The term “sacrifices” in Judaism refers to the desire to give of oneself to society. From the meat of the animals that were sacrificed at the Temple, the poor, the Levites, and the people held meals, and this was called “the work of the Temple.”

The desire to give of oneself to society was expressed in the form of a commandment a person should perform, in the form of tithe, which was used for educating the people.

Everyone had to bring a sacrifice according to the sin he had committed or something that he did wrong. The people were on a spiritual level at that time, and everyone determined his egoistic sins by himself since the others didn’t see them. A person felt where he had gone wrong and where he had sinned, and then according to Rabash, he had to have a feast, invite friends, sit together, and connect with them. This is called “God’s work.”

This is how people connect. At the same time they did very intensive, internal, spiritual work as to why they were doing all that. When a person has a feast, he raises and awakens others so that they will impress him more next time and help him not to fall again.

Everything is done in a very peaceful way as we also do today. Why do we need a corporeal Temple? We have a place where we meet with the group and there you bring your “sacrifices.” But everyone has to first clarify things in an anti-egoistic manner since otherwise all this is meaningless.

The sacrifices, the work in the Temple, and all the other activities are totally different from what we were brought up to believe. It is all aimed only at the connection between people.

The Temple is a place where all the desires and all the corrections gather. It is the place from where people went out to every region to teach the people, and there wasn’t anyone who did not know how to read and how to count. Everyone knew how to do everything; they all knew the spiritual work thanks to the tithe they gave to support the Temple.

No one followed anyone! Everyone had to do this, otherwise you were not considered one who bestows, who gives. What’s more, if a person gave unwillingly and only because he was forced to, it wasn’t considered a tithe. As it says on the two tablets on which the Ten Commandments were engraved:”Everyone should give as his heart wills.” If it doesn’t come from the heart, it is not considered bestowal.

The Torah, “Exodus,” “Jethro,” 20:22: And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.

An altar must always be higher than you, above your head, “above reason,” above your knowledge and your attainment. This means that bestowal should always be higher than all your calculations.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/4/13

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Israel is a point in the heart that yearns to know what the taste of life is, to discover the secret of life, the source of life. It determines a person’s inner connection with the upper force. A person cannot imagine this connection, but it already exists. Because of it, he is called Israel, Yashar-El (straight to the Creator), since he has this inclination towards the Creator. But this force doesn’t belong to him; rather, it stems from the point in the heart, which is the Godly part from Above that is in him. He has nothing of the upper other than that and will never have anything but what he develops of this point.

As we ascend the 125 levels, we discover our 613 vessels. This is on a person’s part. On the Creator’s part, we are given the point in the heart and the Light that Reforms. We can use these two means in order to correct our shattered vessels.

It turns out that I have an inclination towards spirituality and I have 613 egoistic desires. There is also the Light that Reforms if I want to draw it. So what do I lack? I lack a group towards which I fulfill my 613 desires. This is why I am brought to the group.

So I have a point in the heart, 613 shattered desires, a group, and the Light that Reforms, everything that I need. Now I only have to connect them correctly. If I integrate all these components correctly, the Light operates and influences my 613 desires; my point in the heart is strengthened by them and then the Light can be revealed in these 613 desires, which is called the revelation of the Creator to the created being.

Thus we end one state and everything happens over again from the beginning. The point in the heart is also renewed since it has become stronger by the corrected 613 desires on the previous level. It begins to illuminate and to burn more strongly since against it are the 613 new egoistic desires that are crueler than the previous ones. In contrast to them, there is a stronger Light that Reforms if I want to use it. I also have a group in contrast to them, which according to the new ego is depicted to me as much worse than it was before. So once more I work in order to connect all these components correctly. On the whole this is all I have to do: establish the right relations between these four components.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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The day of the Ninth of Av is the worst and most tragic day of the year since it is the day of the destruction of both the First and the Second Temples. On one hand, we know that Rabbi Akiva rejoiced and laughed when he saw the destruction of the Temple. On the other hand, we experience terrible sufferings, but on the other hand, if you are connected to the goal, you can rejoice in them.

