Question: In our group there is still no clear, transparent, understandable declaration. What should we care of in making a declaration because its scope could be more or less strict?

Answer: Write one statement: “Love thy neighbor as thyself” and then everything that Rabash recommends for achieving this condition: to lower yourself before the friends, feel them as great, high, and yourself as completely dependent upon them, to be all together in one desire, and to help each other in everything.

Feel that you benefit from the fact that you agree with it, that you annul yourself. The only exceptions are the questions in which you have to express your opinion as an expert because you are sure that something is a detriment and there is a better option, etc. This applies to dissemination, repairs, something that relates only to this world.

As for the relationships between friends, they are all described by Rabash, and it’s best to define them in one word, “love.”
[98146]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 7

Related Material:
From Egoism To Love Is One Stop Upward
A Message With A Hidden Meaning
Three Factors For A Properly Working Mechanism

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Love, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: How do the gradual changes happen that eventually lead us to a state where my neighbor becomes more important to me than I am to myself? What do I feel at each stage?

Answer: This kind of change happens in a person only with the help of the Reforming Light. Roughly, it can be divided into four stages:

1. We don’t sense anybody outside us; they seem so “lifeless” to us. They live some place near us, but we have nothing in common with them. We communicate with them, hug them, sing songs with them, but we still regard them as “puppets” that exist next to us.

2. Later, to the extent of the level of the affliction we go through, which is triggered by our concern that we are not advancing well enough, we start worrying: “What will happen to me?” At this time, we continue suffering and applying efforts, but we still don’t understand the ways to connect with others. This doesn’t “penetrate” our ears; they are only beautiful words, I have heard a lot of times…

The reality, the learning process, and everything we do become more and more important to us; although, our concerns about the relationships with our friends are still not quite clear to us. We don’t yet feel that our connection leads us anywhere. It seems to us to be just a sort of “morality” and even reminds us of the religious commandments.

3. Then, we begin neglecting everything that our friends do in the group: connections, dancing, singing. We are not capable of behaving this way. In our eyes, it seems very frivolous; we agree to act this way only because it creates a good and pleasant atmosphere and we know that we have to inspire our friends and stay together. So, we meet at joint meals in order to connect a little and maybe even attract new people to us. This is what we think.

4. At this point, we acknowledge that no matter what we do, it doesn’t work for us. We start noticing that at this time other people look much smarter in our eyes. We start thinking: “How do they do that?” We begin to re-evaluate our attitude and come to a conclusion that the unity is important.

No doubt, it is the result of the Light’s impact rather than a consequence of the mutual activities among friends. Although, since we still continue to participate in joint activities, the Surrounding Light descends to us. We start considering our activities oriented towards unity as useful, but still think that they are purely theoretical. We keep talking about them and continue reading and listening about group work more intently than before; previously we didn’t even pay any attention to the articles that describe these things. We thought that “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” “The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” etc. were worth reading, but the article “The Last Generation” reminded us of communist ideas.

Gradually, under the influence of the Surrounding Light, we start realizing that we have to work against our egos and overcome them. Then, we notice that overcoming our egoism and connecting with our friends are actually the same things; it’s impossible to achieve it differently. It’s feasible only while being in the group and exclusively through connecting with the friends.

Before, we never valued external actions and neglected them to the extent that we wished they would never exist. “Why do we have to unite with others? “Love thy friend sounds repulsive…Have you ever seen it happening? What are you talking about? I am embarrassed that Kabbalah books talk about things like that…”

All of a sudden, we notice that the internal content of our actions is totally oriented towards unity, the merger of our internal particles, rather than corporeal bodies. We keep neglecting our physical connections. If it doesn’t lead us to joining the points in the heart, we continue to despise the “tricks” and “slogans” like: “Let’s unite! Let’s sit together at meals and talk!”

We start changing our attitude to unity. All of a sudden we realize that it’s about connecting “the points in the hearts” with the help of the Reforming Light. That’s why we have to stay in the group. It’s different from spending time in the bar where people hug each other, sing, and feel good. Here, we also sit together, we can have a drink and hug although our intention is not to unite our bodies or some earthly egoistic ideals, but rather to try to bring our points in the heart closer and to ask the Light to impact us and connect them together. The Light influences us sufficiently to the degree of our mutual efforts and to the extent of our desire to unite.

