After standing at Mount Sinai, the people of Israel began the process of internal self-correction called the forty years of wandering in the desert.

Forty years stands for a period of time (although it has nothing to do with actual time, but indicates a certain number of steps) covered while rising from complete egoism and correcting its portions to the point of attaining complete altruism.

However, it doesn’t mean that they were connected to the Creator. They reached a state of only standing in front of Him, but not yet merging with Him. Even though the property of mutual bestowal was already shaped in them, they didn’t ascend to the degree of reciprocal love.

At this point, they had to implement another tendency called mutual love, i.e., to transition from a condition of “not doing to others what they didn’t want for themselves” to “loving their neighbors as themselves.”

The first criterion was achieved in the desert and signified that all of them would never have a desire or a thought of harming others no matter how beneficial it seemed to them.

And yet, it is not the degree that allowed them to reach the level of loving thy neighbor as thyself, which is a prerequisite for the restoration of huge, universal, internal egoism and re-directing it towards altruism and connection with others.

This level can be reached in the process of conquering the land of Israel, where seven nations (seven gigantic egoistic qualities) had to be overcome and surmounted. This process is called the war of liberation. In other words, conquering the nations, making them leave the land or killing them stands for modifying​ the ​egoism that is associated with the last step of correction in the land of Israel.

By internally correcting, the Israelis attained the state called the Temple, i.e., they achieved the revelation of the Creator among them that kept them united for about 800 years before the Temple was destroyed.

This period of time was full of numerous twists and turns, rapid ascents and crucial downfalls, wars with Rome and Greece, and various local conflicts. The only reason for these events taking place was to enhance the connections among the people of Israel.

The people reached the state of correction and attained the Creator. They knew the purpose of their lives and realized that they existed in the eternal, perfect, infinite world. Their physical actions and spiritual attainment were inseparable. However, they began gradually sliding down from this height until they completely lost it.

The question is why was this situation created if they reached the state of complete correction?! It was given to them in order to correct the Babylonians throughout the world. They still remained at an egoistic degree of ancient Babylon, at a low, selfish level. The Babylonians had not gone through the stage of Egypt or did the stage of the golden calf.

This explains why the people of Israel, who stood way above their egoism, fell from their degree and reached the level of other nations, but still preserved a huge egoistic potential.

Here is the point when the antagonism between the people of Israel and the Babylonians (the rest of humanity) appeared. The nations of the world do not associate the people of Israel with this material civilization this people do not feel like they belong to this world. There is something strange, not like other peoples.

It can be felt through numerous tiny details. No matter how much some Israelis want to be similar to other nations that inhabit our planet, they just cannot be similar to them, since they do not come from this world. Instead, they fell from spirituality to this realm.
[146727]
From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/22/14

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It is very important to check yourself: “What worries me?” Every moment that I feel alive and well, I am full of worries. So what do I worry about?

Am I worried about my own well-being, tranquility, achievement, what will make me happier, peace and quiet, security, food, and family welfare?

Or am I worried about friends, like a mother with a baby, searching for what they are missing and what should be done for them?  Do I worry about the group like a faithful nanny? This means I must check the intention of my worries.

The whole of creation gradually descended down to our world in which we exist in physical form and in the most inferior situation. We feel as if we are detached from the spiritual world, when in fact that can’t happen. So this world is called the imaginary world.

We suppose we exist in a vast world filled with lots of physical objects. However, in fact, it is all spiritual, but we don’t recognize or feel this.

So it is very important to check what I am worried about at every moment. Entering the spiritual world means continuing to be concerned about what is essential and vital in life: food, sleep, health, money, and relationships with people, but subconsciously, I am always troubled by the thought of how to organize the group so that it will become the Shechina (divinity), a place for discovering the Creator.

I must get used to being happy about my concern for the group. If I stop worrying about it, then I am worried about why am I not concerned about the friends. This must become habitual. In our world, habit becomes second nature.

Suppose that they give me a baby who is a stranger for whom I have no feelings. But I have no choice; I am compelled to worry about him day after day. I begin to be concerned about him and he becomes important for me. Ultimately, I begin to think about him all the time. It is the same thing in relation to the group. We must attain this state that is possible thanks only to determination and constantly returning to my thoughts about the group.

And after all these nice plans about taking care of the group, about my supporting it, attracting Light into it, about the Creator and giving Him satisfaction, I must ask myself, where He is and where I am subconsciously. I must always clarify what I am doing all this for. Certainly I hope to receive some reward, but what exactly?

