If the friends become more important to you than yourself and your first concern is that they will discover spirituality and not you, it shows the greatness that you attribute to the Creator since by that you want to bring Him contentment. For Him, to reveal Himself is pleasure. He can be revealed only in desires that resemble Him, which means desires of bestowal that are compatible with His bestowal. A person who bestows reaches adhesion with the Creator according to the law of equivalence of form.

But the vessels of bestowal can’t exist in a person himself. They can only be if you take extraneous desires and the more alien they are to you, the better. Rabbi Shimon’s disciples felt such hatred towards one another before they began to study. Imagine what great desires they corrected by raising them in bestowal to the Creator so that He could fulfill His bestowal with them.

It’s the same with you when by wanting to reach the love of the Creator you try to love others, the friends. You agree to take all of their desires and raise them to the Creator for correction. This means that you are ready to be their servant, the conductor between them and the Creator. You only use the Masach (screen) and so you become like mother, Bina, who has nothing.

This is called a “kingdom of priests” that have no estate of their own. The Creator is their only property. You only conduct His Light through you for others and by that reach adhesion with Him.
[86763]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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During the workshop, imagine you are in your soul and that the ten people sitting with you in a circle aren’t just people but a connection that creates the vessel of your soul. We discover such a connection among us as we receive material, a desire, the general collective vessel, in which the Light is revealed.

The desire and the Light together will give us the feeling of the spiritual level on which we will feel a special force that builds and sustains this level, which means the Creator, and which includes all the desires and the Lights. We have to imagine all this during the workshop.

A soul is our mutual bestowal. You are sitting in a circle of ten people and you have to imagine a network of mutual bestowal that connects you all. Each one feels that he annuls himself in it and that he is incorporated in the general desire. There is no I, you, or he that bestows upon others; everyone bestows upon everyone. To the extent that each one totally disappears and instead of ten people and the field among them, there is only the connecting field that remains and the people seem to disappear.

This field is called a spiritual “vessel,” our attitude, the desire to bestow upon one another. Accordingly the Light dresses in this desire of mutual bestowal.

This desire of mutual bestowal is called a “soul,” and the Light that fills it is called the “Light of the soul,” its life, its vitality, NRNHY. There is no other reality! It is into this reality that you enter more deeply each time and begin to feel that this is where all of humanity is, all the forces, and all the relationships. This is where you discover the Creator.

You become unlimited, because before that you annulled yourself and entered the field that connects you. By that you erase all the boundaries: It isn’t by absorbing an unlimited amount but by being incorporated unlimitedly in others, as if getting lost in them.

Thanks to that you begin to feel this whole vessel. This is called a desire to bestow that actually reshapes you and gives you a limitless form.
[86614]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/24/12, Writings of Rabash

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In the News (from Los Angeles Times): “Americans are throwing out nearly every other bite of food, wasting up to 40% of the country’s supply each year – a mass of uneaten provisions worth $165 billion, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council. …

“Food waste is the largest single portion of solid waste cramming American landfills. Since the 1970s, the amount of uneaten fare that is dumped has jumped 50%. The average American trashes 10 times as much food as a consumer in Southeast Asia, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.”

My Comment: If we felt “like one family,” as the current global crisis explains, hunger would be eliminated without increasing the production of food; absolutely unnecessary goods (70% of production), military spending, harmful drugs, etc. would disappear. It the Americans launched a campaign of mutual help within the country, they would have shown an example to all the countries of how without spending a penny from the national treasury to make everyone well fed and then “like-minded,” and so on.
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Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”: The adoption of laws altruism, based on love of neighbor, in a literal sense. Equal distribution of profits so that each works according to their abilities and receives according to their needs.

We must realize that Baal HaSulam does not take these principles from Marx. In general, he does not build his approach on the concepts of scientists, such as Marx, Einstein, and Freud. Just looking at the corrected, perfect form of the vessels, souls, he sees what stages we should pass in our world, advancing towards the goal to the end of correction and perfection.