This is the way we advance. Going through these stages is essential. As a result, we become confident that our presence in the group and the group activities are necessary to connect the points in the heart with the help of the Light. From this point on, we stop neglecting unity. We already know that spiritual realization is all about unity and our further advancement becomes more obvious to us. At the same time, we discover a new difficulty on our way: We have to figure out the way to detach our “self” from the point that we contribute to unity; we have to be concerned about giving “externality” more weight than to our own “self.” For that, we also need the Light. However, it’s the next stage and it also consists of four sub-phases.
[97565]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/13, The Zohar

Related Material:
Are There Limits To Loyalty And Love?
Stages Of Ascent Toward The Creator
Happiness From The Point In The Heart

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Love, Q&A, Unity, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: What does the perception of reality in the form of “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one” symbolize?

Answer: The perception of “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are one” is the only true reality there is. We, on the other hand, are in a state of imaginary concealment, in “worlds,” which means in concealments that exist only with regard to us so that we can be corrected.

The host who faces the guest accepts the guest’s desire and creates this concealment between them so that that guest will not feel the host and his good deeds. It is because this gift paralyzes the guest! The guest wants to be like the host, but he cannot do anything as long as the host fills him with everything that is good.

Under such conditions the guest cannot say to the host that he loves him and wants to bestow upon him. Even if he says these words, they will only be said in gratitude to the host for his kindness towards the guest. This is not how love and a relationship is tested. Love is tested when you are ready to give everything that you have! Then it is evident that you love and that you bestow.

So the host agrees with the guest that he should have the right conditions to express his attitude. Otherwise the guest has no point in receiving the goodness from the host, and will only experience sorrow. Instead of enjoying the refreshments the host has prepared, he will torture himself.

This brings about great sorrow to the guest, and so he is ready to restrict his desire (restriction I). Later a system develops that enables the guest to correct himself. It is as if he is thrown away from the host to the other end of the creation, of reality, as if he falls from a cliff into an abyss.

But he is happy about it since by falling further down, he begins to discover who he is. Before, he dissolved in the upper Light that took care of everything and covered everything. The Light filled the desire to receive and the desire didn’t even understand what it actually is. This is how a person who has an important and influential patron feels, that he cannot think about anything by himself, and so he begins to lose himself.

But the created being who is thrown away from the Creator to the other end of reality can now check whether his desire was real in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) and can do everything for the host, just as the host does for him. Can the guest really do this and does he want to? Here is where his work begins.

First there is a long period of preparation, thousands years of our history, which in the meantime we cannot even be considered as if we exist with regard to the spiritual world. For the time being it is only a process that takes place inside us, like a dream. Like in a dream, 50 years of our life go by in five minutes. It is the same with us, who by entering the spiritual reality, the spiritual ladder, look back and the whole way we’ve made in our lifetime as seeming like a short and meaningless episode of a couple of days at the most. The scale of the events totally changes.

After the guest restricts his desire, he can now start working and adapt himself to the host. He is ready to receive from the host to the extent that he can bestow upon him by that. He is ready to be in the dark and to receive the darkness as Light. This means that he doesn’t need to feel the taste and the fillings of the host for his own pleasure. He receives these fillings only in order to bestow and to bring contentment to the host.
[97810]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/13, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
Fear That Makes Us Worthy Of The Revelation
The One Reality
A Calculation That Makes Me A Human

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Love, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: What does it mean to judge the whole world to the scale of merit?

Answer: It means to attain a level in which I am incorporated in all the desires in the world, in all the souls, in all the parts of the one general soul, to such an extent that it all becomes me. Prior to this, in the previous levels, I already attained my personal end of correction, having totally justified the Creator’s attitude to me in the past, the present, and the future.

Now I attain the general end of correction by including all the souls in me and by being in one vessel with them. This is called judging the whole world to the scale of merit and by that I actually attain the Creator’s attitude to all of them. It is because I am in their end of correction and in my end of correction, and it becomes the same thing. What is revealed in this corrected vessel is called “absolute love.”

Until then, all I have in the meantime is my own vessel and I judge according to my feelings in it. So at a certain moment I can say that the Creator is good, but the next day when something unpleasant happens to me, I don’t justify the Creator any more. I cannot annul myself and determine that the Creator is good unless I correct all my vessels. I am constantly in the slingshot, tilting from one side to another each time.

When I correct myself, I begin to incorporate with all the other vessels, with all the people, with their internality. By this love for them, I reach the love of the Creator. These are not just nice words that call me to love everyone in order to use them as a means of getting to know the Creator; they are my spiritual vessels!

I am increasingly filled with love for them that is expressed by my being able to bestow upon them. Greater desires join me each time, and I work with all this accumulative desire.

Suppose I had 50 kg of desire yesterday by which I could connect to 50 people, and today my desire to receive has grown, and I feel melancholy, but I overcome this feeling and rise, and now I have 70 kg of desire. By that I can now connect with several more people.

My process of correction is by connecting to others and bestowing upon them, by love connections with 20 more people. It is possible to explain this simply, although it actually doesn’t happen so simply, but as an integral incorporation in “circles.”

To the extent that I connect with others this way, they become me and all of reality becomes mine. Thus I see the Creator’s attitude to reality, since it is the same thing, just like His attitude to me. It is like judging your attitude to me according to your attitude to my baby. Because I love him, your positive attitude to him is the same as a positive attitude to me.
[96885]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
The World On The Scale Of Justification
From Multiplicity To Unity
In The Analog System, “Almost” Doesn’t Count

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Love, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: How can we hold love, which is sometimes manifested between us? How do we prevent falling into egoism?

Answer: It is possible to hold love only by mutual guarantee. To do this, you can organize a kind of duty.

In the 16^th century in Padua, Italy, there was a great Kabbalistic group of Ramchal from which notes and diaries of spiritual work remain. The members of the group wrote a schedule for themselves: Suppose now, for a few hours, I support everyone, think of everyone, then you, then he does, and so on, because in our daily lives, everyone has to work, give time to his family or some other activities where he cannot be in the right thoughts about the group. A person has to sleep, to rest, etc. That is why they agreed to keep themselves in the right intention in this way 24 hours a day.

We can do it even more easily because we can arrange a similar relay around the globe, passing it according to time zones; now, the group in this time zone holds the intention, then the next one, and so on. The ocean is not a barrier for us because all the groups of the world will constantly take care of everyone and raise MAN. I am ready to participate in this with everyone. Let’s make it so that each group could be on watch.
[96861]
From a Virtual Lesson 12/23/12

Related Material:
Unbreakable Cycle
Internal Changes: High Frequency Range
What Is Missing To Make A Breakthrough

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Love, Mutual Guarantee, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: A prayer, this is what my heart cries. You often give an example of the ten Kabbalists who felt hatred before they discovered love. Actually, at the moment, their prayer was to erase each other, and instead of it love was revealed. How is that possible?

Answer: That wasn’t their prayer. The Creator arranged that. In The Book of the Zohar, it is said that each time, before mutual work, the authors of The Book felt that the hatred helped one another. They had to concentrate together on the intention, to rise above that hatred, to discover the love within them, and within this new level to write The Book. It was constantly this way.

To them, millions of different reasons appeared to separate them from the connection, from the group, not to mention that the hatred at these levels is a terrible trap that is placed there by the Creator.

Question: I understand that with me it isn’t the same hatred. But if, when I feel strong hostility toward a friend, do I need to catch myself in this, stop, and try to rise above the hostility, to understand that the Creator is giving it to me?

Answer: From the beginning, one needs to determine where it is in you, to recognize that it is not you. You are a cog mechanism, in which certain data was now planted, and you feel it within you, and thus you think that it is yours. Where does this implant come from? From the Creator. He implants in you this data so that you will change into its opposite and create a connection with Him so that He will be revealed specifically in the group, specifically in hatred, in alienation.

If the group is indifferent, then it is very difficult to work with it. You need to finish this stage as fast as possible. The hatred gives a kind of awakening, and the state of indifference is, as if, rather foggy. Start working on building the connection between us, and you will see serious forces of rejection.
[96551]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 6

Related Material:
Being Forced To Love
The Flame Of Love Above Seething Hatred
It Won’t Help Us To Play Love

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Love, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy“: The reason is that although this love is merely a consequence of the gift, it is still far more important than the gift itself. It is like a great king who gives an unimportant object to a person. Although the gift itself is worthless, the love and the attention of the king make it priceless and precious. Thus, it is completely separated from the matter, being the Light and the gift, in a way that the work and the distinction remain carved in the attainment with only the love itself, while the gift is seemingly forgotten from the heart. Therefore, this aspect of the wisdom is called the “Formative Wisdom of Kabbalah.” Indeed, this part is the most important part of the wisdom.

We are talking about the wisdom of Kabbalah with which I clarify and check the Creator’s attitude towards me and accordingly stabilize my attitude towards Him.

The King is very cunning: He gives me a gift and arranges everything so that in this gift I will feel His attitude towards me and feel shame as a result, since I don’t feel the same towards Him. He takes care that I will decipher it correctly, that I will “read” the situation and will not erase the shame inside me, but instead, the shame will help me resemble Him. When I receive love from Him, when I feel the gap between His attitude to me and my attitude to Him in my shame, I thank Him, although the shame burns like fire. It is this feeling that helps me build myself.

In fact, the shame can turn out to be the right deficiency. If I don’t want to erase it, it is already the right attitude, and now above this deficiency, I have to build my attitude towards the Creator. This means that the shame mustn’t disappear. On the contrary, it should grow, and I should try not to extinguish it, not to cover it, not to cover it up, but rather to turn it into such love, just as I feel it from the Creator and even more than that.