This is especially true when we refer to our times when we have received the chance to return to the land of Israel and now everything depends on us. However, during the exile, these sufferings were absolutely necessary. It’s the same secret that Jacob wanted to reveal to his sons before his death, but eventually didn’t.

If you know exactly what will happen in the future and how it’s connected to the goal, you will not be able to actually suffer and to reach despair, to request, to cry out, or to pray and raise MAN. This is the reason that the wisdom of Kabbalah was concealed for such a long time so that the people will not know why they suffer. The whole world doesn’t understand why the “chosen people” experience such afflictions and they think that it may not be the chosen people any more but rather the persecuted people.

They had to go through all these afflictions corporeally in the most humiliating, primitive, and genuine form, without any mitigation of the Dinim (sentence). The reason is that the mitigation of the Dinim requires the prolonging of the exile and even greater afflictions.

So for ages it was forbidden to reveal that the destruction of the Temple and the afflictions of exile were necessary. If people had known that they had to go through them, they would have felt the connection between the suffering and the goal and wouldn’t have suffered so much. They wouldn’t have felt such sorrow, confusion, and helplessness, and they wouldn’t have felt the gravity and the acute pain of the exile.

Therefore, Kabbalists have forbidden the revelation of the wisdom of Kabbalah since it explains why things happen. They were forced to do so despite their sorrow in order to shorten the exile.

But having returned to the land of Israel where we can build a state according to spiritual laws and set an example for everyone and draw the whole world to the same form of life, we now have to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to its fullest and explain it to the whole Israeli nation and to the whole world. It’s because we are on the verge of the complete redemption! Of course, the correction will be through the Israeli nation to the whole world. But there is no reason to prolong our sufferings since it’s time for the end of correction!

Today, the wisdom of Kabbalah has to be totally revealed. We have suffered throughout the exile and we had to suffer, but now there is no reason to go on suffering. The previous sufferings were enough in order to start the correction from now on. This is the reason that the wisdom of Kabbalah was concealed for so long.

During the 17^th and the 18^th centuries, Hassidim had the custom of going into “exile,” besides the fact that they were already living in exile in different remote places where they suffered afflictions and pogroms. In order to shorten the exile, Kabbalists used to leave their villages and towns and roam around. Thus they hastened the end of the exile. We have to learn the laws of the general development of the vessels and thus understand our whole history and the reason for all the events we went through.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”: Thus, because of their ancestral merit Israel succeeded, and over 400 years they developed and became qualified and sentenced themselves to a scale of merit.

In the course of exile, we face external resistance and reveal the force that does not let us unite, although we want to become one. This force is divided into four layers of Aviut (the “thickness” of desire), and this is what the concept of “four hundred years” indicates. In general, similar breakdowns and measurements stem from the initial structure of HaVaYaH.

If evil, preventing complete integration, is manifested, this means that the sons of Israel had completed the Egyptian exile. This applies to us: If we want to rise to the level of receiving the Torah, meaning the method of correction, then first we must feel ourselves in exile. This growing feeling brings hatred, rejection, alienation, and inability to unite to the three levels of egoistic desire that are called “Egypt” and to the last, the fourth level of burdening of the heart that is called “Pharaoh.” His manifestation is accompanied by the “ten plagues,” and as a result we exit Egypt, meaning feel the necessity to unite in spite of the evil that is being revealed, and flee Pharaoh, ready to receive the Torah.

We are crying, calling, and then the force comes that leads and raises us above the receiving desire. Now we are not in Egypt, we are above the ego, and from this moment on we are ready to become like one. The Light that Reforms affects us, and at Mount Sinai, the mountain of hatred (Sinah), we become a people.

Then, we proceed to the correction of Egypt, begin to “scrape off” this desire, layer by layer, and raise them to bestowal in the property of “AHP on the rise.” At the end, only the “inaccessible” parts of desire (the “stony heart”) will be left in Egypt, which will be corrected last.