We are not talking about bodies, not about the social formation, not about the relationship between people, nations, parties and political movements. No, we are talking about souls, how they will unite into one soul and come to the goal, to the end of correction in the world of Infinity.

How can we bring about spiritual correction with the help of consecutive material actions in our world? It is said: “From Your actions we will know You.” First, we perform an action and then understand it. So it is in real life. For example, at a new workplace, first I blindly carry out the instructions of the supervisor, learning my duties.

Similarly, a kid copies grownups and due to this instinct later begins to understand what is happening; why it is necessary to act in one way rather than otherwise. A child always begins studying by practice: He repeats a few times the example he saw and only after that we can explain to him the logic of the situation. And then, perhaps he will add something from his understanding and will perform the task even better than we do.

So, everything new begins with the imitation of the old. That is why when studying the works of Baal HaSulam, we must understand what he sees our situation through. His gaze penetrates all the worlds from extremely external forms appearing before us today to the picture he sees at the end of correction. He sees the overall process through which everyone must pass on the way to the goal. And the goal is that we reveal ourselves in the final form, without bodies, without this world, in the world of Infinity.

So, the point is not in Marx, not in someone’s famous quotes and socialistic views. Baal HaSulam simply uses Marx’s theory and other theories, definitions, symbols, and names to explain what states we have to go through and how we should act. He could find other words to describe all that we have to take on the way to the final correction. You should not consider him a socialist or ascribe any political sympathies to him. It is convenient for him to use the existing concepts to show us the right steps of correction.

So, he begins with the love for the other: Initially, we must educate ourselves in this way, knowing that we are talking about the correction of vessels-desires after the breaking. Unification is the only tool that allows us to return to the corrected state. So, at this level, in the context of our understanding, this unification is defined by the principle: “Love your neighbor as yourself” and even more.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Last Generation”

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We know that when we get inspiration by the study, the group, or by certain actions that we perform, meaning when we are influenced by the environment, we immediately change our values and according to this awakening are ready to advance in “faith above reason” and to work in bestowal and love.

When this awakening fades, we return to our ordinary values. The question is what can you do when you descend to the ordinary corporeal values? After all, you still remember how you were impressed previously by the upper values since you were under the influence of the environment and you were several levels higher than you are now. Why were you given this state?

You were not lowered so that you would simply try to return to the state you were in previously, but so that in the current lower state you can appreciate the upper values that impressed you before. You should want to live according to the values that were attained under the influence of the group even when the upper state disappears and does not illuminate on you anymore.

Although the illumination disappears from our corporeal recognition, you can renew it and keep the same upper values by your exertion, by spurring yourself. This is all our work.

This is called keeping the covenant. Although a person is not in the state of ascent he was before, he is still adhered to the same upper values.

It is as if you were raised to a certain level and then brought down again, and now you have to return to the same level by yourself. Then you are brought up again to an even higher level and brought down again and rise by yourself. Although the Light doesn’t illuminate on you anymore, you want to keep all the conditions of that level in “faith above reason.” You want to keep the same dedication for the group and the Creator, although you don’t get any support from them now. This is how you can advance.

This means that you are keeping the conditions of the covenant. Even if you signed this covenant when you were overflowing with evident feelings of love and were greatly impressed, now this attitude is not revealed, but you find the powers inside you to keep the covenant in the current conditions, just like it was before.

Thus a person advances. First he is given an example and the next time he has to perform by himself the same action he was shown. This is what happens time after time. The state a person attains by making efforts to find the powers to rise to the same values in “faith above reason” is called “a day” for him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/12, Writings of Rabash

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We can cultivate a true desire for bestowal only if we actually work on it in the group. If a person leaves, it means that he is simply going in the wrong direction. Outside the group we can’t understand what a desire to bestow means at all. We have to make efforts, feel that we don’t want it, that it’s repulsive and painful; we escape the fact that we have to be connected with others. Only if we are persistent and stay in order to be connected in mutual guarantee, do we begin to understand what the attribute of bestowal means and to what extent we are far from it. Then comes the demand so that the force of bestowal will simply influence us because it is the source: It created us.