Why is it more? Because love is taken for granted by my ego. Everyone needs to love me. If I receive a gift of $20, I will forget about it after a short while. But if someone takes $20 from me, I will resent it, as if I had lost $200,000. This is the egoistic approach: I always deserve the gift and the harm is unacceptable. If someone says something good about me, I am satisfied until I forget about it. But if someone says something bad about me, I will not calm down until I repay him.

So feeling shame before the Creator doubles the love and helps me build a vessel of bestowal that matches my ego. Otherwise, I will see that only receiving gifts of love from Him is not enough for my ego. I simply must have the shame, the force that doubles the force of love, by allowing me to develop a greater deficiency for bestowal and to fulfill it.
[96715]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
Without Feeling Shame You Get Nowhere
I’m Ashamed And It’s Great
Shame As The Means Of Correction

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Love, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

Question: What will make me love the other? Why should I love him?

Answer: First, we are not speaking about love for someone close to you, not about your beloved, but rather about someone who is totally “neutral” towards you to begin with. Then we begin to connect because of a common spiritual goal that cannot be attained without a mutual connection.

On the way to reaching the goal, you feel mutual aversion, until it becomes real hatred. You work on this hatred by feeling the “hardening of the heart” each time, by sometimes evoking love and then hating one another again. You experience constant ascents and descents and what is more, you mainly feel aversion and hatred.

You are constantly trying to enter the “niche” of indifference that allows you at least to keep the external framework, although it doesn’t lead to anything. This is the worst state, the “dead” state, when the friends don’t decide to get close to one another because they are afraid to discover hatred. But without hate it is impossible to advance towards love, and only the indifference remains.

Eventually you decide that you understand that there is no other choice: “I have to close my eyes no matter what and decide to go for love.”

Question: But what forces and motivates me?

Answer: You want to attain the goal. This desire forces you and motivates you if you are not deceiving yourself, of course. If you are deceiving yourself, you are simply wasting your time. So do some soul searching: Do you want to attain the goal, which means the Creator, the attribute of bestowal? If you do, then the friends and group have been prepared for you, invest in them. And if you don’t, then go home.

We mustn’t give in to routine, and you mustn’t accept the fact that tomorrow and the day after tomorrow will all be just like today. What do you expect? The upper Light is in a state of absolute rest, and it is only by our desires, in our vessels, that we can change reality. Nothing will happen if we don’t act. Israel has no “fortune.” Whoever follows the path of Yashar—El (straight to the Creator) is actually building his own “fortune,” the Light that drips and pours from Above.
[96704]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
Who Is My “Neighbor”?
Commandment To Love
I, The Others, The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Love, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: How can we overcome people’s negative attitude in the process of dissemination because they do not like the chosen ones?

Answer: Indeed, people don’t like the chosen ones, but they need them. If you reach out to people with love, like a doctor to a patient, and the aura of care radiates from you, people will feel no neglect or arrogance. They will understand you correctly.

You have to treat them as your young children whom you love, and your love requires you to be below them. This means that their desires rule over you. Children feel that and have power over adults, who, on the one hand, are the authority for them, and on the other hand, have to provide them with everything. So it all depends on how we position ourselves.
[96554]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 6

Related Material:
When People Refuse To Listen
Kabbalah Circulation: Simply And To The Point
We Know What To Do

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Conventions, Love, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 38, “The Fear of God is His Treasure”: Our sages said, “Everything is in the hands of God except the fear of God,” because He can give everything except fear. This is because what the Creator gives is more love not fear.

Our goal is to reach adhesion with the Creator. Adhesion is attained by equivalence of form. Equivalence of form is attained by reaching the love of God, to the same extent the Creator does.

This means that we must attain love. The Creator constantly adds to this love on His part and as a result we feel that we are advancing by the path of suffering because we don’t add anything on our part.

In order to reach love a person has to build his spiritual vessel called “fear“, fear that he may not feel love towards the Creator.

In order to attain this fear, a person needs the Torah, the Light that Reforms, Mitzvot (commandments), and the right intention to fulfill them. Otherwise he will remain on the level of the still nature. He needs the environment to remind him of the right intention during the study of the Torah and Mitzvot, so that others will hold him in the right intention and won’t let him forget the Creator’s good. So the Torah and Mitzvot were not given to an individual but to many, and everywhere it says “You” in the plural sense and not in the singular meaning.

It’s impossible to advance without the intention to attain the Creator, the love for Him. This must be the reason with which everything begins and which obligates all the actions.
[96577]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/12

Related Material:
Primordial Fear
On The Way Towards Love
The Fear Of God Is His Treasure

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Love, My Similarity to the Creator, Torah - No Comments →