From Rabash’s article, “Love of Friends”: And a certain man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying: ‘What seekest thou?’ And he said: ‘I seek my brethren. Tell me, I pray thee, where they are feeding the flock’” (Genesis, 37).

A person who’s lost his way in the field of life cannot live like that for a long time. He seeks advice and people who are similar to him, his brothers. He feels that he has to find another path, but not on the corporeal dimension where he exists like an animal; rather, this path should help him above this life and become human.

That’s why he is looking for those who “feed the flock,” meaning control their animals. He wants to join them and become their brother so that they teach him how to be a “shepherd” and how to rise above the animal within him.

He feels that he’s lost his way in the field, that he is that very “animal,” the wondering donkey (“donkey,” Hamor in Hebrew, is derived from the word Homer, “matter, substance”). A person wants to elevate a human within him by freeing himself from the “animal’s” rule. That’s why he seeks people that control their “animals” and who can help him strengthen himself on this path. They are his brothers, and he is looking for them!

A man “wandering in the field [desire]” refers to a place from which the crop of the field [life’s results] … should spring. “Animals” (people without a higher goal) are wondering in the field to sustain themselves here and now. But how do I find the path that turns me into a “human” and acquire “…the crop [spiritual power and knowledge] of the field to sustain the world [bring it spiritual life]?

And the works of the field are plowing, sowing, and reaping. This is the work of a “human” through which he gets fulfillment. It is said about that: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.…” It stands for the hard work that we do with tears in our eyes, getting good results only at the end. We have to press forward despite the tears and all the heaviness, and hence need strong support from the environment. … and this is called “a field which the Lord has blessed.”

[Read more →]

Filed under: Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - 1 Comment →

A Question I Received: For whom do I request the Light that Reforms? Is it for my corrected friends, as it were, or for myself?

My Answer: A person’s request comes out of the depth of his inner need, his desire. The desire has to be for the society. Indeed, if we are talking about attaining spirituality, there isn’t any individual reckoning with anyone there.

There isn’t a case where I exist in the spiritual world. I is the collective of the souls that includes me. Therefore, one can’t remain there alone in separation from the others. So, for what life does one asks for strength? Strength of life is for the common body of the unified soul. Hence, one has to request the strength in order to give it to this body. All his life is defined by how much he gives to the common system.

Therefore, even if one’s prayer is motivated by the will to receive strength, it’s a prayer to have the strength to bestow to the common body of the soul. This is why, whether he’s asking for everyone or for himself, it’s the same prayer.

When we say that there’s “a prayer of one” and “a prayer of many,” it’s still an uncorrected prayer. There is no other prayer but the “prayer of many” which is the prayer for the society. However, as long as a person isn’t in the fully corrected state, he asks partly for himself and partly for the society. According to this, he gets reformed and corrected in his aim so that he begins to feel where it’s better and where it’s worse. In this way, he is led to the correct prayer.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Ascend To A Higher Dimension
Rabash Article: “The Prayer”
Shamati #82: “The Prayer One Should Always Pray”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Zohar - 1 Comment →

A question I received: How do I fight the tendency of the daily Kabbalah lesson becoming just a habit?

My Answer: This is a problem. Habit dulls the taste and breeds a frivolous attitude, thereby ruining everything. We should fight this tendency together. Otherwise we won’t be able to accelerate our development and will have to wait for the spiritual breakthrough for years.

It is impossible to change this system for it already exists. You are already connected to it; now you only need to actively participate in it. To the extent of your involvement, you will see that all the friends that you previously considered uncorrected, in fact, constitute a corrected system with you as the only uncorrected part.

You don’t want to connect to this system, and so it displays to you other people that seemingly exist around you, each with their own desires. But they don’t really exist. You will suddenly feel that you exist within a rigid system where only you have freedom of choice: whether or not to awaken to spirituality so as to awaken them and they, in turn, to awaken you. These are the laws of this system, and you are the only one with free will.

However, as you are not yet willing to connect to it, a play is staged especially for you: friends, lots of people, this whole world around you, this whole mess in life…. You were given an opportunity to organize these forces around you, so that they would awaken you to spirituality via external influence. Start making use of your inherent envy, hatred, and ambition; envy others, love them and hate them, awaken yourself with all the means and all the qualities given to you.