It could be that in the meantime, I am not ready to imagine a reward for myself. It could be that I understand that afterward, for my effort I will demand control, respect, and transcendence of life and death, something tangible and very important for me. And here I must examine what is more important for me: Is it my reward or the ability to give satisfaction to the friends and the Creator?

Can I forego the reward, or at least part of it? And when I forego a reward, won’t I replace it with something else other than fame and the pursuit of honor?

What does it mean to give pleasure to the Creator? By what means can I do this and with which desires do I feel it? Through what will I feel that the Creator gets pleasure from me? It is necessary to try to separate my desires and perception into as many parts as possible and see how to work with them. The more parameters that I have, the more I will develop my perception.

This is like pixels on a computer screen that determine its resolution: In one square centimeter there can be two hundred pixels, there could be a thousand, or there could be ten thousand. The more points there are, the better and clearer the picture becomes.

The same thing happens also happens with our desires. The more we scrutinize them, the closer we come to the truth, to true perception.
[147091]
From the Convention In Los Angeles “Day Two” 11/01/14, Lesson #4

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The convention is over and we are about to return to our groups in order to connect with other people. We are about to go outside this big hall and separate from our group of ten.

Of course, we should keep in touch with them, but we should see that anything that is added to my group of ten or what it lacks when I go back home is calculated from Above and this is actually what I should work with.

The Creator has given us such conditions on purpose and I should not feel sorry that I am not next to the same small group that I have grown so accustomed to for the last few days and with whom I want to stay forever. No! I am going to work with the whole world and with my local group.

We should attain a state in which there are several people I can work with everywhere, whether virtually or physically. There can be different groups of ten in the morning, at midday, and in the evening. This is only the beginning and we stick to a certain group of ten in order to feel that there we can find an answer, warmth, closeness, and mutual understanding.

But we can feel the same almost immediately in any other group. If I am surrounded by friends from all over the world who are advancing towards one goal, I can sit in any group and immediately feel that these are the same friends.

It makes no difference whether I know these people well or whether I don’t know them at all in the corporeal world. If we have a common goal, I can connect to them as if I have known them for years. It makes no difference at all how well we have known each other previously.

It is very important to express love to all the friends, so that every person in the group, in the group of ten, will feel that he is loved. The feeling of love neutralizes the ego if a person wishes to annul his ego. This is because the love of the friends evokes in me such a peaceful feeling that I cease worrying about myself.

Then I can ascend above my ego! I am free of worrying about myself and so I can bestow and give my love as a present to others because I no longer have to think about myself.

It is a very important point. We can agree that we will intentionally show our love to one of the friends and thus free him from his troubles and worries.Try it and see and how well it works, even if we don’t work that way on purpose with regard to one of the friends, each of us should still feel that the group worries about him.
[147164]
From the Convention In Los Angeles “Day Two” 11/01/14, Lesson 4

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Question: When Israelis go abroad to various tourist destinations in nature they usually tend to stay together as a friendly group. It isn’t by chance that during the disaster in Nepal the mutual guarantee displayed by the Israeli tourists and doctors who came to the aid of the wounded surprised the local residents. What are the roots of this phenomenon?

Answer: The conventional psychological explanations are that our people have suffered a lot during the time they were in exile, where mutual guarantee was needed to survive. As a result mutual assistance and mutual care became part of our essence.

But in fact, it is a totally different matter. The root of our mutual guarantee is much deeper even back then when we only became a nation, when we came out of ancient Babylon. Abraham led us from the land of Canaan and actually united the Babylonians who followed him into one unique group called Israel (Yashar-El); Yashar, means in a straight direction and El means nature, Godliness, since it is the same numeric values (Gematria) of letters.

In fact, we discover their unity through the principle of love thy friend as thyself, which includes all of nature and discovers the upper force that manages it in perfect harmony there.

Indeed, once we were connected and soldered internally, as one man in one heart, and this is imprinted and kept in us despite the collapse, the shattering, and the mutual hatred we fell into later, which destroyed the Temple, our mutual spiritual vessel, the mutual guarantee that we felt for one another.

Despite the 2,000 years of exile these shards are still in us, echoes of an earlier unity. So let’s hope that we will be able to ignite and reunite these sparks anew, so that their power will be enough to bring us back to the brotherly love of the Israeli nation in which we are all friends and are responsible for one another.

This is actually how we, and then the whole world, will become compatible with nature. Then thanks to the equivalence of form, nature will become friendly to us. The whole idea is to attain balance and unity with it. To do that we need the spark of the past by which we need to unite and to become light unto the nations, which means to show the whole world how to attain comprehensive unity. Then man will not dominate nature but will live in harmony with it, keeping the general harmony of nature.
[146361]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/21/14

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Question: If a person in our group of ten is sick and suffering, can we help him somehow?

Answer: You must help him in any way possible.

A group of ten is Arvut—one for all and all for one. It is a clear understanding that only together can we attain the goal and that each friend is more important to me than myself.

Question: And so he becomes healthy?

Answer: If you want that very much, then yes.

Question: Perhaps there is some kind of algorithm about what to think. Advise us about what is important so that the person will truly become healthy.

Answer: I cannot do this because all of your algorithms will be egoistic. We are not on the same level so our requests to the Creator and our requests for the health of the friend will be able to be integrated. In the meantime, they cannot be integrated. So I cannot speak about something that is more than this so that you will not egoistically begin to use everything that comes up in your mind.

You must help a friend in healing or stabilizing domestic problems through your good desires and intentions on the normal physical level.
[145045]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day Three” 9/21/14, lesson 5

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We lack only one thing, which is a need, in every state, to reveal that “There is none else besides the Creator.” At first, this statement is completely abstract because I only read about it in a book.

But later, it becomes closer and closer to me and I see that “There is none else besides Him” in everything that happens around me, in all the people I meet and in all events. The Creator is concealed behind all of that, Him and no one else.

“There is none else besides Him” in my thoughts means that it is He who put these thoughts into me, and I am only sensing them. And when it comes to how I perceive and react to these thoughts, here too “There is none else besides Him.”

Do I make the decision about how to react? Is there anything in my reaction that is from my own self, or is there only “None else besides Him?” By delving into these questions deeper and deeper, I come to adherence with Him.

If there is actually “None else besides Him” in any state, any place,  any thought, or in any of my supposed decisions or actions, it means that everything is determined by the Creator. In essence, I am simply discovering that He decides everything, and I only have one point from which I can establish that everywhere, in everything, the Creator is the one operating. This is how I reveal that I am completely adhered to Him.

Striving to constantly hold on to “None Else Besides Him” and to discover the Creator in each of our thoughts and desires, in heart and mind, brings us to adhesion with the Creator. Nothing more is required of us, this is the most important. We simply need to train ourselves to this attitude in all of our daily life.

How should one work with concealment, with the fact that there is me, there is the upper force, and concealment between us? How should I relate to this concealment?

In essence, concealment stems from my own desires that are intended for revealing the Creator. If they were not meant for revealing the Creator, then I would not sense concealment within them. Generally, I would not even feel them as relating to the Creator.

There are a great many desires, which at the moment, lay dormant inside of me, without manifesting themselves in any way. But in those desires where I consciously feel the Creator’s concealment, I have the possibility of revealing Him first and foremost, on the condition of working with them correctly. This concealment is the state that precedes revelation.

It follows that the main concealment occurs on the very principle of “None else besides Him,” forcing me to attribute actions to myself or to others. Accordingly, I divide reality into my own self and the world around me.

However, if I attributed all the actions that are in my mind, reason, and the surrounding still, vegetative, animate, and human world to the Creator, then I would feel the corrected Shechina (divinity). Only the point from which I see that everything is done by the Creator is called the point of restriction, the point of my “I.”

Without this point, there is no creature, but everything else, except it, belongs to the Creator. And if inside of me I see “None else besides Him,” and all around me “None else besides Him,” then I reveal that indeed “There is none else besides Him.” It is not difficult at all. We simply need to strengthen each other in this intention. If you agree, then let’s sign the contract of mutual guarantee. There is no need for anything else.

This principle of “There is none else besides Him” is the only thing that you need to implement. We perform many actions in this world, but all of that is simply in order to help us hold on in this intention of “None else besides Him” through any activity. There is nothing else that we need to do besides that.
[145102]
From the Workshop on 10/6/2014

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Based upon the knowledge of the shattering of the general desire and through the method of its subsequent correction, we construct all of our work in a group, in conventions, in groups of ten, and more. Everything is built on the study of the material, how it was broken up during the Shevira (breaking) and in what manner it is connected under the influence of the power of the Light.

By accepting the guidance and advice of the Kabbalists, which was written in a psychological form that is closest to us, we learn how to behave, in what manner to connect in a group, to support friends, and to attain states in which we promise to support each other in our alliance.

The existence of this alliance, the precise intention found in it, is called Arvut, where each one of us is ready to be a guarantor for a friend.

Specifically through this work, we begin to see that we cannot correct ourselves. Before us is an immense world, but it turns out that it only seems as if it is huge to us because it is fragmented and expanded by our ego, and the moment we begin to put it together, we see that this is one single mass, one unified force.

We begin to understand that the world is not as we describe it to ourselves. Everything that we see around us is a reflection of our inner characteristics. And even though it seems to us that this is completely unrealistic and even imaginary, all people, buildings, the universe, and all there is in the universe is a reflection of my inner characteristics: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

The four levels of my inner characteristics (still, vegetative, animate, and speaking) are four different levels of Aviut (thickness of desire). Desires number one, two, three, and four work within me such that I imagine them in the form of matching images.

However, when a person works not only with the separating force, but also with the connecting and unifying force, he immediately begins to understand that this is truly so, that, essentially, our world is an illusionary universe (with which many physicists are already inclined to agree), and that there are a multitude of universes that interpenetrate each other, and the entirety of creation is only some kind of hologram or matrix. What the wisdom of Kabbalah wrote about 3,000 to 4,000 years ago—what the Adam HaRishon saw more than 5700 years ago—finally, the physicists are talking about today.

So, we need to reach our first level of spirituality as rapidly as possible, and then we will no longer have problems. We will begin to understand how everything is organized. The main thing is that the very first level is truly the most difficult. And after that we will already have skills; there will be an understanding of what is happening.

However, now, from absolute ignorance, we must enter into another reality. So the Kabbalists reduce everything to simple actions. They don’t speak about lofty matters because there is no one to talk to about this. They don’t speak about some kind of clever actions with inner intentions, with internal clarifications, because we don’t feel this yet.

None of us feel that we include all of the worlds within ourselves, that man is like Olam Ein Sof (the world of infinity). When a person attains Olam Ein Sof, he attains everything. In the end, a multi-faceted system of worlds emerges in which all of us and each one of us is the entire system included one within the other.

So, the Kabbalists don’t talk about this because all of this is very confusing and doesn’t provide anything. They simply advise us what to do, and based on this follow all the laws and general rules of behavior in a group that we study in order to gather and put the group together. This is the most important thing.
[144309]
From Preparatory Lesson 2 of the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14

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Question: If the upper force is good, why is it revealed in an unpleasant way, pressuring us?

Answer: The higher power pressures us from above in that it aspires to be discovered. Whereas, we are found below as separated, crushed, rejecting and hating each other. The pressure of the upper force from above increases our problems, because He wants to be discovered, but is not.

All of the problems pop up because of the approach of the Creator to us. If you are not adapted to Him, then His approach awakens negative reactions in you.

Question: I don’t understand how the approach of the Creator could be perceived as negative. It would seem that this would be the opposite; wouldn’t it be necessary to awaken some kind of positive results?

Answer: Imagine that you are a child. Your mother comes to you and asks: “Have you completed your homework?” And you haven’t prepared your lessons. So your mother threatens: “Watch out, I will come back in another hour to check if you have finished your homework!” As the hour passes you begin to be afraid of when she will come back because you still haven’t done anything.

How will her approach be felt in this case: good or bad? If you don’t comply with her demand, you feel her approach as unpleasant, you don’t want her to come to check you. Isn’t this so?

And now the same thing is happening with us. We are not carrying out those actions that we must carry out. We don’t want to become like one person with one heart, where all of Israel are friends, connected with mutual guarantee (Arvut). We are not becoming like those that we must be, and so the approach of the Creator awakens troubles, disasters, and wars within us and around us.

All of these are the result of the nearing of the Creator. The Holocaust was a result of His approach. That is how the approach of the upper force is revealed if we don’t adapt to it.

So we must prevent the blow through a remedy: Begin getting closer to each other, connect so that we approximate ourselves to the approach of the Creator. Then we will accept this approach as better and better, to the state in which the upper force will be completely clothed in us. There is no better state than this!

Question: Is the upper force like a meteor that is approaching our Earth?

Answer: The higher power is not approaching us with the speed of a meteor, which is 30 kilometers per second. This is a gradual process that began a long time ago. But essentially this “meteor” is already close, and its speed is increasing all the time. The inner and outer tension has grown.

After that a period of calm could come. But even if it comes, it will be for a very brief time. Periods of calm will become more and more compressed, whereas the tension will grow exponentially. This is because we are on the threshold of the general correction and the Creator is obliging us to carry out the correction, meaning to connect among us.

We must come to a state of “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” no matter how unrealistic this may seem to us. The higher power is prepared to force us into this through its pressure. But it is desirable to begin to study the wisdom of Kabbalah because from it, we discover how to attain this in ourselves before we are pressured from above with full force. We can reach this connection ourselves in a good way, without coercion.
[142264]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: Preparing the People of Israel for Light” 8/20/14

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Question: What do we need to do in order to become a true nation of Israel? It seemed to me that I was seeing examples of mutual support and solidarity all around.

Answer: This is a solidarity that arises intuitively during a common danger, but it is not called mutual guarantee. In difficult times, we all are willing to help each other, flocking together instinctively.

This happens in any society, in any group, and even among animals because it provides psychological support, elevates the spirit, and gives a feeling of greater confidence and connection. However, it has nothing to do with “Love thy neighbor.”

Love for one’s neighbor is such a deep inner bond that it only can be achieved through a special connection between us, attainable through the wisdom of Kabbalah.

We receive an example of such feelings during special discussions in a circle, and in workshops, but this is not enough. We need to pass the basis of this method to everyone so that each person will understand where this feeling comes from, why it arises, and how to implement it.

Each of us must become a carrier of this method, because in it, lies one’s life and one’s soul. With it, one builds their eternal existence, their independence. This is why it is not enough simply to hear about it for a few minutes. Rather, one must understand what world we are living in and what system operates us. Through this, we can understand the forces of nature, change them, and use them for our own good.

Then, we can show an example to the entire world and call upon it to unite, “Look at the world that is opening before us! We can ascend to an eternal and absolute degree, instead of existing for a few decades on this earth and ending it at that. The gates to a new world are being flung open before us.”

This is what each of us subconsciously is awaiting and what the nations of the world want. However, the Jewish people hold the key, and we are obliged to open it up. It is ready for our use!

I very much hope that the pressure that we are feeling today, from the internal anti-Semitism that exists within us and the external pressure, would be enough to turn the attention of the entire nation to the inner teaching, in other words, to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

There are people with a book of instructions by which this nation must live. Without them, we are attempting to imitate the nations of the world, but it does not work. We need to structure ourselves in accordance with these instructions.

I hope that the suffering we are enduring today will be enough to draw our attention to this topic, because otherwise, problems will increase and continue to grow until they oblige us to become a true nation of Israel and a light for other nations in order to lead the entire world to correction, to the good connection.

Comment: We join you in your good hopes!
[142152]
From the program “A New Life” #426 8/14/14

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Question: We are shaping a unified field between us. However, one way or another, each one invests his own thoughts. How does one determine the right choice toward the group, toward the unified field?

Answer: A person within himself cannot determine anything, only if the influence of the friends directs him can anything be determined. Otherwise, he will be only in continuous contradictions and oppositions.

He must constantly be under the influence of the group, in other words, participating in all of its events. We must methodically renew and increase our influence on each one of the members of the group.

We must place a goal before ourselves: create the right field around us so that it will get to the friends, will arouse them with the right work, and they will feel the kindness, the serenity and tranquility, and confidence in our work.

If one falls, the others help him up. The Creator constantly makes adjustments so that each one of us will come to his place and carry out his work. The concern about this must hang in the air.

Once, in the conventions in Israel, we threw big balloons into the air, and each one made an`effort to let no balloon fall to the floor. Specifically in this way, the unity, the Arvut, the mutual support, is revealed when you are not only not “drilling a hole in the boat,” but also are concerned all the time that the others won’t do this.

The main thing is to support the elevation of spirit and the excitement of the friends. The Creator gave us work, “Friend, this is your part, and, as long as you have not glued all of the pieces together, you will not get a soul, for it is one. It is because none of us has a soul, rather only its shattered parts.”

It is necessary to understand that the Creator gives us a place for work. So, be involved with it. Yearn to attain connection with the fragments of the soul of the friends and make it so that they will love you.
[141000]
From lesson 4 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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