hole instead of using glasses, I will see everything sharply just as with glasses since glasses merely limit and focus the ray of light. This is why this very narrow aperture also allows me to see well as if I had very powerful glasses. We can look through the group in the same way. If you don’t look through the group, you won’t see the world.
[108088]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/13, The Book of Zohar – Introduction

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Baal HaSulam, The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee): The Creator did not find a nation or a tongue qualified to receive the Torah, except for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose ancestral merit reflected upon them….

Question: I am the one who has to make all the corrections that are expected of me from the very beginning to the very end. How can our forefathers’ merits help me?

Answer: We all are in the unified system of Malchut of the world of Infinity that is filled with the Light of Infinity. It’s all that creation has, nothing but it.

As the system continued to develop, a restriction occurred and circumferences emerged. There appeared a line that stretched from the circumferences to the center of the circles. Later, the line was shattered. The black circle in the very middle represents a corrupt desire with the intention to bestow. It stands for the real egoism that we still haven’t yet revealed.

We have been developing through the still, vegetative, and animate levels to the speaking level at which we now discover our evil inclination: a slightly spoiled human ego. However, only when we join a group do we begin to reveal authentic evil. It’s at this time that we discover exactly where the intention to receive in its genuine form hides. It’s while in the group that the evil inclination is disclosed to us, thus allowing us to correct it.

Personal correction happens in five “layers” of the desire (in the five levels of Aviut): from a level zero to level four, from light to heavy, from bottom up.

We all are included into a bigger system where the general process of correction is going on. We are very far from being the first link in this process. Our forefathers were corrected before everybody else, then it was their sons’ turn, and only at the end of this chain is it about me and my group.

In reality, our forefathers corrected the Aviut of level zero, their sons managed to correct the Aviut of the first and second levels, whereas we get to deal with Aviut of the third degree.

So, there are souls that have fulfilled a part of the work, and their efforts were not in vain. Today, when we get to the point of correcting ourselves, we don’t start from scratch. Rather, we continue what they started and in our turn we continue building a foundation for those who are yet to come and follow us.

This is how the general process goes: It starts with correcting “Israel” (Galgalta ve Eynaim) and extends to correcting “the nations of the world” (AHP). The first stage, the correction of “Israel,” splits into several phases: forefathers, sons, etc. “Nations of the world” also divide into 70 parts that are to be corrected in a certain order. This is how different parts help each other on their path to correction.

This explains why today we live in a global society in which everybody depends upon others.
[107083]

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Rabash, “What is an Optional War in the Work,” Part 2: It is said: “My beloved is like a deer.” A deer turns its face backwards when it escapes. Thus the face becomes the posterior again. This means that He yearns and longs to adhere to Israel again. This generates longing in Israel too and the longing to be adhered to the Creator, and the extent of the yearning and the longing is actually the face itself.

This is the only way we advance, and it isn’t only spiritual advancement, but also in the corporeal world where time goes by and there are good times and bad times in our evolutionary process. From the time of the shattering of the vessels onward, the Light constantly influences the vessels and the Reshimot (informational genes) change all the time from face to posterior and back to face again, at one time corresponding to the Light and at the other not, and this goes on continuously.

So it seems to a person as if the Light comes and then it’s dark according to the state he is in. This is how corporeal life is arranged as joy and sadness constantly change, and it’s the same in spiritual work. But in spiritual work everything depends on a person and on his ability to awaken himself with the help of external means: the study, the group, the teacher, and dissemination.

Thus he hastens time. The more he participates actively in hastening time, the more strongly he feels the lowliness of his nature, but at the same time, he also feels elation and the greatness of the goal he wants to attain. It turns out that the Creator constantly turns His face or His posterior to a person, which is in fact only the person’s feeling according to his attainment. It’s all a result of the changing Reshimot in a person and his own participation.

So there are three factors that influence this process:

• a person’s Reshimot, which is the Aviut (thickness) of his desire;
• a person’s participation, which is his future Masach (screen);
• the Light at absolute rest, the Creator who always wants to be in a state of “face to face” with a person and is waiting for this relationship.

The main thing is to see that every state comes from the upper force and that it’s only in order to help us advance.
[105258]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/13

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