This is why the Upper system of Malchut of Infinity appears to you as the world that you presently see around you. What, did you think it existed up in the sky somewhere? It’s not somewhere out there, but right in front of you, only your defective vision twists it to this.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Eternal Engine On The Way To Infinity
Laitman.com Post: Making Corrections Pours Life Into Our Common System
Kabbalah Moments: “Break The Routine”

Filed under: Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

If you don’t see a strong yearning for spirituality in your friends, if you don’t get impressed by the environment, or get inspired to bestow, it means that you don’t invest yourself into the environment. Start investing into the friends and you will see how they influence you in return.

The formula is very simple: I connect to a group and together with everybody achieve the state whereby we start influencing each other. Our circle turns into the spiritual vessel (Kli). All of our desires for spirituality, our points in the heart, unite in it, and above them, we build an anti-egoistic screen, our mutual bestowal.

Now that we influence each other, we have to examine whether or not we do so for the sake of bestowing to the Creator. If yes, then we have a screen and the Reflected Light. The Upper Force becomes immediately revealed to us, according to the equivalence of form. The formula is very simple: “I” –> group –> soul!

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: We Have Assembled Here To Become Human
Laitman.com Post: Guidelines for Achieving Unity – Selected Quotes of Baal HaSulam
Laitman.com Post: How To Build A “Spiritual Resistor”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - 1 Comment →

A question I received: How can I express my love of friends if I don’t yet exist in the spiritual world?

My Answer: You have to show everybody how keenly you perceive everything, how firm you are in your aspiration to attain spirituality, how willingly you participate in the work and Kabbalah dissemination, how ready you are to unite with the friends and love them, that is, how much effort you put into it.

You have you set an example openly, and this will awaken the others. This is how we behave with our children in this world: We constantly set an example for them, and it prompts them to act. If we want an infant to smile at us, we smile at him.

This is how we should act in relation to a friend as well. If I do something for him, the next moment I get inspired by his reaction. Even if I faked my inspiration by spirituality, it set him on fire, and he awakened. Meanwhile, his inspiration awakens me in truth.

I started with deception and through it became truly inspired. I build the environment for myself precisely in order to assume its desires as a law for myself. I influence the environment all the time, demonstrating my love of friends, the importance of the goal, and readiness to annul myself. In response, I receive from it all the components that help me achieve the Creator. I receive as many times more of these components as there are people in the group. The group supplies me with the corrected forces that I myself lack.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: A Simple Formula For Spiritual Life
Laitman.com Post: The Inner Work Of A Kabbalist – 05/23/10
Laitman.com Post: A Game Is A Serious Affair

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

Article, “Concerning Love of Friends:”

1. Why do I need love of friends?

Love of friends is the connection among souls.

“I” is my soul, a “friend” is a different soul, but love is the kind of connection between us whereby he becomes more important to me than I am to myself, and, accordingly, I’m more important to him than he is to himself. I have to feel his desires as closer than my own. This is called loving the other as you love yourself.

However, loving the other does not mean feeling the material desires of our world and serving them; rather, it means uniting our desires to attain the Creator. I am building a totally new spiritual construction, the common soul of Adam HaRishon, which has never existed before and which is above all corporeality.

2. Why did I choose these particular friends, and why did they choose me?

Did I really pick these friends? The force from Above has led me to this group. So where does my free will begin? We build our free choice every day, constantly checking why we need to unite with friends:

a.) Do I see in them, and they in me, the point in the heart, that is, the desire to unite and achieve adhesion with the Creator?

b.) What connection should be established in order to discover Him among us according to the law of the equivalence of form?

3. Should each friend openly express his love or it is enough that it is concealed in his heart?

Every one must openly express his love for the group. By doing so, he will increase the love in his friends’ hearts and will be impressed by them. If previously he had only his individual power of love for friends, now he will receive the powers from all the friends in the group.

One must always remember the purpose of the group which is to merge with the Creator.

A Kabbalistic group is founded on love of friends because it is the springboard for attaining the love of the Creator. That is why we must show each other examples of love of another.

4. Is it necessary to know what each friend lacks in order to fill him, or is it enough to love friends in general?

It is enough to love friends in general so as to assure that a friend does not lack motivation, support on the path, inspiration, and the feeling of how important the Creator and the group are, and to provide him with all this to the best of one’s ability.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

[Read more →]

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

In order for me to cancel myself before the group, I need to see my friend’s merits and not his flaws. I need to see the spiritual, divine point in him:

1. Indeed, the Creator wants him!

2. He is special and great because there is a part of the Creator within him.

3. He has been chosen to be my partner on the spiritual path. When the Creator created him, He knew that I would be able to attain Him only with this friend.

Everyone’s flaws are the “donkey” (matter) that remains down below. But my friend’s flaws don’t matter to me because he works on canceling his evil inclination in the same way as I cancel mine. Only his point in the heart matters to him. All the other corporeal qualities were made by the Creator, and we want to rise with our point in the heart above the desires of the entire heart, our entire “donkey.”

All other qualities of my friend don’t interest me and seem to not exist; I only see this spiritual point within him. It is specifically with this point that I need to unite and not with his “donkey.” It is the same for him with respect to me. This is why we can’t have any problems with each others’ egoism; we simply don’t take it into consideration nor do we work with it. We are building a net using only our points in the heart.

Those who see themselves above others will not be able to unite with them. And how can it be that someone is above others, when everyone only has a point in the heart and nothing else? Our “donkeys” can differ from one another, for example, one is stronger, another is weaker. But the points can’t have any differences; all the elements are equally important in the spiritual because perfection can’t exist without each and every one of them.

I am looking at my friend and I see his corporeal body, his “donkey,” but there is a point in the heart within him. It is not an internal organ; it is a divine part from Above! There is a part of the Creator in you, and I strive towards Him with such might I want to grab on to Him and feel Him!  And all of this is within you. There is no single other place where I could meet with the Creator. Only through creating a connection with these points inside my friends can I meet with the Creator.

I don’t have another opportunity to contact Him. He will only reveal Himself if I grab on to your point in the heart, and his, and his, and…. When I hang on to these points in the heart and cancel myself before them, it means that I am canceling myself before the Creator.

It doesn’t matter that you yourself have not yet been corrected and that you are an egoist. When I cancel myself before your point in the heart, I unite with the element of bestowal, the authentic part of the Creator within you. Thus I unite with the Creator.

The spiritual is right here, between us, and not in some other place, some other world. I can clearly feel this spiritual Kli; the fact that we don’t feel it is our psychological problem.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/10, Article, “Purpose of Society”

Related Materials:
Laitman.com Post: Freedom Lies In Expanding Our Point In The Heart
Laitman.com Post: The Kabbalistic Group Is A Spiritual Booster
Kabbalah Moments: “Part Of God Within Everyone”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - 1 Comment →

Article “Purpose of Society”

In the article “Purpose of Society,” Rabash writes that man is born as loving only himself, and hence he can’t make the tiniest move without serving himself. Yet without renouncing egoistical love in us, it is impossible to reach adhesion with the Creator, the equivalence of His properties.

Therefore, the group is necessary for in it the desires and strengths of each add to one another. Everyone is then able to use this immense common force in order to renounce the egoistical desire that prevents him from fulfilling the purpose he is born for.

The Window Into the New World

The Creator is the force of bestowal, love, and annulment of self. This is why I need the group as an external foreign force that works as a lever which allows me to turn my nature around.

The Kabbalistic Group is a Spiritual Booster

The group is the spiritual model before you. It is given to you in a corporeal form, but we turn it into a spiritual form by relating to it as to a collection of souls and not a group of bodies.

Leave Your Donkeys to Graze Below

In order for me to cancel myself before the group, I need to see my friend’s merits, and not the flaws. I need to see the spiritual, divine point in him:

1. Indeed, the Creator wants him!
2. He is special and great, because there is a part of the Creator in him.
3. He has been chosen to be my partner on the spiritual path. When the Creator created him, He knew that I would be able to attain Him only together with this friend.

The Entry Point into Spirituality

The point in the heart is the Creator in each of us. The Creator exists within every person in the world. However, He manifests openly among the friends of a Kabbalah group since He is the One who brought these spiritual points together so they will unite and come to Him. Therefore, you have to be grateful that this means was given to you.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/10, Article, “Purpose of Society”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Window Into The New World
Laitman.com Post: The Kabbalistic Group Is A Spiritual Booster
Laitman.com Post: Leave Your Donkeys To Graze Below
Laitman.com Post: The Entry Point Into Spirituality

Filed under: Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

The Zohar, Chapter “VaYikra (The Lord Called),” Items 147-149: The Yod of the Holy Name connects in three ties. For this reason, there is one tip in it above, one tip below, and one tip in the middle, since three ties hang down in her. The tip above is the upper Keter, above all the upper ones, the head of all the heads and stands atop all of them…The bottom tip is the other, bottom tip of the Yod. It is Bina, the head to water the garden, Malchut. This is the fountain of water from which all the plantings are watered, since all the Mochin of ZON and BYA extend from the Bina….