Now from this point of view, we can look at what is going on in the world. It seems that on the one hand everyone is mutually connected now and there is nowhere to run, all of humanity makes up one big group and this mutual connection is being revealed more clearly now but as a negative connection. However, at the same time people already begin to understand and to recognize that if there were a good mutual connection among us, we could create a wonderful humanity, a wonderful world.

But we can’t do it! It’s because our ego does everything that it can to separate us, it pits us against one another: this mutual hate, distrust, repulsion, etc. This means that the world is headed in the same direction we are but in small steps, gradually, according to its form, but still in the same direction. So it’s already possible to speak about this source everywhere.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the inner psychology of the individual and of all of humanity. It is the continuation of the ordinary psychology. The point is that psychology has run its course and has been in a crisis for several decades now. The wisdom of Kabbalah is its substitute. It tells us about inner attributes, about the forces of nature, not only man’s forces but of the world around us, which means how man and the world around him reach a state of balance. This is actually the role of psychology: to bring a person to a state of balance with the world that surrounds him.
[86170]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

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We had a very powerful and high quality convention in Kharkov, making a big step forward. This has advanced all our groups around the world. We have felt universal participation: Everyone was with us from all around the world, all connected. Let us hope that this will raise us to a higher, stronger, and more internal level of connection in comparison to the previous level.

It is clear that this success would have been impossible without all the preliminary work and self-sacrifice that everyone expressed to attain the goal of creation. I think that we have managed to feel it and realize it better. I am very grateful to all the participants and am proud of you. I am referring to all the organizers and all the participants of the convention who felt how significant this step forward was for us. I am glad that everything happened the way it did.

Let us hope that from now on we will continue to delve deeper into our connection and that inside it we will reveal how everything is determined by our appeal to the Creator. Even though right now I am referring to you, we must still thank the Creator for directing us, accompanying and advancing us towards Him, for having an upper force that guides us, and for having merited to advance towards it.

The main thing I wanted to convey to you at this convention is the feeling that when you are in a group that discusses, listens, and dances inside the notion of a “group,” then it holds you up. But the moment you leave this notion, even if physically you are still in the group, you immediately fall into your thoughts.

You had to feel this ascent every time when you are with our friends who influence you and possess your mind and heart, and a descent when for some reason you break your connection with them.

We needed to get a feel for how necessary it is to constantly be under the influence of the environment. Otherwise you immediately return to an animalistic state. I am only human when the group rules over me.

These two levels needed to become very clear to every person, and this goal is what the entire convention schedule was directed towards. If somehow we managed to reach this realization, now we need to strengthen it: to understand the extreme importance of the influence of the environment, which Baal HaSulam speaks of. This is my entire freedom of choice: to keep strengthening this environment in any way I can by increasing my susceptibility.

The environment must keep getting stronger and have a more powerful influence over me. Our mutual guarantee must manifest here: mine according to my attitude towards them and theirs according to their attitude towards me, to always keep me above my corporeal calculations. And this will lead us to modesty and devotion of the soul—the states which lead to the attainment of the goal.
[86207]
Excerpt from a Conversation During a Meal After the Kharkov Convention 8/20/12

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Question: You said that there is no such thing as “lethargy.” How can we focus ourselves on the goal in order to become an eternal engine?

Answer: It only depends on the importance of the goal. In fact, there is no tiredness. Suppose you have a small child and you are busy with him 24 hours a day with feeding, diapers, and all the rest. This, of course, is very hard work, but it is the physical fatigue in our world.

In the spiritual world, if a person advances, he is nourished by the Light and doesn’t get tired. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t sleep or eat, and so on. He needs to do all that, but the detachment, the mental fatigue, doesn’t exist. Of course, he sleeps physiologically, but only because it is essential for his body.

That is, if we are charged by the upper Light, constantly looking for a way to be fully focused straight on it, then we always fulfill our normal physiological needs: the basic amount of calories, sleep, and so forth. It will always be on a normal level, and this will be no problem. But it must be observed! Kabbalists say that a person needs 60 breaths while he sleeps.

We are in a field of forces. You may think that it is mysticism, but actually it is a science, physics, and vectors. How do I focus myself on that field, in the inverse square of the distance between us, that is, direction, the direction of the angle so that I catch the energy from it? Everything follows the same laws operating in our world with some form of energy like radiation, for example.

However, once again, we encounter the problem of mutual guarantee: Will you support your friends? Because a person in an instant may lose the direction, and then nothing works. In an instant, he may find himself in some incomprehensible space! And then any external, silly, narrow-minded, external interruptions begin to influence him.

So, the most important thing is to create the need in the group to constantly support each of its members. Afterward, there is nothing to worry about. You will always succeed.
[85963]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 2

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Baal HaSulam, the newspaper, The Nation: As also the love for the nation must be engraved in all sectors of the nation no less than the egoistic, individual love for one’s needs, in other words, also in the sufficient amount for the preservation of existence of the nation as a nation that is able to carry itself. And with the surplus of this minimum amount, it is possible to devote for the sake of humaneness, for the general humanity without any difference of nation or race.

This presents exact boundaries to the Jewish nation, and if it crosses them, if it cares for itself more than is needed in order to serve others, then this worry damages it and again enters breakage. One needs to take for oneself only as much as is needed for connection for the sake of others. It’s not only the exaggerated need that causes damage, but also excess connection beyond need.

Question: Does this mean that according to the measure of advancement, man needs to determine limits for himself for worrying about his personal needs, and following them, begin his investment in the society?

Answer: In the meantime, we have no basis for similar calculations. Today all of us, in general, need to concentrate only on how to attain the connection between us. And afterward, when the connection is discovered, we’ll work on strengthening it, and then we’ll see and feel the limit. It’s like my worrying about my health in order to serve others in bestowal. But if I worry about being alive and healthy above what is needed in order to serve others, then it is already a Klipa (shell), ego.

In that you constantly maintain this limit, you “sculpt” yourself, make a form of yourself. You maintain the intensity and the health of all your Kelim (desires/vessels) only for the sake of the opportunity to bestow. And this is called to receive for the sake of bestowal.
[85584]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: You said that the unity between us will awaken a special force in us that is found above our lives. What is this force, and how can it serve us as a shield or a weapon?

Answer: It is the same force of life that exists in our body when all of its organs operate mutually in general harmony. This is what is called life, and if the organs stop working in balance and harmony with each other, this creates various health problems from the absence of mutual guarantee in the body

When the force that connects the organs in working together is lacking, then the body begins to lose its force of life, until complete death. Death is a state when the person stops understanding others. This means that one organ doesn’t work in harmony with the other organs, and in this instance, the body collapses.

It is exactly in this critical state that the society of Israel is found: One doesn’t understand the other and is not even interested in understanding. Each person thinks that he is right about everything. Last year, the separation reached its peak, but when a mutual threat appears on the horizon, it helps the nation to connect. Thus, I now appeal with this call.

Although the force of unity is essential for our lives in all events, and not only under threat of security, it also will help us correct the economic situation and the health situation, and will get rid of separation in society. The force of connection, the Arvut (Mutual Guarantee), balances and arranges everything in a perfect way and brings you to the feeling that you are in a family.

Thus, if you receive more or less, it won’t be important since it will be under general agreement since in the present situation, it is best for everyone. You will understand that it is the optimal solution for the present moment.
[85528]
From a “Talk on New Life” 08/12/12

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