So, when the fragments of the general soul of Adam HaRishon begin to connect again, the first who join this process are “lighter,” more sensitive parts. You and I do not understand what type of soul those were who left Babylon together with Abraham and to what source exactly, to what point of the general soul, he belongs. This is the point in the heart Adam HaRishon. In any case, this is the process of correction based on the method of Kabbalah.

Of course, the wisdom of Kabbalah is the science of the highest order belonging to all of humanity, encompassing the entire general vessel and not limited to its individual fragments. It contains the whole reality beginning from the world of Infinity. However, it is used only by those people who can add efforts themselves and accelerate instead of developing “according to schedule.” Without waiting for the correction in their term, they raise MAN, meaning the request, in advance, and help others to do the same. Thus, the wisdom of Kabbalah is the property of the whole world.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The annual Book Fair is taking place in Israel from June 5 to June 15, 2013. The book fair is held in 19 cities and towns across the country; it is very popular and is attended by hundreds of thousands of people annually.

Our books can be found under the brightly colored sign with the number “66” denoting our TV channel and with the QR code displayed on the smartphone screen.

For us, an indicator of successful participation in the fair is the number of people who became introduced to our books. For instance, last year we sold and distributed more than 5,000 books.

This year, we decided to make a qualitative leap, hence the emergence of the QR code: anyone can use it to can download all the books on the smartphone for free. Already during the first day there were 2700 registered downloads. But these figures are far from conclusive because many people forward the downloaded books to their friends.

At the fair, our books are arranged in sections with the following themes: Family and Education, Society, and The Meaning of Life.

Happy reading!

Our website: http://66books.co.il/en/
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Every letter that is described in the article “The Letters of Rabbi Hamnuna Saba“ indicates a certain word or action. The letter Mem stands for the word “king,” so why wasn’t the world created by this letter? It’s as if there is a difference between the correcting force and the state to which it brings the object it corrects.

Mem is the correcting force, Malchut (the kingdom) of the forces, the King stands for domination, and the world cannot exist without a king, which means without a correcting force that persistently advances the desire to receive to correction, to the desired state.

On the one hand, a king is a very high illumination in which the Light of Hochma and the Light of Hassadim that come from the head of Arich Anpin connect. But on the other hand, this illumination cannot dominate the world since it fills up the created beings. The created beings need freedom! Although there is a king and there is Malchut, their domination should be accepted gladly and willingly below, so that the people will want to resemble the king by their own freewill.

A king should not be a dictator and a tyrant, but a role model and a symbol that one should reach. This king rules, but his ruling is good and it attracts the people. Thus the king of Israel differs from the king of the nations of the world. The king of Israel is not an example of domination. He rules by his Holiness, by being great and sublime, corrected and whole and not by force.

He is very powerful but it’s a totally different power, different than other kings.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 

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All of Israel are responsible for each other.

“There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples.” (Notes in parentheses are mine) Haman (the main egoistic characteristic of the person, one of the manifestations of Pharaoh, Amalek, and so forth) said that in his view, we will succeed in destroying the Jews (destroying the connection between those who yearn for the Creator in a greater and more final form), because they are separated from one another; hence, our force (the egoistic power that drives us away from bestowal and love) against them will certainly prevail, as it causes separation (of those who yearn for the Creator) between man (of each one of them) and God. And the Creator will not help them anyway, since they (through distance from each other) are separated from Him. This is why Mordecai went (the characteristic of bestowal in a person) to correct that flaw (the characteristic of separation, the Haman in a person), as it is explained in the verse (in Megillat Esther): “the Jews gathered,” etc., “to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life.” This means that they had saved themselves by uniting (Connection with the Creator)
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #144 “There Is a Certain People”

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Baal Hasulam, “The Peace”: These are the words of Rabbi Akiva: “The book is open and the hand writes.” Any state that the generation is in is like a book, and all the evildoers are as writing hands because each evil is carved and written in the book until they accumulate to an amount that the public can no longer bear. At that time, they ruin that evil state and rearrange into a more desirable state. Thus, each and every act is calculated and written in the book, meaning in the state.

And he says, “All who wish to borrow may come and borrow.” This means that he believes that this world is not like an open store without an owner, but that there is an owner present, a shopkeeper who stands in his store and demands of each customer the right price for the merchandise he is taking from the store, meaning toil in His work while he is nourished by that store, in a manner that is certain to bring him to the purpose of creation, as He pleases.

His goal is to attain bestowal. However, a person requires powers to realize this, and he doesn’t have these powers. He takes them on loan, even though he intends it all for bestowal. What is more, this is even if he wants to repay, that is, not to use anything for himself. He uses the entire world for bestowal.

According to the standards of our world, it is impossible to declare that a person like this is taking something on loan. You see that we get a loan for personal benefit. Here, everything is otherwise. Incidentally, the Torah’s prohibition against giving a loan with interest is derived from this. In the spiritual world, no loan must be paid back with more than what had been received.

So, the forces that I don’t have from the start I take on loan, but I am not taking for myself. They are not mine, I only add to them a desire for the sake of bestowal. Instead of the Creator, I bestow to everyone, and my entire goal is only to convey this bestowal skillfully, as if it were from His hands. I have nothing of my own besides my altruistic self that contracts the egoistic desire within it and acts above it. Therefore, essentially, I don’t have anything to return.

Question: In spite of all this, it is not clear: How can a person ask for a loan for himself in spirituality?

Answer: So, I said that this is another kind of loan. You see, I don’t have my own powers of bestowal. Additionally, I (specifically, I) want to give just as the Creator does. I have to transmit and give that which He wishes for the world.

This state is described allegorically with a metaphor that says that the Creator wanted to give the nations of the world the method of correction. However, they could not accept it. So, He used a transitional group called Israel, which means “straight to the Creator.” The people of Israel are like coordinators that connect the upper Light with the AHP. Thanks to this, Malchut can rise to Bina and be “sweetened” there so as to pass the Light from above downward.

So, this is called a loan only because a person doesn’t have the power of bestowal, and he receives this from the Creator. However, he doesn’t use it for himself, as it is customary in our egoistic world. In this world, a person seeks benefit for himself first of all, and afterward, he thinks about benefit for others, whether this is financial matters, well-being, or net pleasure. In spirituality, I ask not for myself. I want to participate in the life of the Creator. This participation is intended entirely for bestowal. For the sake of this, I activate all of my desire to the maximum possible level. Everything else I temporarily keep “locked up” under the restriction.

Question: So, how is it necessary to ask for a loan like this for the goal of bestowal?

Answer: This is called ascent, a request for correction (MAN). From the Creator, I request power to be able to examine, to correct, the deed itself. I want Him to do this, as it is written: “Be clothed in me and perform the deed of bestowal.” It is like an infant asks for help from his mother or simply cries, and the mother comes and helps. The entire problem is to turn into a “crying infant” internally. And it takes time to learn this….
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/13, “The Peace”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: …each member of Israel became responsible that nothing shall be missing from any other member of the nation. Only then did they become worthy of receiving the Torah, and not before.

With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the Mitzva, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person, since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.

If we can connect and through this come to mutual guarantee, no one will be able to shake it. You see, the power of Arvut influences everyone and if each feels that his ego has been neutralized, he will stop being concerned for himself and simply will not be ready to be an egoist. The power of Arvut necessarily neutralizes narcissism in everyone, and in this kind of an environment no one can remain uncorrected, this is to say, without self-nullification toward others. The environment nullifies the egoistic needs of the person supplying him with everything he needs.

With sufficient thoughtful support from the environment, my concerns for myself disappear. That is how the network that connects us works and it is impossible to get rid of it. I am linked with them all through thousands of bonds and innumerable threads. The environment activates me. It makes no difference if I want this or not. The mechanisms of the network are a fact, and therefore, since the group supplies my needs, it eliminates my egoistic desire. So, I am free.

Therefore, if the person is connected with the group, he must receive all the strength that he needs from it in order to relax himself. He no longer has concerns about himself. He simply is not prepared to “make” them because the group extinguishes them immediately.

Even today I am in a collective network, but I feel that I am not receiving anything from it like this or anything else that I need. All of my apprehensions are derived from this. We are totally linked. Within the network of threads that link us if I feel that I lack something, then I become apprehensive. I fear for myself, thinking, “What will happen to me?”

However, in the right group, after I arrange connections between us, I find that I am absolutely secure. This neutralizes all my fears and I will be free beyond the limitations of our world.

After all, “our world” is the reality where we feel linked, more or less, dependent on each other and influencing each other negatively. Seemingly, everyone here is not found in his place. This mutual negative connection in this shared spider web is our egoistic world.

To the contrary, when I enter a group of Kabbalists, I build the right connection with the closest components of the system. It is not by chance that I am brought to a group, rather, because I am truly linked to the friends I am not just spending time with a society of people who are like me. Now that I am attracted to the Source, this directs me to connect with someone close to me in the spiritual network, and even if they live thousands of kilometers away from me in the physical network, in spite of all this, I find them.

So, according to the degree of closeness, a system of relationships is developed between us until this supplies me with a state where I feel free of worries about myself. This is the first stage of self-nullification. In the second stage, the friends raise the upper One in my eyes: the group, the Creator, the Giver.

Therefore, the influence of the group is divided into two parts: The first is that it neutralizes the egoistic desire within me. The friends give me a feeling that they are concerned for me all the time no matter what may happen. In the past, my concerns for myself formed a terrifying future for me. Now, the friends give me a secure future. Only a group is ready to do this. It supplies me with Surrounding Light that matches my desires directed at the future. Only the friends can extinguish that and then the sensation of tomorrow disappears so much so I feel beyond time. This is the first condition. The group neutralizes the egoistic concern about the present and the future in me.

Second, I also need a force that will attract me toward the upper. In the name of this, with all their strength, the friends raise the importance of the goal, the Creator, the teacher, the group in my eyes, in other words, the importance of all the means to which I must hold.

In this way, through the collective network that we develop in the group, I reach self-nullification.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Question: Israel is constantly under the threat of a military confrontation or war. Hundreds of missiles with conventional and nonconventional warheads are aimed at us. Not long ago I participated in a drill practicing an emergency situation. People may be complacent regarding what is happening, but the situation is actually very worrisome. How can we tell people about the external threat and about our message and the urgent need for internal changes?

Answer: This threat is actually hovering over us all the time. So first of all you have to be sure that the inner work is the key to all the problems. In addition to that, you have to bring this about in your connection with the friends. You have to connect and to unite with them and to fulfill the necessary actions in order to connect and bring the Creator contentment.

We have to tie these things together: If we brought the Creator contentment, we wouldn’t be facing the threats and the problems we are speaking of now. This is what we have to do: to discuss this, to “chew” it well and to finally “swallow” it and understand it. Then we will put together the general picture and see that first we need to correct ourselves internally. If we correct ourselves, we will correct the world.

As for the missiles, our nation has been in similar situations in the past. But now we have a chance to be saved from all the troubles and save the nation and the whole world. We have to examine this opportunity as a purposeful opportunity: when we act not in order to save the bodies but for the Creator’s sake. We have to raise ourselves to the level of this state, of this perception. Otherwise, we will not attain bestowal and will not be able to fulfill anything in the right direction.

It’s wrong to complain and to cry about the threats not knowing where to run to escape them. We mustn’t confuse the cause and the effect. It’s because the real cause is to reach adhesion, and this is what we have to attain. The means to attain that is to reach bestowal, which we can attain only by rising above our ego. In order to draw and to obligate people to do so we find ourselves in this situation.

We mustn’t stick our heads in the sand since by that we forget about the whole thing. There is no point sitting together and crying over this situation, it won’t help. Another response is required here, a different approach.

The whole point is how we accept these problems. They are not coincidental. So why do they happen? Instead of being overwhelmed by animal fear, we have to connect everything to the cause of all the results, to the Creator, to “There is none else besides Him.” Only we can do that; only we can turn everything around.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

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