Question: How can we make a covenant among friends?

Answer: A covenant among friends is possible only if there is an upper party ensuring its preservation. A covenant can be kept only when we all connect with the upper force, which provides the union.

There is no chance that we will be able to keep this covenant by ourselves, but if we connect, we can demand this from the Creator—if we do it for Him.

The result is that “Israel,” the people who yearn for the Creator, the Light that Reforms, the Torah, and the Creator are joined together, and then the Creator keeps the covenant according to our request.

When darkness, separation, and conflicts come, this covenant is revealed and exists among us. But as long as everything is fine, it is impossible to test it. The test is only when we feel bad.

When we feel good, we don’t need any covenant; as long as there is the Light, it connects all the parts. The difficult part is to do so when the Light disappears, to keep these parts together then. This is called a covenant.

But how can you draw the Light in a time of darkness? It is impossible. But we want to reach a state in which even when we don’t feel the Light in our receiving vessels, we will feel the Light in our Masach (screen) and the Returning Light—a fulfillment in the vessels of bestowal instead of an egoistic fulfillment.

Today, I am a loyal slave of my desire to receive, and I want to serve in order to fill someone else in the same way. This will be a pleasure for me. This means that I want to make a covenant.

The covenant is tested only in the dark, when I get no fulfillment but I still want to keep the same good relations that I had before. Instead of my egoistic pleasure, I want to restrict my ego: a Masach and the Returning Light.

This is called a covenant; it is a state in which I don’t work for myself anymore but rather in order to bestow. This means that I keep the same attitude not only when I feel good, but when I feel bad too. When the good state returns, I don’t want to be confused and be enslaved by the desire to receive over and over again, and so I make a covenant for that purpose.

I want to feel pleasure in the vessels of bestowal; I want to restrict my desire to receive and work with the pleasure by building a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light above this restriction. I turn to the friend with this Returning Light and connect with him. This is called a covenant.
[80766]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati #76

Related Material:
A Test For Selflessness
Only Forward And Not One Step Back
The Covenant Of Friends

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Question: What are a deficiency of the individual and a deficiency of the general?

Answer: A deficiency of the individual doesn’t exist in spirituality because it isn’t about the ordinary corporeal desires. In spiritual desires, a person has only one point in the heart, which he still hasn’t realized.

A general deficiency is the ability to detach from oneself and to connect to the general. This means that a person already understands and feels from studying, from being part of the group, and from disseminating that the spiritual world is revealed only in a whole deficiency.

A whole deficiency means that it is connected, at least minimally, which enables a person to perceive several spiritual discernments. Until then, one doesn’t see anything, like in the evening at twilight when everything becomes blurred.

There is a saying that it is evening time when you cannot recognize the face of your friend from a certain distance (four Amot) as everything blends together. However, if I can recognize my friend, it isn’t evening yet.

Evening symbolizes the fact that I can see something, but that I don’t understand exactly what it is. Thus, we gradually begin to come to the understanding that, instead of a revelation, there are several discernments in which we can recognize, similarly to the way we recognize a friend’s face from a distance of four Amot, which means in the four minimal phases of the desire to receive.

In order to do that, I need to connect my desire with the desires of several other friends so that there will be a connection among us, and, from that, I will be able to discern good and evil, light and darkness. I need to clarify what receiving and bestowal means for myself and for others, or for everyone together, among us.

In the connection between us, I already begin to see these discernments: what “in order to receive” means and what “in order to bestow means.” In this place, built by me, in the deficiency by incorporating with others, I already understand to some extent what in order to receive and in order to bestow mean. This is an initial, minimal understanding, but I already can see the difference between the two.

A deficiency is formed in me, a vessel of perceiving by which I can see the spiritual world, to feel it and to see different discernments. Thus, my spiritual introspection opens up, which is different from the external perspective that I have in this world now, where we imagine that we see something.
[80469]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
Four Steps To Keter
Everything Depends Upon You
Kabbalists On Perception Of Reality, Part 1

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Good education is when people receive knowledge together with an explanation that they are ready to accept, because many facts that we receive without explanations, especially during our childhood years, remain in us like viruses, and it becomes impossible to get rid of them. We subconsciously use this baggage of facts and consider them to be true, even though in reality they are wrong and often get in our way.

All this happens because as children and adolescents, we were stuffed with different “irrefutable” truths without explanations. Since then, they have been imprinted within and there is nowhere to hide from them. No matter what you do, you are not in control of the things that have been imprinted in you.

