Imagine that you come to the lesson and your arm hurts badly; you will think about the pain all the time, of course. It will interfere with your studying and will cause great discomfort; you won’t know how to get rid of this pain and you won’t be able to forget it.

The question is how should we feel the same pain for not having reached the end of correction yet, for not having reached our ultimate goal? I don’t want to wait a single day! If it is so important to me, I am burning with impatience, like a baby –I want it now and right away!

The problem is that I don’t want what I should want. Where can I get the right desire from? This is a reason for a prayer.

I see no rush to connect with the friends and to reach the love of others in order to reach the spiritual goal. These are problems on top of other problems that set many obstacles before me one after the other. If I really wanted to reach the goal, I would love the friends; after all, it is unattainable without them. But the point is that I don’t need this goal: Does anyone want to give? And so I don’t need the friends and I don’t want to pay for the goal by love of others. It all seems very distant, foggy and unrealistic. I sit in front of the book during the lesson thinking: “What am I doing here anyway?”

So we are given a tool called the Torah in which there is the force that brings us to the goal. For us this is the upper level from which the force called the Light comes and pulls us forward. This is what we have to think about during the lesson just as you think about the arm that hurts and which you want to heal.

It doesn’t matter what you are reading at the moment, you have to think about your “illness” and to dream about the healing. If you don’t have a deficiency for that, ask that it will be given to you, connect to the friends, check which desires they have.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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It is very important to take part in the conventions and meetings that we hold since this attack really advances a person and allows him to get closer and to connect to others.

There are people who even find it very hard to sit among others and they count the hours until all this is finally over and they will be able to go home. But it is important to feel even such situations deeply, since it is a very good way to learn. We should only try not to get stuck in this state for a long time and to move forward as quickly as possible. Everything is determined according to how you subdue yourself before the environment.

We shouldn’t think that we are advancing only during these attacks when we are under the influence of the powerful environment, subduing ourselves before it, since we have no choice. It is possible to advance even faster during the usual daily lesson. In every lesson a very strong Light is revealed to us, even stronger than during the convention.

The whole point is that during the lesson we cannot hold on to the same sharpness of the senses and devotion in the same intensity. During the congresses the special actions, the special conditions, and the feeling of the attack, influence us. During the daily lesson it is a continuous war.

We have to build up power during the convention, the power we have attained during the attack, but later we have to fulfill it day by day and to understand that these are the true conditions of the war. During the lesson we are in a daily war, until we finally reach the true prayer.

I have to constantly examine myself and constantly keep the three conditions of the prayer. There is nothing but a prayer, a request, which includes the feeling of how great the Creator is, a self-check of whether I did everything possible, and of whether I am really devoted to the goal with all my soul and value it more than life itself. In order to do that I must constantly examine myself since everything that is connected is the essence of my attitude to the upper, to the higher level, to the unified system.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/23/12, Shamati #209

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The only means for spiritual advancement is working in the group, thanks to which we clarify whether we want to connect with one another. Eventually we discover that we cannot connect and don’t even want to and totally reject the mutual connection.

Our whole nature rebels against such a connection. We are ready to put up with anything except that. There are relationships that we enjoy and we want them, but a connection with the friends, a mutual connection in which every individual serves the general—our heart will never agree to that.

Only such a mutual relationship is called “connection,” in which everyone is like a component in an electric circuit, or in an engine. So in every whole system, every component is part of the system and has to perform his job and keep his obligations to the other parts.

In order to do that, we need to annul the ego. People whose ego isn’t so developed are ready to be with others and it is easy for them to be close, to feel one another, to be friends. However, the more a person develops, the more his ego grows and the more difficult he finds it to connect with others. He doesn’t feel that he has friends at all.

Once, even several decades ago, people felt close to one another, but today everyone is by himself. We don’t even notice how everyone is closed up in his niche. We hide behind the computer screen and call it a relationship. We feel better this way, more comfortable! All of humanity is like that now.

There are different methods to make people connect, which are mainly based on Nazism, fascism, and fundamentalism. These methods are meant to evoke the feeling of solidarity in the masses. To some extent it stops their psychological development and so it is easier to manage them.

But in spiritual development on the other hand, there are two opposing approaches that are integrated. On the one hand, a person has to be very developed, a great individualist. Everyone must feel that he is totally isolated and that he doesn’t belong to anyone else. It is so prominent that it seems as if he doesn’t belong to this world.

On the other hand, we are required to connect so powerfully that everyone should totally annul himself against his desire to annul others. It is the most unrealistic demand that can possibly be in our world, and it is against the trend of human development. After all, as the ego develops people become increasingly more detached from one another. Everyone draws away from others and hides behind his computer, his cell phone, or at home.

Everyone lives in a niche he has created for himself. Suddenly he is required to do the opposite: to leave his niche and connect in his heart and soul. What is more, we have to do this not by being forced, but to want it ourselves! After all, we discover that this unity is the highest value.

There is no advantage in it, but this is where the truth lies. So it is very hard to approach the values of bestowal and love, if internally in our feelings we don’t find a justification for it.

But this is the principle according to which the spiritual world works! In order to acquire these values, which are totally opposite from our current values, we have to recruit the help of the upper force so that it will influence us and change us.

We have to ask for that during the study. After all, we study the actions that take place on a higher level—actions of bestowal, love, and connection—working on the systems of the souls. It isn’t a mechanical system that is emotionless, but a live system in which the mind and the feelings operate according to the law of mutual guarantee.

We study about the relations between our desires, which are in mutual bestowal, and we want to resemble them, which means to study them, to connect to them and to enter the same state. Thus, we draw ourselves to this state and spur the influence of the force called the Light that Reforms.

We have to think and study about these upper states, about how our egoistic desires operate loyally in mutual bestowal.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/19/12, The Zohar

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Question: How do I force the upper to awaken me?

Answer: The upper awakens us from the start. As it says “I am the first.” This first awakening is given to a person before he begins to yearn for spirituality. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had such thoughts from the start and it wouldn’t touch his heart.

Everything begins from an awakening from Above, called the “Reshimo” (reminiscence, information gene)—a reason, the influence of the friends, a desire that is suddenly evoked, a song—this is how I am awakened.

The awakening always comes from the upper, but usually in a concealed way without a connection to Him. It is as if I wake up by chance, suddenly. The upper hides on purpose, so as not to steal the “freewill” from me. The question is how will I work with this awakening, how will I respond to it?

First, do I understand that I have received it from the upper and thank Him for awakening me? In addition I have to clarify what exactly I have to wake up to? What are the options that I have?

This is the clarification of the question about the meaning of life, which I now have to ask myself: “What is the point in my life? Why should I go on living?” This means, what does my ego, my desire, aim at? What am I living for?

I begin to clarify the goal of my life in a more accurate manner, sorting the desires, until I find the most worthwhile desire for which it is really worthwhile to live. Suppose I had one last minute to live, and I had a chance to ask for one thing only, what would I ask for in this last minute?

I have to clarify what the most important thing for me is, what I should ask for. When we delve into this clarification, we see that we can only do it in a group. After all, it is the pattern of the upper world—as if the upper world descends into our world.

On the one hand, the relations among the friends are egoistic and they clarify this world for us. Yet, at the same time we have a point in the heart, which enables us to build a layer of upper relations, called the next world, the upper world.

Then we will be able to work on two planes: suppressing the lower, egoistic layer as much as we can trying to build another layer above it, a new level of relations based on love, mutual concern, mutual guarantee and connection.

The group enables us to build the pattern of the upper relations. It provides us with many opportunities to mutually work on our envy, on the lust, the hatred, and the love. Thanks to it we understand why we behave one way and not differently, and we begin to understand our states. Thus we quickly clarify our only right request.

We examine the other requests and see that they are all trivial and temporary and so we draw away from them. It says: “All the gates are locked, except for the gate of tears,” which means except for the last gate in which we demand adhesion according to equivalence of form. After all, we did everything we could, we tried to fulfill it and we saw that we can’t. We do not rest, but rather demand and ask, and thus reach what we desire.

This preparation includes many stages: The feeling of exile, the domination of Pharaoh, and then the struggle against him, until we manage to escape and reach a spiritual birth.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/19/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can the group awaken me?

Answer: This is part of our mutual guarantee. I must feel that if I don’t awaken them, they will not do the same for me.

This is actually the problem: Why do we fall asleep and not advance, lagging behind the world? Instead of carrying the world behind us to correction, we are waiting for the world to discover its illness, the shattering, more and more.

If a close relative, someone who is very dear to you, your child, were seriously ill, and he felt worse from day to day, would you wait tranquilly until he were in a fatal condition? Wouldn’t you look for a cure for him in every possible way? Wouldn’t you do anything to find a way to convince him to take the remedy?

Do you also worry about the world this way? If not, then you are not fulfilling your job. The group doesn’t awaken you, and you are not awakening the group.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/14/12, Writings of Rabash

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Everything begins and ends in the vessels that we have to prepare. The upper Light is in a state of absolute rest, which means that the wholeness exists from the start. However, by our deficiencies, by our exertion, we spur this wholeness to leave the source and to be revealed 620 times more than the form of the spark in which it hides.

All the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) is the lowest, minimal level, Nefesh de Nefesh, which exists before we begin to demand it. Through our demand, by the deficiency in the vessels that we have expanded, we turn this Light into NRNHY de NRNHY. So, everything depends on the extent to which we have prepared our deficiencies.

Blowing the Shofar symbolizes Rosh Hashanah (the New Year). This means raising the beauty (Shufra) of bestowal, love, and connection of the Creator’s attributes. This makes it a reason for a holiday: Our ability to raise ourselves and to prefer the attribute of bestowal, instead of the attribute of receiving.

Thus, we prepare the right vessel inside us and begin the new year, the new phase, the new level. This is a law for Israel, which means for those who want to ascend Yashar El (straight to the Creator) according to the three lines.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/19/12, Writings of Rabash

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A good environment is a society that affects a person in a positive way and changes him or her in the direction of connection, unity, the best comfortable state. This is still just an earthly, animal well-being.

But then inside this society, a person suddenly begins to open a wonderful source of energy that flows forth from there and raises him upward like a fountain of water toward the sun.

Imagine that our world is superimposed, an overlay of many worlds, many possibilities. We are still in one possible cut of them, and we can move into others. It all depends on the observer’s angle of view, on the person.
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From a Talk About Dissemination 9/7/12

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Question: Can you describe in a few words what one should expect in the spiritual world?

Answer: It is impossible to describe the feeling of the spiritual world in words. How can the feeling of infinity, the ascent above time—when two opposite poles connect and the past, present, and future merge in one point—be conveyed to a person who perceives the world only thorough his current corporeal senses?

If you change one millimeter in the angle of your vision in this space, you will see a totally different world. If you change it by another millimeter, you will see another new world. It all depends on your position regarding the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). You choose the angle of vision by yourself, and then another section of an infinite reality is immediately revealed to you.

However, it is impossible to explain that since these pictures do not include the visual images we are used to. It is possible to teach a person the spiritual mechanics, to explain how the transition from one state to another occurs and how to perform different actions, but it is impossible to convey what he will feel then. In order to do so, he must be ready for a spiritual sensation.

On every spiritual level, there is the expansion of the mind and an exceptional feeling that cannot be compared to anything in this world. There is no way to express this, not even in music or in colors.

No matter how hard artists have tried to approach this in the late phases of the history of painting, in impressionism, this whole stream stopped, having reached a dead end. A person has no other greater means to express his inner world.
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From a Talk About Dissemination 9/7/12

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, #168, “The Customs of Israel”: The customs of Israel are so important, that it is safe to say that they give more spirituality to a person than the Mitzvot themselves. This is so although breaking a custom does not yield punishment, and breaking a judgment does yield punishment. Still, concerning the benefit, meaning producing fear of heaven, the customs yield more spirituality, since the great ones who established the customs arranged it so that spirituality would shine through them.

There is a great problem as for the corporeal actions that are aimed at love and connection; actions which Rabash describes in his articles about the society. We mustn’t think lightly of them and thus we perform everything relatively.

A “custom” is a condition, a law, which I can’t perform on the spiritual level at the moment and so I keep it only in corporeality. I bring the friends contentment and try to fulfill the desires of the friends, to connect them, and to connect to them in order to bring them contentment. I constantly fulfill different actions that belong to the commandment of “Love thy friend,” to connection and to mutual guarantee. Indeed, neither I nor the friends have reached a spiritual fulfillment yet; it isn’t the fulfillment of the “commandments” yet, not the drawing of the Light that Reforms that connects, that awakens, and fills us. In the meantime we are on the level of preparation and all our actions are on the level of “customs.”

So we study, work in the group, carry out the advice of the Kabbalists, and it doesn’t matter whether we understand them or not. They attached special help from Above to their advice—the Light that Reforms. So, even though our intention is egoistic (Lo Lishma – Not for Her Name) from Lo Lishma we arrive at the altruistic intention of Lishma (For Her Name).

Everything that helps you reach correction in the meantime is used with the intention of in order to receive, which means with egoistic intentions, is called a “custom.” You operate in order to connect and even if you don’t want to connect, even if you are looking for self-benefit, the Light comes and brings you a different intention, which you couldn’t even have asked for. You didn’t even think about it, but it happens—you suddenly begin to appreciate the attributes of bestowal and love.

In order to do that, we need group work: to annul yourself, to raise the friends in your eyes, to spur them and yourself. Yes, you want to gain something by these actions, after all, you benefit by such actions since this is the only way to draw the Light.

