The Babylonian Talmud, Treatise Taanit 7: He who engages in the Torah for its sake, the Torah becomes the potion of life for him, and he who engages in the Torah not for its sake, it becomes the potion of death for him.

If there is such great danger concealed in the Torah, perhaps it’s better not to engage in it? After all, if you study correctly, you “rise to heaven,” and if you don’t, “you sink into the ground,” into the abyss.

The problem is that if you don’t study correctly, the Light concealed in the Torah puts you into states that are opposite from the truth, but you don’t even notice that. The Torah doesn’t bring you death, but rather “the potion of death,” when you don’t feel that you are dead. You can study the Torah day and night, memorize page after page by heart, and at the same time be dead, meaning not understand that this is totally opposite from the goal for which the Torah was given.

The Torah was given to us so that we will reach the love of others. It says: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice because the Light in it reforms.” What does it mean that it reforms? It’s the “great law of the Torah”—”love thy friend as thyself,” or in other words, the general goal of everything that we do according to the Torah.

In every precept we perform, in every detail, we must advance towards the love of others. Only through the love of others will we reach the final goal, the love of the Creator and adhesion with Him, according to the equivalence of form between a person and the Creator.

Therefore, before the study, we have to prepare ourselves and keep all the necessary conditions so that the study of the Torah will bring us the desired goal: adhesion, that is, the correction of our intentions from egoistic to altruistic. This work is clarified only in the group, where we can check ourselves practically.

Each time we will discover hate among us and will get a chance to rise above it towards love. To do that, we need to organize ourselves correctly: We want to connect in order to reach adhesion and to discover the Creator in it, thereby bringing Him contentment. It’s possible to discover the Creator only in our collective vessel of bestowal. It’s necessary that we prepare ourselves for the lesson in this way so that we’ll approach the study correctly.

Question: If the potion of death doesn’t let me feel that I am dead, does the potion of life enable me to feel death?

Answer: I feel that I am living from the “potion.” It isn’t an ordinary existence anymore. In the intention of in order to bestow, above my nature, I attain life. The potion has the effect of making me lie to my egoistic desire and not to myself. On the other hand, the potion of death drowns me in the lie, which I don’t notice, and then I see myself as “righteous,” although I haven’t even entered the rank of “wicked.”

Question: How can the wisdom of Kabbalah save a person from the potion of death?

Answer: It can do it by the Light that Reforms. If you arrange all the conditions for yourself correctly, if you enter the group and disseminate, which is an inseparable part of the preparation these days, and if you participate in everything that the group experiences in order to reveal the connection, then you are preparing correctly for the study, and your intention during the study is not to read yet another paragraph, but to receive the Light that Reforms. It isn’t by chance that Baal HaSulam wrote in “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 18: “…that while practicing Torah, they did not set their minds and hearts to draw the Light in the Torah….”

Everything is solved by the preparation. The right study is the study that you have prepared yourself for correctly. Then you read the text correctly, with the right intention, in the right group, with all the necessary conditions. And what do you get from the study? You get the chance to work and to rise: the feeling of hate and rejection of the friends….
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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In the News (form EurekAlert): “Mitsch, an environment and natural resources professor at Ohio State University, has led the effort to compare the behavior of two experimental marshes on campus – one that was planted in 1994 with wetland vegetation and another that was left to colonize plant and animal life on its own.

“The two wetlands now contain nearly the same number of plant species, and almost 100 more species than existed 15 years ago. When the two marshes were created, researchers planted 13 common wetland species in one marsh and left the other to develop naturally. Water from the nearby Olentangy River has been continually pumped into both marshes at rates designed to mimic water flow in a freshwater river wetland setting.”

My Comment: All this suggests that the initial conditions are not important: The main thing is to allow wetlands to develop naturally. We have the opportunity to return to nature: If we leave it alone, limit ourselves to the necessities of life, in a few years, we will find ourselves in a healthy world again.
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Question: What can a person do while reading The Book of Zohar in order to stay in contact with the group throughout the day?

Answer: You receive some medicine in the morning, an injection. Suppose I have high blood pressure. I take a pill in the morning so that I will feel good the entire day. The pill does its job because it works on the same level: the still, the vegetative, and the animate.

On the other hand, our spiritual development depends on our efforts. My healing depends on my participation. Why? It is because thanks to the healing, from the animate level I attain the level of man.

So, it isn’t enough to get a “pill” in the morning, for example, half an hour before reading The Book of Zohar, when I am very enthusiastic and moved to tears by the strong emotions. It isn’t enough. I have to organize a daily schedule so that I will be under this influence all the other 23.5 hours.

In our world, the pill has an effect on me for 23.5 hours if I suck on it for half an hour. Gradually, as the digestive juices are extracted, the pill releases all the substances it contains so that they are absorbed by the body for several hours.

We have to do the same. However, a person cannot do that because he is constantly on his level, while here, he has to be between two. Two levels, as it says in The Zohar, are the letters of the upper “Hey” and the lower “Hey.” The upper “Hey” is Bina that operates on me, and I am Malchut, the lower “Hey.” What should be between us? It is the Creator.

So, I have to place the Creator before me, which means that all the awakenings that my Malchut feels, my desire, as a result of receiving half an hour of “infusion,” all its potential preparation for correction, all must be revealed practically during the 23.5 hours. I have to assist it by trying not to detach myself from the goal of “Israel (one who yearns for the Creator), the Torah (the Light that Reforms), and the Creator are one.” For that, I received the injection.

Of course, I can only do it with the help of the group where we are in one thought and thus influence one another. There is no other choice. A person cannot do it by himself. Even if he writes himself a thousand memos and puts them everywhere, he won’t see them. Even if he takes a servant to remind him, he won’t hear him.

It is possible only in the form that is above him, when the force that obliges him to hear, that is, to establish a connection between the two letters of “Hey,” comes to him. You can do that only in the group.

Therefore, mutual guarantee is expressed when you are in this activity, in absorbing the medicine that is already within you. If you swallow it and don’t use it, it is as if you received poison from a snake because every medicine is poison. It isn’t by chance that the symbol of medicine is a snake coiling around a cup of poison.

If you don’t use this means correctly, it becomes the potion of death. Then you will discover it through suffering and not by the Light. This is mechanics, and it must operate this way. There is nothing but the laws of nature here.

This is the root of all the mistakes people make throughout their lives and throughout human history. You could write entire novels about it, but humanity already has no time to read them….
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2012, The Zohar

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Opinion (Nikolas Busse, Brussels Correspondent for NATO and the EU): “Perhaps the scariest side effect of the euro crisis is the renaissance of national prejudice. The Germans are called the Nazis again, while southern EU members are considered lazy and crooks. Some phrases are reminiscent of the rhetoric of the period before WWI and between the world wars. Rough expressions are evidence of the EU’s decline.

“European unity is broken by its goal – to reconcile peoples, who throughout history were used to looking at each other with hostility, distrust and envy. Despite the existence of the internal market and freedom of movement, EU citizens are strangers to each other and live in accordance with national mentality.

“During the crisis, the Europeans are turning to the past: Europe has not forgotten the Third Reich, for there will always be a certain skepticism in relation to Germany. The EU has a future only if all member states stay together.”

My Comment: That is why the method of integral education and upbringing highlights the need to educate all the participants of the integration processes in advance and to proceed to the creation of the integral community only as people’s thinking changes.
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Opinion (Sergey Gubanov, professor at the Moscow State University): “One of the main problems in Russia today is unemployment. There are plenty of young graduates, but not everyone can get a job in their field. The social crisis is growing; there is a wide gap between the availability of jobs and the number of specialists. This contradiction is disastrous for the country because we are releasing an army of protest. Some economists believe that the unemployment problem can be solved by small and medium enterprises. This opinion is erroneous. The social crisis can be overcome only by large corporations. This happens in developed countries, for example, with the help of the famous Microsoft. Imagine how many personnel are involved in this system! Unfortunately, there are just five neo-industrial countries in the world now. The rest are their customers.”

My Comment: The numbers of the employed will decrease until it reaches the level sufficient to support the society at a reasonable level of consumption. All the sources of employment, except the necessary ones, will disappear. We need to develop a system of education and upbringing that will be perceived by society as work because being in this system, a person brings the world into balance, and this is the most productive human work there is.
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Question: Today an expert has to study his whole life in order to “catch up” with the changes in his field. One way or another, science discovers accurate absolute laws. Do such laws exist for those who yearn for spirituality? For example, are there clear, unchanging formulas without which we will not attain our goal?

Answer: What are you actually studying in the lessons? We can describe our egoistic desire as a “box.” This is the material. Above it there is the intention of in order to receive, and that is the problem. The material of the desire is stable, unchanging. It is only the intention that changes by changing all of our reality.

So ignore the material, it is unchangeable. But if you change the intention, then the feeling within the material will change drastically. You will be able to do that only by evoking it to change.

Today we fill ourselves by the egoistic intention. It is among us in our mutual relations. The desire to receive is aimed at itself; it wants to receive in order to receive. As a result, we all feel reality in the form of “this world.”

There are five phases between the intention of in order to receive and the intention of in order to bestow, or 125 steps. It is only about the intention! If I learn to use it correctly, a greater desire is revealed time after time. This is how I transcend the “Machsom” (barrier), I restrict myself by keeping myself from treating others badly, then I build a good attitude towards others, and then I bestow upon them. Then it turns out that others, and in fact the whole “field of work,” is actually myself that is gradually revealed to me.

All this is according to the stabilization of the intention. There is nothing we should worry about except the intention. The only remedy is to evoke among us a concealed internal power that will change our intention. Then, gradually, in our environment, we will discover the worlds of Assyia, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the world of Ein Sof. We will discover them here, among us, and not somewhere in unknown distances.

I should only discover an attraction, a vector inside my desire that is aimed at changing the attitude to others, which is the intention. Let’s hope we succeed in preparing and doing that in the Arava convention in the desert.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, The Zohar

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Question: Why do the daily lessons start at 3 A.M. Jerusalem time? Is there a special reason for it?

Answer: This is how we studied with my Teacher Rabash.

Question: Many of your students come from the orthodox Judaism and follow its main principles: observe Shabbat (Saturday), eat kosher food, and so on. So when in one of the morning lessons you said that “the orthodox cannot be my students,” it confused us.

Answer: I do not have a single orthodox student! Many of them listen to the lessons from home, but are not in direct contact with me.

Question: What is Amalek: a historic personality of a force within us?

Answer: Everything is within man, including history.
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Question: How can you make a faster decision, see what matters, and not waste more time on it than is necessary for its analysis?

Answer: For this we need the power of the group; a person alone is incapable of it. This is exactly why one person was not enough to correct the breaking, and he had to be divided into many pieces to learn what connection is from the lack of it.

Now we need to do this around the world. Today Pharaoh is being revealed in the world: the power of our breaking. We simply need to have the right attitude towards it, and then we will know what we need to do.

On one hand we need to reveal the breaking, and on the other hand, we need to understand that it is a tendency of nature; we can find the power that will correct it all and achieve connection. We are given all the means for this.

A person alone is incapable of this, but next to him he has friends and a teacher, whom he listens to. And this will awaken him and properly aim him toward solving problems, so he won’t treat them as personal problems, but instead, will only perceive them in the form of a subject for correction, as a revelation of the breaking, the Pharaoh.

Everything that happens is only given with the purpose of solving problems and reaching a corrected form. And under no circumstances should he delve into different egoistic calculations: Conversely, this will lead to even greater breaking.

It happens that not just one person, but an entire group can become so confused that it is unable to come out of its problem state. But there are other groups and a teacher to help them. It is impossible for them to remain in their same state if they are studying: The Light will still illuminate and evoke changes in them, and eventually they will understand that this is a game, which was arranged for them from Above. But if they are unable to come out of this state, they are probably not studying or listening to what is being said during the lessons.

Otherwise this would not be happening. Because when a person studies and does not deviate from his usual schedule, the Light influences and awakens him, and the Creator gives him the right point for analysis.

But there is nothing that can be done when people do not want to listen. They will go down the path of suffering, and then a part of them will leave and stop studying, a part will grow, and a part will drown in this swamp. This happens when you do not return to the principle of: “There is none else beside Him” and you do not go with Him to Pharaoh.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: At what stage should we introduce students who study through virtual courses of the Education Center to veteran students and the groups?

Answer: I don’t think it’s possible to restrict this connection in any way. In general, it’s best not to intervene; it should occur by itself. And certainly some of our experienced friends need to assist the teacher in working with new students, by giving lectures, answering their questions, and helping establish communications with them. However, the veterans need to be careful not to show themselves as “big” since by doing so they would undermine the image of the teacher in the eyes of the students and prevent them from the possibility of learning in the correct manner.

It is possible only to learn from a “great man.” Conversely, if you think he is small, then you are already the teacher and he is the student. Thus, it is very important that the assistants don’t stand out, but remain as assistants to the teacher and display a respect for the teacher. They will set an example for the students and will elevate respect for the teacher in their eyes, and this will help the students receive more from him.

After all, in the wisdom of Kabbalah, the material is comprehended according to the importance of the teacher. The more the student annuls himself before the teacher, thus he will be considered a better student. We are not talking here about knowledge that I comprehend with intelligence, but specifically about how I see myself as small in comparison to the teacher, or the teacher as great in comparison to myself. The greater the gap between us, the more abundance will descend on me. There is no measurement for abundance in itself. I define its intensity precisely according to the same greatness that I elevate the teacher in my eyes. This is very important. The assistants need to correctly build the relationship of the new students to the teacher. Success depends on this.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/12, Learning Kabbalah

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Question: People who recently found out about Kabbalah have doubts about whether or not it should be studied methodically. What is the use of regular, systematic study of the science of Kabbalah?

Answer: Throughout history the only people who came to Kabbalah were those who felt a burning worry, a burning desire. A person could not hold himself back. It was important to him to find out what the essence, source, or meaning of life is. And according to this desire, he “ended up” with the science of Kabbalah. And that’s because everything we see in the world is a spiritual force field in which we move. If the spiritual desire awakens in a person, being an aspiration to the Light, to bestowal, to the Creator as the source of Light, then he finds Kabbalah by moving to it naturally, similar to a charge in an electromagnetic field.

This happened in every generation. However, today is a special time when not only individuals, but masses are discovering that our world is empty. They feel this from the suffering and inner emptiness, and then they also ask the question about the meaning of life. However, their question is aimed not so much at the source of life as at the cause of what is happening: Why do they feel bad and where could goodness come from?

This desire is vested into the garments of our world. It does not yearn for ascent or the search for the source of life, its force, its Governor. A person just wants to know how to arrange his life to avoid losing everything. His family is falling apart, his children are strangers to him, he has no job, everything is vanishing into thin air, and who knows what will happen next? This is driving millions and even billions of people to the same Source, although on a lower level of desire.

Therefore, today we accept everyone to the study of Kabbalah. If a person wants to study and find out some things, then let him come and study. At first we present the science of Kabbalah to him in an easy, friendly form and talk about “rights” rather than “responsibilities.” But later a person sees that just like in any other area, here he also has to exert efforts, and he has to do it more and more. In order to acquire something important, one has to work a lot. This is not a secret, but a person first has to see that there is something to gain here.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/12 on Kabbalah Learning

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