And this is why everything needs to be accompanied by an explanation. There is no need to confuse people with ornate constructions based on higher mathematics—people need to receive a clear, accessible explanation, because otherwise knowledge becomes slogans or axioms, and do not advance people forward. A person needs to develop through common sense when one learns good explanations. Moreover, it is necessary to maintain adequate speed, so an excess of information would not block a person’s ability to absorb information.

Correct education is devoid of unsubstantiated facts. This is because people will not be able to use them in the right way, and it will be very difficult to rid them of this unnecessary load. It is impossible to work with facts when you do not know their causes and consequences. In this case they will not allow a person to create a common picture of reality. Instead, a person treats them as strict laws.

Meanwhile, there are no laws at all in reality: We create them ourselves. Once I am born, necessity pushes me to begin to form a picture of the world, connecting its parts together. This is because we come from a breaking, and our entire reality consists of putting together a mosaic of its parts on all the levels, as deep as it goes, from this world to the world of Infinity, constantly adding new quality and quantity of traits. After all, this picture is multidimensional.

So, when I give a person an ultimatum regarding the way he should put together certain parts, I send him down the wrong path, and he continues to follow directions since he does not know how to make analyses and draw analogies. Instead of giving him prepared answers and naked facts, I need to give him a study technique, a method, a guide for action.

This is why modern education is collapsing. This is because we are molding “soldiers,” skilled “workers,” rather than creative people who know how to put together pieces of a mosaic.

Question: You cannot just confine yourself to facts, even if they are true?

Answer: The facts are not the problem. A person needs more than knowledge: He needs to develop his mind, put together things that no one has put together before. He needs to have an approach, a new program instilled in him, which allows him to independently form a picture of reality in him.

A child will not learn through forced actions: This gives a very limited effect. When I tell him something, I must explain why this is the way it is. Otherwise I introduce another “virus” into him, and he will not be able to rationally use this “truth” that is imprinted in him. Caused by a certain context, it will keep emerging in his subconscious until the end of his life, and only the death of the body will put an end to this.

Question: During the period of concealment, we also use slogans that we do not understand. Why are these not “viral” to us?

Answer: That is true, Kabbalah has its own “mottos”: “There is none else beside Him,” “Good who does good,” “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” etc. However, they come from a higher degree and cannot come to us in any other form. We “swallow” these viruses, artificially try to shape ourselves in accordance with them, and thus we attract Reforming Light. And it corrects and lifts us, providing us with a new understanding of the world, a new mind and a new feeling.

On the other hand, in our world, we swallow false facts instead of acquiring common sense, and this does not allow us to move forward by combining all the parts, studying the right picture of the world, and developing on its basis.

After all, I can be independent in our world, while I will never be able to enter spirituality on my own. On the contrary, I must try to realize the laws of the spiritual world in me, connect to them to the extent of my abilities, and then the upper Light will lift me there.

This way, positive instead of negative “viruses” operate in the spiritual world: Be near great people, exalt your friends in your eyes, and constantly strive towards the Light, which you know nothing about. All these things are not facts in my perception; nevertheless, receiving them from the spiritual world is beneficial.

In our perception, even Kabbalah books are “viruses.” They speak of things that we cannot feel, see, or hear. However, I study these texts in order to want to rise with their help. Let these “viruses” strike me so I would become infected with love. And then I will come to it.
[80379]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
A Journey To The Foundations Of Creation
The Stenciled Education
From Grades To Values

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Integral Upbringing, Mutual Guarantee, Q&A - No Comments →

In the article “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Baal HaSulam tells us under what conditions the Torah was given to people. First, it must be a group of people who want to be as one man in one heart. The sufferings they have been through leave them no choice and they see that they must escape, but they must escape consciously. It isn’t a blind escape from pain, because the sufferings come from a special force, from the Creator, according to His plan, and within it there is a specific goal.

The Creator brought about the sufferings on purpose. It says “I have created the evil inclination,” which means I have created Pharaoh who brings the children of Israel closer to the Creator. The evil inclination is called “help against,” since it evokes and pushes a person to know the force that manages him. A person asks himself: “Where does all this evil come from? Why am I suffering?” Eventually the searching brings him to the main question: “What is the meaning of my life?” And further: “What is the meaning of life?” Then a person reaches the wisdom of Kabbalah.

So he comes to receive the Torah and begins to understand that there is a need to change something. Instead of changing the world by trying to “bend” it by himself, a person understands that the world is a replica of his internal attributes. Change yourself and the world will change.

