The main point we constantly should guard as our inner goal is the principle of “There is none else besides Him.” The Creator is the reason for every state, every thought, every perception, for everything that happens. There is only one force managing me and the world around me, and nothing but that.

It is all meant so that I, through my connection with the world, at every moment, in every event and in every action, both internally and externally, will reach the understanding that “There is none else besides Him” within the global circle. This is called adhesion within the general vessel. This is our work, and this is what we focus on.

However, the world is big, and, so, we begin with the group (1), and only then move on to the rest of the world (2). I must connect with the group through different cases and problems, and it should be the most important thing for me now. When I turn to the group, I also must remember the world as the second part of my work.

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It says “there is not a blade of grass below that doesn’t have an angel Above beating it and telling it to grow,” which means that a force from the upper world that matches the grass in the lower world, beats it and forces it to grow according to its role. These blows are felt in the feelings and in the mind, but first of all in our feelings, since we are a vessel of feeling, a desire to receive, which begins to move as a result of the blows.

A blow is felt by the desire when it suddenly discovers that the old images it had are incorrect. The function of the blow is to make a person feel things more deeply. Just like a hammer hits a nail driving it more deeply into the wood, so does the blow drive us more deeply into the matter of the desire. Then we begin to feel it in a new way and we begin to understand it more deeply.

I am confused because of the blow, and I lose control. But in fact, that’s the way it should be: The more a person advances, the greater are the blows that hit him, he is constantly confused and discovers something new, and thus over and over again. You will soon feel how this mechanism is constantly ticking inside, regularly. These small blows, time after time, make us dive more deeply into a feeling of confusion, and thus help us understand and feel things more.

But in order to truly feel something new, we have to go through many such reincarnations. The amount of confusion is always greater than the amount of feelings, and only after great turmoil and many confusions is there a new feeling. Afterward there is another series of confusions and small revelations and then a new feeling comes along.

To sum up, these blows are beneficial, since the “angels,” which are the forces in charge of our development are giving them out.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/12

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In order to reach the goal of creation, we need to develop a desire towards that goal, a vessel, a place, in which we will be able to imagine, feel, and realize this goal. Everything depends on the type and the character of the desire we need to prepare.

For that reason, there is an initial stage when a person leads a beastly existence, caring only about the materialistic needs: food, sex, family, wealth, respect, and knowledge, meaning natural desires he was born with.

Then follows a stage when a person starts to search for the real meaning of life. He feels that regular earthly pleasures no longer fulfill him and finds it hard to believe that he was born to live a life like this. He doesn’t believe that the whole endless universe exists only for man to be born, live somehow, and die. There has to be a more exalted goal here!

This is a sign that the point in the heart started talking in a person, which compels him to search. Now from this point he needs to develop a whole vessel. This stage is called “a scanty and unhappy life.” It’s so even if a person has all of the material blessings, and it will not help him if he limits himself artificially, living on “bread with salt and water.”

Humanity went through several stages during its development: 2000 years times three, a total of 6000 years of world’s spiritual development. The first 2000 years there was chaos, followed by 2000 years of the Torah, and the last 2000 years is the era of the Messiah, the final correction.

That is why different laws were in effect during each time period. Each period corresponds to its level of desires: HBT, HGT, and NHY, and each level is further divided into the same levels of HBT, HGT, and NHY. This way we can divide the whole process of development into increasingly smaller stages, 6000 levels. And accordingly, we will be able to understand what changes occur in each part and during each segment of the path.

That is why during this period of time, the qualities of the souls coming into our world for the correction suit the concrete stage of development and belong to HBT, HGT, or NHY. In our time, the correction is only possible by the Light that Reforms. During previous generations, before the time of Talmudic sages, it was possible to correct oneself by restraining corporeal desires. After all, people at that time acted at the zero level of the desire to enjoy.

Of course, life is felt as scanty precisely in the spiritual sense. It can also be divided into three stages: A person finds himself in Kabbalah and at first doesn’t know what is happening, where he ended up. He studies Kabbalah theoretically, hoping to become wiser. He dreams only of his own success, augmenting his egoistic desires, until he understands that achievement doesn’t mean that he develops the receiving desires but rather that he acquires the bestowing ones.

The Surrounding Light illuminates upon him and gradually changes him. Like a penny that helps to a big capital so does he eventually begins to understand that this is not the goal and that he will not get anything this way. The egoistic form in which he tried to fill his egoistic desires becomes unacceptable for him. Now he is ready for everything just to transition to the bestowing desires.

This turnaround is a sign of the transition into a state of Lo Lishma. That is, a person discovers that he is not in Lishma (Lo Lishma), not in bestowal. Everything he did in his life, not in the everyday life, but namely in terms of his participation in the group, the studies, and different states he went through, all this was only for his own sake, consciously and unconsciously!

This is revealed to him, but to the extent that he wouldn’t get completely upset and could go on, that he would appeal with a prayer and wouldn’t run away completely. This is how a person advances until he discovers all of his desires, which depends on his hastening of time and perseverance. And most important is the support from the environment, mutual help that allows him to transition from Lo Lishma to Lishma.

This becomes possible because he has formed the vessels, the need for reaching the goal. This is expressed as raising the prayer, MAN, the desire aimed at the Light, at the Creator, the only one who can do anything, even change man’s nature. There is no other source.

When a person obtains the intention to bestow, this intention is realized in the very desires that previously were aimed only at the beastly fulfillment. Then he expected to fill them with the help of Kabbalah, egoistically, and afterwards, during the period of exile, attempted to reveal the quality of bestowal in them. But in the end, he receives an opportunity to bestow in the same desires, and sees it as liberation. This state is called Lishma, in which he becomes worthy of the true life, both in this world and in the world to come.
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A person goes through many stages of unconscious development like we have been through throughout history. But in the meantime it isn’t the human in us that has developed. The human in us has to be born now, out of labor pains! A new form of existence called “man” is going to develop from the animate level.

All our previous history was only the preparation for the development of real human life. Now the human species has to develop in all of humanity, which includes the Israeli nation in it. The human level is called a desire to connect with others, an inclination to connect with others, an intention.

At first it can be an egoistic inclination that results from my feeling bad and knowing that a connection with others can improve my situation and save me. This is the state we are in now in Israel. The pressure that we are feeling lately and have always felt because of wars was created only to push us and to force us so that the human will be born, it is like labor contractions that push the baby out.

All this happens so that we will exit ourselves towards others, and because this development is already above the level of still nature, the vegetative and the animate, an additional component is necessary here: understanding, recognition, and self-participation. The embryo that is about to be born from us now helps itself come out of its mother’s womb, out of its egoistic nature.

Thanks to its understanding and recognition and different assisting actions, this baby is incorporated in the general system so it can use it. The system begins to help it and this help is called the Light that Reforms.

I perform actions on my levels of development: the still, vegetative, and animate nature; I work in the group. And while I operate egoistically, it makes no difference. If I do it in order to be born and even in order to escape sufferings, these actions help me in the birth process, pushing me forward with the contractions. Then it will be an easy birth since I open the passage out by myself!

As long as we are in the desire to receive, as if within a womb, we feel good: We have developed, yearned for different achievements, fought, conquered, made profits and everything was great. But this passage is the egoistic state that precedes the future state, the birth canal, which is an extremely narrow place, as we know from the corporeal world.

It is a very dangerous passage, very difficult, involving great sufferings and pressure. But we can expand the birth canal by the Light of Hassadim, by yearning for an opening, for connection. This means that we draw the Light of Hassadim to this place, thanks to which the canal expands, and we come out easily, like a baby with the water. We can help ourselves this way even with the help of our previous egoistic desires if we only understand that we have to be born.

So we have to understand that the same problems we have experienced lately as a result of the shelling on the outside and the economic difficulties that will soon be revealed on the inside, all these troubles, like labor pains, are meant to give birth to the human in us. First the Israeli nation has to do it and then everyone else.

This pressure will grow and we shouldn’t wait and make any calculations based on political talks. The pressure will grow until we agree to participate in our birth.

There is nothing but these two forces; if we want to come out of the birth canal quickly and easily, we have to expand it by Hassadim, and to spread the connection and love among everyone. Now we are in the delivery room, in a crisis (the word “crisis”—“Mashber” refers to the birth stones that women used to give birth on in the past.)
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/12, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 25: Examine the first question, where they imagine that they can keep the whole Torah without the knowledge of the wisdom of Kabbalah. I say to them: Indeed, if you can keep the study of Torah and the observance of the commandments appropriately, Lishma, meaning only in order to bring contentment to the Maker, then indeed, you do not need to study Kabbalah. This is because then it is said about you, “One’s soul shall teach him.” But if you have been practicing the Torah in Lo Lishma for more than three years, as Rabbi Yosi says, and five years, as the Tana Kama says, then the Braita warns you that you will not see a good sign in this path you are treading! Why delude your souls with false hopes when you have such a near and sure tactic as the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

We can correct our desire so that it will be totally aimed at bestowal only by uniting “as one man with one heart.” Then we will become a vessel, a desire that is ready for bestowal, and will eventually attain the goal: adhesion with the Creator.

The question is whether this is possible without studying the wisdom of Kabbalah? As we know, the answer is no, it is impossible because the Light that comes to correct a person is revealed only by the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is what brings the Light to our coarse and corrupt souls, and no other wisdom can help us here.

Besides, without the wisdom of Kabbalah we don’t even know what we study for. This is because Kabbalah includes introductions, explanations about why man was created, why the Torah is necessary, and how to use it correctly—only for the correction of human nature, for establishing closer relations between people so that they will become one whole and thus resemble the Light, so that the partition called “Pharaoh,” which separates us from one another and rules over us, will break.

By studying the wisdom of Kabbalah we will understand what our freewill is and where exactly we should apply all our efforts. But if a person just studies the Holy Scripture: the Bible, the Talmud, and so on, it isn’t enough to understand what is required of him.

At the end of the exile we have reached such lowly desires that even with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah it is difficult to assess and translate the terms and the definitions correctly, directing it to the person himself, to what is happening inside him. From the part called “The Perception of Reality,” we know that everything is actually inside us. And still, it is very hard for us to change our perspective, to look from the outside inwards, and to see that the whole world is in here, and that this is the place that needs correction.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/12, “Introduction to TES“

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You know why I like a Georgian choir so much? It’s because of the accord. The singers have to share the same feelings, the hearts of all participants have to be like one heart. They should work as a team and feel each other. There has to be internal balance and complete integration.

Each singer performs his part without interfering with others and simultaneously is in accord with them. Their voices go in innumerable directions and unite, then divide, split, and come back together over and over again. This internal flow of the connection of the opposites is what grants such strength to this art.

It’s exactly how a Kabbalistic group has to act internally.
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From a Meal at the Georgia Convention 11/5/12

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We are under the constant influence of the one and only force of the Creator—there is none else besides Him. Why does He always confuse us? We sleep, and then all of a sudden we wake up, get inspired, rejoice, and then again have no idea where to go. We feel like we want to stay close to our friends, then we prefer to be as far from them as possible, staying away from the group. Then we are either in high spirits or suddenly become sad. What does He want of us? Why does He constantly toss us from side to side? Why doesn’t He give us concrete and correct directions on how to advance?

Religions dictate: “Do this and that, and everything will be fine. Don’t do that or you’ll be in trouble.” Everything is clear there. This is the way we teach our children: “Stop doing this, it’s bad. You’ll succeed if you do what I am telling you.”

Everything that’s going on in the world is more or less clear to us except our own spiritual work. We are doing something that is utterly elusive. We are in constant confusion. Something that we clearly understood yesterday is totally vague to us today and we can’t even come back to it.

Why does the Creator turn us into people who swing from one state to another, from certain conclusions to others? If He is One, Unique and Unified, if He is the only force that governs us, then where do our diverse states come from? Why does He do everything in His power to confuse and disorient us and bring us to a state when our desires and thoughts are of no help at all?

Question: Why does He do that? If, say, this single force is throwing us from side to side, then why does He evoke such states in us when the more we advance, the more doubts and troubles we go through? Does He really want us to come closer to Him? Why doesn’t He want us to become smarter and stronger? There is a goal, a method, everything! Then why do we experience ever new opposing sensations and opinions? What’s going on in general?! Why does He need all of this?

Answer: The Creator constantly shakes us in order to make us understand that we are helpless and to motivate us to eventually appeal to Him. Why does He constantly shake us as if we’re in a washing machine? He does that to make us lose the ground that we stand on and hold onto Him.…
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From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Workshop 1

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The conscious aspiration towards the Creator means that we organize a group, its spiritual center, assemble together, all our aspirations are aimed forward, everyone is equal, everyone connects, and we expect to find the Creator and cling to Him as to our only place of rescue specifically in the group.

A small child holds on to his mother (he doesn’t know anything else in the world), grasping her, feeling her, and recognizing her scent, and that’s it: He doesn’t need anything else. So do we need to reach such a state in order to hold on to the Creator, but only through the group and from within it. This is our salvation! It is specifically in this state that we cross the Machsom (the barrier that separates us from spirituality), the first point of connection, adhesion, contact with the Creator.

It is well described in the stories of the exit from Egypt, when one no longer knows what is happening. People flee from there at night, run without knowing where to, jump through the Red Sea. They jump into the abyss, it doesn’t matter where—what matters is to move forward, towards the Creator, and to hold on to Him! It is not known what will be there, and there’s no need to know. One finds himself in this state, and in this state he passes the Machsom. This is, to our present states, when we, so to speak, are slightly rocked from side to side, we need to add these big shake-ups.

And after one passed the Machsom, he is being shaken more strongly. There, on one hand, one finds the Klipot (the shells) and on the other, the divinity, meaning forces of impurity and holiness. There serious problems begin, which don’t stop until Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction). They travel from the bottom to the top by a cone, and minus and plus become greater and greater. And that gives us greater and greater need to hold on to the Creator. And this is what His help is. This is why it is called “help against him.”

But is there another possibility to come to Him if we are egoists and were created opposite to Him? There is no other way.

So what is our participation in this? When we are being shaken, we grasp onto the Creator, like a baby to his mother, crying, longing, clinging to Him. What is our work in order that we will grasp this process and transform it into good, conscious, worthy?

Question: How can we make this process in order to participate in it and not just to be rocked from side to side and thus have us long to hold on to Him? How is it possible to transform this path into something more normal? How is it possible to speed up our progress forward?

Answer: We can participate ourselves in this process only in the event that we approach it more strongly and attain the point of connection in the group. Through this point, we will hold on to the Creator more strongly.

We need to do this consciously so that the shake-ups from the side of the Creator don’t influence us, so that we ourselves, regardless of the shake-ups, exalt connection with Him, so that drawing closer to the Creator, to a state when we are in reciprocity, unity, love, and mutual assistance, when we are one complete whole will be important for us. This shouldn’t be in order to escape problems, but because it is important in itself.
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From the Georgia Convention 11/05/12, Workshop 1

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We have a huge force in our hands and there is nothing that compares to it in the world. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the foundation of nature without all the myths and beliefs! The physical laws, the most profound laws of the world are mutual cooperation of two opposing forces: the Light and the vessel (desire), the attribute of reception and the attribute of bestowal, and there’s nothing but that.

Call them what you want: plus and minus, the North Pole and the South Pole, or proton and electron. We have the method to balance them that explains how we can build the world using these two building blocks, how we can complete the building of this purposefully incomplete world by ourselves, and thus understand what the Creator wants of us.

He wants us to be able to build it with Him. Just like a child builds a house of building blocks, sculptures something, plays with a construction set, or puts together a jigsaw puzzle, we too have to complete building this world!

The still, vegetative, and animate parts of this world are instinctively balanced. Nature operates in them so that they are never wrong and function correctly. Someone catches someone else, someone eats someone else; this is how nature governs them. This is so except for man.

We contain the animate and the speaking levels. We have to bring the animate level to balance with nature. This means reasonable consumption. The world will have to come to it either by suffering, by a crisis, or in a good way. I think that this development will accelerate now.

In any case, now everyone is already speaking about this openly. Lately we hear on the media that things will not be better in the future, but even worse. It isn’t only in Europe, but in America and in other countries too. That is, people already admit that there is no way out of this state.

Thus, nature will bring us either consciously or by blows to feel the necessity of a wise existence, of reasonable consumption: Everything should be shared equally, and then everyone will have whatever they need to subsist. All the other forces and time will be aimed only at attaining the next level called Adam (human), meaning similarity to the Creator in unity between us.

This is what we have to build by ourselves. We have to attain this level and to exist in it sensibly and not instinctively, so that we’ll be able to attain the level of the Creator, the one unified force that surrounds and manages us.

We must not think about this force as something material. Only the desire can be real. The Light that manages it is not matter, but only an intention to bestow. We will understand this with time.
[93604]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Lesson 4

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