It’s a simple law: The Light comes only to the desire that is similar to it in its properties. True, you haven’t reached an equivalence of form yet, but you have the corporeal body and this is what it was created for, so that with it you will support the friends and tell them how much you love them and how important the Creator is, and give them examples of bestowal and of self-annulment. With the help of our bodies we connect to one another. Although all our actions in the group are in order to receive, they are the type of actions Kabbalists have prepared especially in order to attain true connection.

My intentions are the opposite, malicious, I intend to use the upper world and the Creator for my own benefit, but the actions I perform are right and thanks to them, thanks to the mechanism Kabbalists have created, I can correct myself. Otherwise, how could I exit the shattering? Here the “customs” are necessary, the right action that lead to the right intentions.

Kabbalists have performed special corrections in order to insert the Light that Reforms into the customs after the “shattering.” The Light can’t pour into the “vessels” that are below, beyond the “shattering line,” within the desire to receive. Still it’s possible to raise the vessels that are beginning to wake up. Thus we begin to work.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/12, Customs of Rosh Hashanah

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After a person is awakened to spirituality, the rest of his ascent depends on the deficiency. This is the only thing he is required to do—to have a deficiency called prayer, MAN.

This is possible only when a person is grateful that he has received such a yearning. Then he increases the importance of the goal by himself; the importance of the next level. In addition, it is possible if above all this he also develops another deficiency in him, to ascend not for his own sake but in order to bring the Creator contentment. It is like the famous example of the guest who wants to please the host.

Thus he prepares himself to receive help from Above which will make his desire the right one. Even if a person doesn’t understand to what extent our account is actually egoistic, it makes no difference and for the time being this is also enough. Later he will see that his account isn’t clean. This is why the time of preparation is called Lo Lishma (Not for Her Sake).

It is a natural egoistic account and it is impossible to skip above our ego all at once. It opens up gradually to the extent we can make an effort and work against it—against things we find pleasant, against our habits, and to the extent that we are ready to step on our pride in order to connect with others.

All this isn’t simple, but if a person constantly pays attention to it, he advances. Our problem is that everyone is trying to escape and to hide in his corner, to hide behind the studying, behind the desire to know what is written, which has nothing to do with spiritual advancement and the inner correction. A person fills his mind with dry facts and neglects the work in the heart.

The work in the heart is working against the heart, in order to turn the “stony heart” into the “heart of flesh.” But we forget where our main exertion should be. Everyone finds some comfortable spot and thinks that he has found the way. Thus he descends even from Lo Lishma, since Lo Lishma is when despite being in my ego I still make some efforts to rise above it.

Where is the daily work to connect with others, to concede, to step on myself, to annul my “self,” to accept the importance of the group’s opinion, to become a slave to the mission? Can I examine myself and see the state I am in? This is called Lo Lishma.

All of Moses’ work in Egypt is an example of working in Lo Lishma. He wants to escape the enslavement, but he is afraid because he understands that he is under the domination of Pharaoh, of his ego, and he doesn’t know how to talk to him. It reaches a state that the Creator Himself takes him and brings him to Pharaoh and helps him in everything that he does.

The Creator Himself fights the Pharaoh. He says: “Come to the Pharaoh!” But in the meantime a person is afraid. He knows that the ego totally controls him and how weak he is when he confronts him. He is in a constant dilemma: On the one hand, he is ready, and the other hand he isn’t. If he could at least ask the Creator to go before him, just to hide behind Him and thus stand before the Pharaoh; but he actually doesn’t want to go and he doesn’t have the guts to turn not only to his ego but also to his own attributes, called “the nation of Israel.”

But by being in a system that connects him with Pharaoh, the Creator, and the nation he has to clarify all these connections. He cannot hide behind some theory or some work that is only a means. It is very important to clarify what Lo Lishma means.

When a person enters the state of Lishma (For Her Sake), things become clearer and more decisive. We cannot say that it gets easier, but one profits from experience. In the meantime, however, during the time of preparation, a person escapes to some corner ready to sit there until his last day. It is a great problem if the group doesn’t spur him and guide him. He has to feel that he is lower than them in order to hear what they say.

The feeling of helplessness on the one hand and the necessity to advance on the other is a state called Yomim Norai’im (the Days of Awe). A person is in a state of anxiety since he has no fear of not being able to fulfill the Creator’s desire, of not being able to allow Him to be revealed to all the created beings, of not being able to sacrifice himself for the convergence of the Creator to the created beings.

All this evokes fear in him. He really wants to fulfill this stage in practice, so that it will be called the beginning of a new year for him.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/14/12

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