This is what we say to everyone: We should correct the person and not the world. Of course, we don’t talk about the perception of reality, about the fact that the external picture is determined by our internality. This cannot be explained at the moment, although there is already some scientific evidence for that. On the whole, a person already understands that today he has to correct himself. Then he is ready to receive the Torah as a spice “to spice” the evil inclination by this method so that it will taste good.

Eventually we have to put the form of bestowal on the original desire to receive. If a person is ready for that, he receives the Torah, meaning the method of correction, and begins to work. Then he understands the essence of the condition that he was given: what mutual guarantee means, what general unity is, and what the final goal of “Love thy friend as thyself” symbolizes. On the way to reaching this goal, a person discovers his mission, which is defined as “a kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation.” In other words, he has to fulfill what it says not only regarding himself, but also being responsible for the whole world. By judging oneself and the whole world to a scale of merit, a person applies his potential correctly for the good of others by doing what he has to do, which means to disseminate the method of correction all over the world.

Then he corrects himself, since he has no need for anything but that. It is enough to live by working for the general correction, which is called “a kingdom of priests.” Priests have no corporeal estate, “God is their estate,” which means the pure level of Bina. A person should also see himself on this sublime level where the good of others is his only concern above all the other concerns, and the only goal above all the other goals. Although different unwanted desires come up and although the interruptions are global, it is all so that above them he can be responsible for the whole world. Otherwise he will have nothing to work on.

By fulfilling the mission of a “kingdom of priests” and “a holy nation,” a person fulfills the idea of mutual guarantee. The point isn’t that we will be responsible for each other and hold on to each other on the way to correction. No, we are advancing towards mutual guarantee with the whole world, we are responsible for everyone, and unless we correct them, our work cannot be complete.
[80475]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
From The Giving Of The Torah To The Giver Of The Torah
We Demand Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)!
Why Abraham?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Kabbalah Dissemination, Mutual Guarantee - 1 Comment →

Question: How are we supposed to help each other? Let’s say I am a farmer and most of the time I don’t communicate much with other people. How can I possibly bestow to them?

Answer: Tell me, why and for whom do you work on your land? We think that we work for our own sake, but in fact that’s not what’s happening. A long time ago, humans were at the animate level thinking only about how to feed themselves. They didn’t feel that they were a part of each other or have a sense of community. But with the development of our receiving desires, people were no longer able to provide for themselves. Then, one became a farmer, another a shepherd, and another worked with tools. It is said: “Go and earn from each other.” Our desires grew more complex; accordingly, our world became more complex.

Ultimately, we think we serve ourselves, but in fact, it is really others. We are under the delusion that we act for the sake of our own benefit, but in fact, it’s a misunderstanding. Actually we work to get our salary, which is nothing other than a deception. In fact, we work to bestow and to provide for others.

For example, you grow tomatoes and all day long you are thinking about how to sell them and what you will earn. So remember, if you did not regard yourself through the deceitful prism of egoism, you would see that you simply are trying to find a way to help others profit. You are suppressed by a delusion that all you do is pursue profits because you don’t know how else to motivate yourself because you still don’t know how concern for others will serve the purpose. Well, you can remain under the impression of this lie if you want.

In reality, your pursuit of profit is a complete fraud. Soon the banking sector will collapse, and you will see this. Similarly, we encourage children or trick a donkey by dangling a carrot in front of its nose to make it work.

Question: So, a Kabbalist grows tomatoes, earns half a million by selling them, and constantly thinks about how to use this money for the benefit of others?

Answer: Of course! Otherwise, he wouldn’t be working for the sake of bestowal. What kind of a Kabbalist would he be?

Comment: But, people are constructed in a way that most of the time they don’t think of things like that.

Answer: You keep forgetting because your perception is not connected with bestowal as of yet. A mother feels her child within herself, so she never forgets about her baby. Internally, she never separates from her child; she simply cannot cut off the umbilical cord that connects them together. Wait, you too will discover the cord that joins you to others.

Comment: But even egoistically, I don’t dream about my future salary all day long.

Answer: That’s right! However, you constantly think of various pleasures that attract you. An expert receives sensual and intellectual fulfillment from doing his work well. Eventually, you’ll find out that you are working for the benefit of others. All of us are the Creator’s workers; we are giving to each other all we can against our will and do not acknowledge our bestowal. Instead of a beautiful and perfect picture of the world, we see a perverted and wicked image that alters the reality into its complete opposite.

Eventually, we have to “remove the blinders” and lift the veil of concealment. Nothing will change, except us; but when you change, you will see an inverted world.
[80084]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/7/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
Who Should We Blame?
How To Fulfill The Desires Of Others?
The End Of An Illusion Or The Change Of A Paradigm

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

When spiritual insight is revealed in us, we actually begin to see and gradually understand more clearly that everything depends on the “place” (the Creator), which means on the number and the intensity of my discernments that reveal the spiritual reality and that show me to what extent I am connected to everyone else. Everything depends on the number of discernments and mainly on their intensity and the intensity of the connection.

Each of us suddenly discovers different discernments of his egoistic perception, but gives up his ego in order to connect with others. It turns out that a “dent” appears in my desire opposite a “bulge” in the desire of the friend, and a “bulge” of my desire opposite his “dent.” Thus we connect, as each one gives in to the other.

It turns out that I have given up my interests in order to connect to the friend, but he, in his perception will discover these “bulges” of my ego and will annul himself in order to connect with me. Thus, we don’t annul our ego, but constantly use it through more “bulges” and “dents.” Our sensitive and fine perception and its intensity depend on the amount of such connections in which we discover more and more discernments.

This is how the general vessel is built for the interest of the public. The more common needs I discover, the more I can annul myself and connect with others. But then I have to think about the reason I am doing this for—for the revelation of the Shechina (Divinity). Here I have to attain one more connection that is more internal and for a higher goal by discovering that it is the Creator.

The Creator isn’t some personality, but a discernment that I revealed as a result of my clarification. It is the upper Sefira of Keter, which I discover after having clarified all the Sefirot that precede it. Just like the commandment of love, which we must reach, but which we actually cannot. It reveals to us by itself if we perform all the commandments that precede it.

It is the same when it comes to connection. If I with my point in the heart work in the group and connect with the friends, then within this connection, in all the four phases, I discover their inner root called Shechina. Shechina symbolizes the revelation of the Creator.

I cannot build this last phase, the Keter, the one who bestows, by myself. It is revealed since I have taken the four steps towards it.

I did everything that was in my power, I revealed the four phases and the forms of connection by myself, and then I discover the phase of Keter on which I cannot work by myself. This is the Shechina. On my part, I complete the work and then there is a discovery waiting for me, as it says “I have labored and I found.”
[80466]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
Introspection
Dissolving In The Group
Everything Depends Upon You

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator, Unity - No Comments →

On one hand, the commandments “between a person and his friend” are more important than the commandments “between a person and the Creator,” since from the love of the created beings one reaches the love of the Creator. But on the other hand, we mustn’t forget the final goal: We must build the mutual relations among us correctly only in order to connect with the Creator.

Otherwise, we would simply demonstrate “idealism” trying to overcome the crisis, to improve the educational system, to become better and happier people… All this is fraught with evil and leads to an even greater collapse. After all, by that we divert humanity from its internal part, leading it to a side road. Then people would feel even greater suffering trying to leave these attempts, no matter how wonderful they may seem.

We want to stop the hunger and to make everyone healthy, to fill everyone with joy. But if at the same time we don’t aim at adhesion with the Creator, with the goal of creation, if we don’t intend to bring the Creator contentment and to enable Him to reveal Himself, then instead of the direct path upwards, we are choosing a side road, and then more sufferings would be needed in order to get back on track.

Thus, by our seemingly good actions, we would summon negative results, so as it says: “It is better to sit and do nothing.”
[80382]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
“I Dwell Within My People”
Love Of The Creator: A Development Marathon Finale
Do Not Make Yourself An Idol

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) Movement: “Changing Priorities” (excerpt from the brochure):

About Us: Our organization represents virtually all sectors of Israeli society: the native Israeli and immigrants, the secular and religious, professors and students, businessmen and workers, technology and humanities specialists.

What do we have in common? No matter how it may sound, what we share is our concern for what is happening in the world. The fact is that the world (and our country is no exception) is undergoing a historical transformation about which society, for the most part, is unaware.

Political scientists, historians, and philosophers claim that we are witnessing the birth of a new civilization. Unexpectedly, we find ourselves in a totally new reality. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it is mainly unpredictable and the old traditional logic no longer works. We seem to be extremely unprepared for the radically, new state of the world—a global integral world.

Paul Gilding, the author of The Great Disruption, describes the new reality very accurately: “I look at the world as an integrated system, so I don’t see the protests, the debt crisis, inequality, and insane climate as unrelated problems; rather, I see the whole system going through the turmoil of breaking down.”
[78612]

Related Material:
http://www.mutualresponsibility.org/category/publications

Filed under: Israel, Mutual Guarantee, Notices - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Thus, because of the above necessity, the Torah was given specifically to the Israeli nation, solely to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for it was inconceivable that any stranger would take part in it. Because of that, the Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the whole of the human race the world over.

It isn’t just about one of the nations that was suddenly given the Torah. The “Israeli nation” is a collection of people who left ancient Babylon. They connected under the leadership of Abraham who taught them to connect through ties of love above hatred. Of course, they didn’t want that, just like all the other Babylonians, but they accepted Abraham’s method. Thanks to the “spark” that is concealed in them, they understood that it is actually a method of correction and that the egoistic nature, the hatred, was given so that we will unite above it and build a group in which there will be these two discernments, one opposite the other: hatred below and love above. Thus they arrived at “Mt. Sinai,” at the state in which we reveal the upper force.

When they connected, they began to work through the connection according to Abraham’s method and then Isaac’s, and then Jacob’s, which means in “three lines.” In this process they received a growing “hardening of the heart” and in their work they went through the phases of HBD, HGT, NHY, including the exile in Egypt. This means that they felt the difficult internal states and overcame them by rising above their ego and reaching the necessity for adhesion. The ego separated them extremely, and they still tried to hold on, as much as they could, by at least keeping their inclination for connection.

Eventually, the necessary tension among them was created—on one hand, the ego that erupted in the form of the “ten plagues of Egypt” and the inaccessible “Pharaoh” on the inside, and on the other hand, the recognition of the necessity of the connection, which they built above them. They were even ready to go to the desert without any reward, just to have a chance to serve the Creator. This is what they demanded from Pharaoh when Moses gave him the Creator’s message: “Let my people go, so that they shall serve me.”

Then they reached the state in which they could receive the Torah, which means the Light that Reforms. There was enough tension between the ego that was revealed and the pressure aimed at connection. They were given the condition—to become “one man with one heart,” to “love thy friend as thyself,” and they accepted it by saying: “We shall do and we shall hear.” Then the revelation of Light that Reforms began, which means that they received the Torah.

Thus they became a nation. Now they had a collective infrastructure that united them: the Light united them. Without the Light, there is no connection among them, which means that there is no nation. Therefore, Baal HaSulam says that Israel in exile is not a nation but “a bag of nuts.”
[80183]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
Dividing The Spiritual Work
We Must Not Withdraw
Consumers Of The Upper Light

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator, Torah, Unity - No Comments →

Question: My exertion belongs to corporeal life and not to spiritual life. How can I ask the Light to change that?

Answer: Our desires change if we yearn for connection; we reach bestowal, and through bestowal, we reach the revelation of the Creator in order to bring Him contentment since it is He who wants to be revealed to us and not that we want to reveal Him by ourselves out of curiosity. It’s only possible to change something in us when the Light changes us. All the work is done through the Light; all the changes in us are performed from Above according to our request. But in order to reach the Light, to come in contact with it, to pass on our request and our deficiency to it so that it will be accepted, we have to operate through the group. In order to do that, our deficiency must be dressed in the intention to bestow.

We shouldn’t try to change or limit our desires forcefully; nothing will help except a prayer, a demand for the Light that Reforms. We have to put all our heart into this prayer. You won’t be more spiritual if you stop eating, breathing, or enjoying life; you won’t change your attributes by that.

The point is not to change mechanical actions that are performed by the arms or legs and not to use high language, but to change our inner attributes, which only the Light that created them can do. Therefore, we only have to know how to demand these changes! This is possible only if we get together and build a collective desire in the group through which we can turn to the Light with a demand.

The demand that is formed within this collective desire is the one that will be accepted. After all, the Light is in absolute rest, and to the extent that we reach an equivalence of form with It, we summon its action. It depends on the intensity by which we demand it in the group.

This force is abundant, but everything depends on us, the users. The user must include many foreign and strange desires of the friends in the group, which until now weren’t connected by anything. However, they are ready to connect in order to attain the upper one and so their attempts to connect are perceived as a demand from the upper one to connect them.

It turns out that our only request is in connection, and thanks to the connection all our attributes will be corrected. You can’t decide to be a little more generous or more of a saver. You don’t understand which attributes you need. Ask for one thing only—to connect with the friends into one collective desire so that all your attributes will be corrected in this connection. This is the only thing you can ask for and this is the only request that is answered and for which there is a correction.
[80166]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/08/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
How Do You Ask For The Light?
Light For All Those Lying In The Dust
He Will Do What I Couldn’t

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →