Question: Can it be that the group doesn’t give a person the support that he needs?

Answer: The group gives a person all the support that he needs according to how much he can feel it. The question is whether he is sensitive enough to feel this support. Perhaps, he is not connected to the group at all, what goes on it doesn’t concern him, and he lives his own life. He comes to the lesson, studies, and goes home. He may come to the lesson again after a couple of days when he doesn’t have anything more important to do. He doesn’t care about what happens in the group. He doesn’t develop the inner sensitivity to feel a response, an impression, an inspiration from them. He simply comes to the lessons occasionally. He never will receive anything from the group this way.

The group is a vessel, a means to adhere to the upper one, the place where the embryo adheres to the mother’s womb, the placenta through which a person adheres to the Creator. In the meantime, he is only in the form of an embryo, and the group is his whole world, like a mother’s womb. However, later, it receives the form of the entire world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What is the difference between The Book of Zohar and its “Introduction,” which we started studying?

Answer: In the “Introduction,” there is an extensive and prominent commentary for people who want to get to know The Book of Zohar, even if they have not begun to attain it yet. In any case, this “Introduction” advances a person. If he studies it, he will later be able to continue and study The Book of Zohar, although The Book of Zohar is much more difficult than the “Introduction.”

There are greater auxiliary forces in the “Introduction.” The “Introduction” is built so that a person who studies it softens and takes on a form that is suitable for delving into the depth of The Book of Zohar. A person’s image becomes adaptable to The Book of Zohar. It is because everything requires preparation and the “Introduction” provides us with it.

I studied it with Rabash, and he said that the “Introduction” includes the whole Book of Zohar. We will discover what this means in the future.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/13, The Book of Zohar, Introduction “The Rose”

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We come from the place of shattering, starting with the desire that has no idea of what bestowal, sanctity, spirituality, is. We build this understanding gradually, over time. The words that we use in the beginning and in the end of the path are the same: bestowal and love, but as we advance, we feel more depth, more accurate form in them.

It is as if you take a fruit covered by layers of skin and gradually peel one layer after another. It is only in the very middle, in the core behind dozens of coverings, that we find the fruit. We do the same when we peel shells from words, feeling what exactly each notion means and what is hidden behind them.

When we clarify one word or notion, it sheds light on other words as well. After all, everything is interconnected. Thus, we gradually begin to understand what Kabbalists write about.

We already comprehend these ideas with our mind, but we don’t feel them yet. It awakens in us a very strong desire to attain. As we advance we become “less smart.” If we didn’t strive to reveal spirituality and had no pronounced, burning point in the heart, we would continue our studies by using the power of our minds and would learn the theory pretty well. We even would think that we sense something. We would never go through the state of internal confusion, nor would we feel that there is a confrontation between our feelings and mind. Thus, we would progress in accordance with a stiff, one-way path and would be led solely by our intellect.

However, if our heart and mind act simultaneously and we develop our spiritual vessel, we will always be confused. We would feel that we lose the sharpness of perception and that our brain doesn’t progress as we study, but rather expands proportionately to our sensations.

Mind becomes a consequence of sensations. A person’s mind only works in accordance with the development on his feelings, the spiritual vessel, outlined only by sensations, desire. In other words, we become very primitive as opposed to highly intellectual people who think of complex matters and love to philosophize. We are smart to the extent that our heart can feel. It is called “being wise in the heart” since it is the heart that obligates us to be clever only at the level of the heart and no higher than that.

What’s good about it if we lose the sharpness of mind and become absorbed by our internal experiences, trying to develop only our sensations? By all means, we will do everything that is in our power to develop our hearts. Otherwise, we will stay obscure and incomplete since everything we receive comes from our spiritual vessels, through our sensations. In this world, no one considers a person who is driven solely by his sensations to be intellectual.

In the end, this ambiguity forces us urgently to expand our feelings since we understand only what we feel in the heart. The heart doesn’t feel much, and only in a very egoistic, primitive, one-way, and narrow form.

This explains why we don’t have a choice: We understand that we must open the heart. We experience a huge pressure that is getting stronger due to our jealousy, passion, and ambitions that push us to spiritual revelation in the heart. Our situation is hopeless since the Creator blocks all other forms of our development.

It is as if we lose our sharpness: We no longer hear or feel. There are people who have a very sharp mind and who know a lot about politics, science, about how to make good deals and so on. They turn into straightforward people who are driven solely by their hearts. In our world, it is called an animate level, whereas a human being is someone who is driven by intellect. But this limitation forces a person to open his heart and expand his spiritual vessel at any expense. Otherwise, he feels bad because he has no clue as to what bestowal is.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can we amplify the influence of the Light upon us during the study? What exactly depends on the students?

Answer: We only study about what depends on a person. What isn’t brought into effect by a person doesn’t relate to us, and we cannot understand it for the time being.

It depends on a person to come to the group, to be among his friends, to prepare for the lesson, and to connect to the lesson together with the friends so that everyone will realize that they need to feel what they study. This is the meaning of the lesson, and we can only feel it in the connection between us.

This means that the books tell us about the connection between the friends who desperately want to connect under the influence of the study, of the Light, so that in it, to attain the Creator or their general collective soul in which they will discover Him. This is the meaning of our existence, our development, the study, and of all our activities.

In order to do that, we have to study the articles of Rabash and Baal HaSulam about the connection of the friends in the group, about how the study should be conducted, and about how we should connect in our thoughts and intentions. It is actually very simple: a person, a group, and the Creator who is revealed in the group. And that’s all. Only the right general concentration can generate the desirable result.
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From the Virtual Lesson 4/21/13

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Question: On April 15^th, Israel celebrates Memorial Day honoring fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. How can a person deal with the pain of loss? And generally, how does the science of Kabbalah relate to such a painful subject?

Answer: I have faced this inescapable issue, which in essence is an attempt to find the culprit. “Whose is to blame for my feeling bad?”—an inconsolable mother asks, and together with her, one way or another, everyone else asks. In the end, this question unequivocally brings us to the one who can make a difference.

There are times when it cannot be changed. For example, the still, vegetative, and animate nature obey the laws of their development. Until a person parted with the legacy of the ape and in the time of Adam got a chance to determine his states in something, he had been developing through a sequence of constant troubles: Our ancestors were eaten by animals, killed by diseases, natural disasters, etc.

In general, we can only point to the general law of the universe, which defines what is happening, as required by gradual development. It says: “Don’t show a fool a job half done.” We also go through this process.

However, when we have the opportunity to determine our states for benefit or harm, then it is necessary to understand what is happening. Now, in addition to the “roller of development,” set in motion by Nature, he has a kind of addition.

For example, I drive a car that is not in fully operational order on a rough, bumpy road. One wheel is flat; the brakes barely work; in short, I am in trouble.

And so it is in life: Part of our problems are caused by nature that paved such a path for us and the other part depends on us. This is the part that we usually talk about. After all, nothing can be done with nature; it leads creation from the primary, egoistic state to the final, altruistic one. It is a powerful irresistible force that drives everything forward. And in addition, at each stage, the created being has an opportunity to facilitate its development, understanding that it is inevitable and desirable. The created being is able to look to the future in its final state and see that there is no alternative, that it is worth it.

We behave in the same way when we are doing any hard work. For example, having enrolled at university, I am “harnessed” by hard daily work for four to six years, knowing that I have no other options. Moreover, I continue studying afterward because I don’t want to remain just an engineer all my life. Although on the way, I encounter things I don’t like and I suffer through obstacles that do not depend on me be they exams or assignments that seem meaningless and which I hate, but I look forward and understand that I have to go through all that. After all, the smart people above have decided that I need all that, at least for broadening my horizons so that I am not restricted in my approach.

In Kabbalah we know that we talk about a complete perfect program, which foresees all the nuances. We are sent the necessary steps and we pass them along the “middle” way, neither through an endless series of terrible suffering, nor through the “pink alley,” above which the melodies of the higher spheres sound.

We cannot walk the best shortest easiest path; however, of course, we are not interested in the path of suffering with its nightmares at every turn. Thus, we somehow make our way in the middle, according to what is said in the Torah. Obviously, due to our nature, we have to balance between two forces—negative and positive—combining the properties of “judgment” and “mercy,” being in awe and at the same time valuing what we receive.

And again, there are different developmental periods. Sometimes, we have an opportunity to succeed on the kind path of unity, easily and comfortably reaching an intermediary result. But it also happens that we are faced with insurmountable difficulties; we cannot unite, and then what happens is happening. This applies to all wars which we have fought from the moment of the revival of the state of Israel and earlier, as well as the Holocaust.

And, of course, all that we could have corrected and prevented in advance, but unfortunately, we did not make the corrections. Not only Baal HaSulam but also other Kabbalists write about this and hint at this, but on the other hand, they prefer not to go into this topic. Indeed, what can they tell people? This topic is so painful that direct explanations will only cause rejection. A person should reach the conclusion himself that all this depends on us. Correct studies are necessary, based on which the findings will be made by the student and not by the instructor…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/13, “Israel Nation” (Independence Day in Israel)

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Question: The method of the integral education is one of the ways to convey the wisdom of Kabbalah. However, most people who study the wisdom of Kabbalah don’t understand how it is related to the wisdom. For them the two exist separately: the inner work and the method of the integral education.

Answer: But don’t we engage in the method of the integral education between us? After all, in order to reveal the upper world we fulfill it on ourselves, we hold workshops, conventions, friends’ meetings, we hug and dance together, study the articles of Rabash about the society and about the work in the group.

We do the same thing, but for us there is an additional part that unifies our connection, the general connection to the system that is called the “Ten Sefirot” or a “soul.” There is a certain hierarchy in this system of the forces that influence us. How can we activate them? By connection.

Ordinary people will simply fulfill the integral method, and while they do that they will correct themselves and all of nature not knowing how it works.

We (like a brain) also have to understand the principle of the connection and to actively participate in this system, trying to organize one network among us, to minimize ourselves, to accept the group as higher than we are, to support one another and to be in mutual guarantee.

We fulfill everything that Rabash says in his articles in the relations between us, but beyond that we also study how this structure is created among us.

Suppose we are ten people sitting here, and there are “Ten Sefirot,” the connection among us. We study how they begin to work among us and how we work on them mutually, how to act exactly, what is going on right now, how to rise from the “circles,” Zeir Anpin, Aba and Ima, Arich Anpin, Atzilut, etc. that spread from us into the actual center, to the state of whole connection.

They are all in the network between us and we study about all of them when we study TES. There is nothing but these “Ten Sefirot.” Even now we feel them, on a minimal level that is called “our world.” The moment we begin to connect we will begin to feel the upper state of the connection and there in the connection between us the force that determines and that sustains everything is revealed—the Creator.

So I don’t see any difference between the spiritual method and the method of the integral education. We are simply like computer experts for example: We know the software and understand what its mechanical parts are.

When you call your mother, for example, you press the cell phone button and your mom receives the call and tells you something in response. After all, you don’t know what is happening inside: Everything is coded in pulses and the pulses are transferred to another place where you mom deciphers them (although she is not aware of them herself).

So we, the experts who know this whole system, know how to get people used to it, how to teach them to use this instrument as all of humanity. After all, 99% of the people don’t know anything; they live automatically.

In order to rise to a good normal level of life today we need to start raising all the 99% of humanity. This is what we have to do. So like experts we study everything thoroughly and then bring people to courses and explain to them how to use this instrument, which means this world, so that the changes in it will take place in a good way.

So there is no difference between the wisdom of Kabbalah and integral education except for those who aspire to attaining the system and who actively participate in it and reach the wisdom of Kabbalah. Those who will follow them will use it simply through workshops. They will gradually understand as things will be explained to them to what extent it influences them for the better and also the whole world, their families, their profits, the prices in the stores, etc. They will use it like all the other people.

An ordinary person earns money and then buys food and then rests at home in order to go out again to earn his living, to buy food and to rest… It is the same here, he doesn’t know the mechanism of the system, he knows the limited angle that we have to present to him.
[104646]
From the Virtual Lesson 4/7/13

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Question: How can a student who lives far away in another country receive the same special force felt in the group that is physically beside you?

Answer: I want to clear up these doubts once and for all. If a student is 10,000 miles away from here, somewhere in Chile, for example, and receives an impression of “one ounce” during the lesson, it is equal in value to being right here in the study hall and receiving an impression of “100 ounces.”

It is the same. You are simply not taking into account the influence you feel here. There, it is one hundred times weaker than here. And when you come here, it seems that you exert yourself by one gram, but here everyone exerts themselves by one hundred ounces. You see that here the tension is a hundred times greater, and so you worry as to what you should do.

But you are not taking into account that the force of the magnetic field operates on you even from a distance, but only weaker. At the same time, you exert yourself relatively more compared to those who are here in the center. So although it may seem that you are missing something, you are not missing anything.

The Creator receives a person’s exertion taking into account the state he is in. The question is only whether you are building your environment correctly wherever you are. Do you make the best of your group by annulling yourself before them, before the Creator, and by that reach the revelation of the force of bestowal in order to bring Him contentment? If you do that wherever you are, then nothing more is required of you.

If you are thinking about moving to a place where a greater impression is felt, I am not sure that this is the right thing to do. It is because exerting yourself in another place according to different conditions equals a person’s exertion here under the conditions that I provide for my group. So you may very well gain more being far away than being here.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Opinion (Julia Fang and Jean-Luc Margot, University of California, Los Angeles): “The planets in our solar system are delicately arranged, according to astronomers. If a new planet were suddenly introduced, the additional gravitational pull would result in collisions and orbital ejections. Now that significant planetary systems have been discovered around other stars, astronomers are trying to determine whether those systems are similarly delicate. To that end, Julia Fang and Jean-Luc Margot of UCLA created millions of simulations of three- and four-planet solar systems, based on the arrangements of those that have been discovered by the Kepler space telescope. The average spacing of the simulated planets was very similar to that of the planets in our solar system. When Fang and Margot then introduced a new planet to each of the simulated systems, they found that at least one-third of the three-planet systems and nearly one-half of the four-planet systems became catastrophically unstable. Although the researchers caution that Kepler‘s observations allow for some variations in planetary arrangements, they believe that balanced systems such as our own are common.”

My Comment: There is a plan in everything, system dependence, full mutual connection and purpose. The only correct work of man is being in accordance with the absolute law of nature, which is achieved by studying and applying integral education and upbringing. Knowledge of the upper system will allow us to travel beyond time and space, changing them by changing our properties. How to realize it practically is explained and studied in the science of Kabbalah.
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