The letter “Yod” is Hochma of the world Atzilut, its “hidden mind.” Through the upper point enters the Light of the Infinity, and through its bottom point exits the Light of Bina, flowing through Zeir Anpin; it waters the garden, Malchut.

It would be possible to describe the entire system in details like this, but we are studying The Zohar in order to arouse the Light that Reforms, not to study some dry theory. We study The Zohar not to gain theoretical knowledge of spirituality, but to actually experience it! When we begin to feel what The Zohar is telling us, we will feel bestowal and reception within us and the difference between them; only then will we be able to read and unveil the whole picture, which will appear as sensations. We will study The Zohar in order to understand what we are feeling! Then I will start studying Kabbalah as a science; I will add mind to my feelings.

But first I have to receive the sensation! The mind follows. Otherwise, it would simply be theoretical reasoning without practical comprehension. We would get stuck in these diagrams and remain in this world to intellectualize, as if we know what is going on “there” in the spiritual world.

But we don’t need to know what is happening there: We have to be there! There is a great difference between those who are perceiving the spiritual world and the theorists who are just learning about it in The Zohar. The latter are the type that Baal HaSulam encountered in Jerusalem when he arrived in Israel. They were studying The Zohar and knew all its books and writings of the ARI by heart. But when he asked whether they perceive it, they replied: “There is nothing to perceive here! We just memorize the text.”

But for us, first and foremost, it is important to achieve the ability to perceive the spiritual world: The Zohar has to enter us, and we must begin living in it. Then, we will study what we feel and how to change these feelings, how to walk in spirituality.

We cannot research what we don’t perceive. Since we are the matter of the will to receive, we must perceive the reality within it. Only then we will be able to study what our perception. consists of.

Bina derives from the word “Havana,” understanding, as it is written, “the heart understands.” This is why we study The Zohar, in order to be able to bestow and perceive the Creator. Later, you and I will discuss every page of The Zohar, and we will see how much it contains, the entire symphony of feelings.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Searching For Spiritual Sensations
Laitman.com Post: On The Waves Of Spiritual Attainment
Moments From The Daily Kabbalah Lesson: “Learn To Feel”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Arvut (mutual guarantee) takes force when I swear that from now on my part in all others will always be fulfilled. It seems rather simple, but for me to achieve this I need to spiritually adhere to everyone and sense their desires. Since we are connected in our souls, I have to discover where my part lies inside the desire of the other and he certainly must receive something through my soul, like it works in a common physical body.

Where then is that hollow area which I have to fill according to the system that exists in the World of Infinity? I have to take care of it, and so must each of us with regard to the others. There is no soul where I don’t have a part and need to fill the space. Nobody can fill it except me; it’s a special space, a unique range, which only I can fill. And I assume responsibility for it, just let me do it!

I don’t need anything but that. Like a mother who takes care of her baby who desires one thing only: an opportunity to provide care. Try telling a mother to pass her child to someone else. Even if she is a queen and has numerous attendants who would be happy to assist her, she still enjoys feeding her offspring. She receives pleasure from doing it herself. We too have to perceive our bestowal onto others as pleasure.

Thanks to our bonding with each other, within each soul there is a space that I must fill. My soul contains 7 billion parts; outside of it, there are an additional 7 billion souls, and in each one of them I have to fill my space (as do each of us). From my point in the heart, I fill in my parts in all other souls, and each of them has to fill his part within me.

This is called the mutual penetration of souls. Each has a root from which one acts. And all other desires in me except the root are foreign. They are present in me only because I contain them all.

Originally, I am just a point. I need the others to give me fulfillment in all these desires and only then will I live! As for me, I have to use these desires to understand the others and repair the hole in them that only I can fill. When I plug these other desires into me, I see their needs and fill them from my point in the heart. You feel me through my desire plugged into you, and you fill in your space within me from your point in the heart. This is called Arvut. There isn’t any other opportunity for all of us to be fulfilled. It is the only way.

From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/10, Article “Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Materials:
Laitman.com Post: Everyone Is Equal In Bestowal
Shamati #11: “Joy With a Quiver”
5 Minutes Of Light: “Perceiving Through Bestowal”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →