Question: What can a person do while reading The Book of Zohar in order to stay in contact with the group throughout the day?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the root of all the mistakes people make throughout their lives and throughout human history. You could write entire novels about it, but humanity already has no time to read them….
[72163]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2012, The Zohar

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Question: What does the ability to “feel the world through everyone” mean?

Answer: If I am included in others, if I feel what they feel and think what they think, then obviously, I possess capabilities several times greater than an average person. I am much broader, I am able to include more within myself. After all, our perception of any phenomenon depends on the number of parameters that we’re capable of grasping, on the resolution of our view.

The number of parameters depends on the quantity of opposing things that are included in me. Due to the contrast between them, I distinguish the individual parts and can build out of them, like out of construction blocks, many options. At the same time, I understand what these constructions are composed of and how they differ from one another.

And if the feelings and reason received from others are absorbed by me, I become the owner of different and opposing properties. Then I perceive the world in a more multifaceted way, and relative to the previous planar perception, this seems like an entry into a new dimension.

Psychologically, this is a completely new perception, a new world. Through this I rise above the limitations of the body, associated with the categories of time, movement, and space since I am included into humanity. I acquire its shared feeling, its acting mind—the data that comes to us from nature.

I receive an opportunity to attain the feeling and the mind inherent in nature, which exist within it as my root. All development in this world proceeds from there. In this development I see that I return to that place, to that root of feeling and mind within nature from which the entire chain of creation evolved: the still, vegetative, animate, and me—a human being who reaches the root and thereby completes the circle of development.

I want to emphasize that it is no accident that nature is pushing us to a state of mutual guarantee so that we will literally lose our individual properties. We don’t really lose them but only rise above them because they are corporeal, pertaining to the animate level.

Everything individual within me relates to caring for the body so that it will live through its allotted time in the best way possible. But development consists of us rising above the concern for the body to a common concern. This common concern endows us with completely different properties, not the bodily ones. Thanks to them, I reveal the program and purpose of creation, the intention of nature in which not a single element develops by chance—everything advances according to a program. And I can attain and understand this program.

And as soon as I direct myself towards an integral vision, connecting with other people, I immediately begin to grasp this integral vision, exchange my “glasses” for round, integral ones. I see the entirety of nature and don’t just receive from it a narrow channel relative to my own body, of whatever carries benefit or harm for me: food, sleep, entertainment, and so on. No, I don’t live by this! I live on a level independent of my body and already look at nature that is above bodies. It’s as if I am no longer inside a body: I judge, check, and control from the universal human mind and feeling. This stage fundamentally differs from the current one.

Right now I am merely an advanced animal, within certain boundaries, and it’s unclear if this advancement is in a good or a bad direction. But due to inclusion into the global mind, I achieve a new dimension. I qualitatively change my perception of the world in which I find myself. It becomes genuine since I no longer view it through a narrow egoistic slit, pulling to me whatever is beneficial and brushing away the harmful; rather, I literally come out through it and live in the world. And there, perception is completely different, not through an egoistic sieve through which I see only whatever is useful or harmful to me, but independently of myself altogether. This is what the new dimension inherent in man is.

And then I really reveal the mind and the feeling that exist there, within the bright state outside of my body, behind the wall with a narrow slit through which I peek. I understand the entire process and purpose of creation.

Our research shows that this is truly so, that this is something elusive and imperceptible to us. But we are already starting to realize that evidently, this level does exist. It can be compared to dark matter: It exists, but we don’t perceive it, even though it comprises 90% of all matter in the Universe.

Similarly, we cannot yet reveal the common feeling and mind that exist in the Universe. However, scientists who study the cosmos talk about the presence of a powerful feeling and mind there, like sounds that we cannot pick up on, hearing only some kind of noise. We cannot reveal these phenomena because they belong to a dimension above us.
[66964]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

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Today we are writing history with our unity. Everything is happening for the first time. Because until now, generations were spiritually descending: from the revelation of the Creator to Adam through Abraham, Moses, etc, until Rabash. This overall process is called the “descent of the generations.” So for the first time in history, we find ourselves completely separated without any preparation. We begin the ascent from point zero.

The previous stage of development is completed. The descent from above downward, the descent of the worlds, Partzufim, and Sefirot, the breaking of the soul of Adam HaRishon—everything has been completed. Baal HaSulam said that we would begin the reverse journey starting in 1995.

Our state does not have examples from the past. There are no analogies to show us the way to act today. In all the past generations, there was a certain degree of illumination; there was perception and a connection with spirituality. But we are completely separated.

But on the other hand, we have a huge support from Above to begin our ascent. The entire system is helping us and relying on us. This is why parts of broken souls, which did not have any connection with the spiritual, started coming closer to this idea over the past several years and started understanding some things. This is because we make our actions correspond to spiritual actions, and thus awaken the Light.

Question: What does our generation need to do?

Answer: Understand the crisis. We are becoming acquainted with it in a spiritual way, asking the question about the meaning of life. But the entire world is experiencing it in a material way: A person is not happy with his life, and this also is a kind of a question about its meaning, but on a different level.

We all begin with this as we see that there is no answer to the crisis neither in the corporeal nor the spiritual plane. In this way, the entire humanity, divided into those directed straight to the Creator (Israel – Yashar Kel), and the nations of the world, must realize itself.

We live in a very special time, and do not understand that the Creator is literally “spoon-feeding” us. He cannot reveal Himself right away because this would destroy the entire work, this would be against Nature, and would disturb the law of balance and similarity of qualities. He will reveal Himself when we raise MAN, an appeal for correction.
[71934]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson #6

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The world is waiting. It doesn’t know yet, but in reality it needs it. This is why you have to get up on your feet as soon as possible and become ready for the role of the guides.

Today it is obvious that the governments are incapable of governing the world. After all, it no longer behaves according to the material laws. This period has ended.

The two worlds have become so close that the spiritual “induction” is already acting upon us from above although it’s not so clear yet. Today humanity has to awaken in the correct way and this is your task.

However, for this purpose you have to unite. I cannot set up a scream for help instead of you. Only when you really start to unite with friends more and more will you find the required tuning. The most important thing here is to glue into one whole so that everything would merge together into one. I will not do this for you since we are talking about the calibration of the common desires that are united as connected vessels.
[71931]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson #6

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What is the purpose of unity in the group and love of friends? We receive more and more obstacles, and we must connect them to the general jigsaw of unity. Each time we are aware that everything comes from Him, “There is none else beside Him,” “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are One.”

When we come to this, we see that we’re given huge help because it acts as part of reality for our benefit. We have the friends, the group, and together we can constantly connect everything that is happening to us to the unity of the Creator. Each one of us supports the others, and together we try to connect our aspirations in order to treat the Creator more objectively, while the general desire is constantly growing and being corrected.

In this case, I won’t be puzzled as to why I need the friends, unity, the group, and love towards the neighbor. Without this, I simply would not be able to solve the problems of connection between the Creator and myself.

This game is wonderful. As Baal HaSulam wrote in Letter 1, The truth is that all the wars in this exile are a truly wonderful sight, and all they bring is good. Elsewhere he gives the example of the ascent to the king’s palace. We constantly experience the sudden shifts and changes in this game, at times feeling the unity for a few minutes, then breaking into pieces and recollecting ourselves into one whole, on and on.

Working with obstacles is the main element of our work. First, we neutralize them, because one cannot sense the unity while sensing the obstacles. I just cancel them, in order to forget everything and connect with my friends. This is the smallest degree, the conception (Ibur).

Then I get obstacles of a different kind; I cannot simply cancel them anymore, I cannot erase them from my perception. Now I need to learn to always remain in unity, in spite of them. Desires of bigger and bigger Aviut (coarseness) arise, which cannot possibly be eliminated, I live with them: On one hand, I feel the obstacle to unity; on the other hand, I overcome it, I rise above it and connect nevertheless. This is called infancy (Yenika).

Finally, I start using the obstacles in order to unite; this is called maturity (Gadlut).

Thus, we always work with obstacles. There is nothing to do without them. They reflect the distance between the Creator and us, and we constantly cover this distance, first by neutralizing the obstacles, then rising above them and, finally, acting in accordance with them.

So the whole process can be broken down into two parts. After the preliminary stage, during which we prepare ourselves, comes a moment when we can unite. This is the first point above the Machsom (the barrier to spirituality): We enter bestowal for the sake of bestowal. In relation to the group, it is said about this: “Anything that you hate do not do to your friend.” This is still passive unity, I’m not yet truly united with the friends, but at least I’m not harming anyone. We might not be able to bestow to each other yet, but this is the way we advance.

And then we will reach reception for the sake of bestowal—the stage of love.

So the whole work is performed with the obstacles. And that’s why the only preparation is to seek the force and the means. When a person faces a problem, he finds out what can be of benefit to him and what to push away, so that it doesn’t get in the way. This is the way we always have to prepare ourselves in terms of obstacles, neutralizing and even using them whenever possible. Thanks to them we advance, and if there is an opportunity to unite while having them—all the better.

When we truly try to start working, we see that without mutuality we cannot make a single step forward. When I face an obstacle, I cannot overcome it on my own; I will forget and run away. Only in unity with others when we create the place in which to connect, we can start using the obstacles for the benefit of this unity. We unite in spite of them, and then we succeed.

And that’s why we shouldn’t treat the obstacles as individual effects of certain individual factors. The solution to any obstacle is in greater unity between people in order to reveal a form of bestowal, and this is what’s called the Creator.
[71642]
From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson #4

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A person in a group should not only change himself in relation to the environment, but he should also teach others how to do it. This is the reason for the breaking. None of us has the strength to resist the egoistic intention, but when a person really realizes the need to change his intention to an altruistic one, he acquires a possibility to receive the strength from his neighbors, his friends. Suddenly this turns into a very simple principle: If you wish to unite with your friends in order to bestow to them, then you can receive the strength to change your intention from them, through this unity.

Essentially, we operate in one desire, in a single line: If I wish to bestow to my neighbor, then I can receive the strength to do it through him. But where does he get this strength? He receives it from the root, which stands behind it. This is why it is written: “I live in my people.” In other words, the Creator, the upper force, the root, which created the intention to bestow, lives in the group. He tells me: “If you treat your neighbor right in order to bestow to him, then you will find Me in your neighbor, in the exact point where your bestowal is directed. Then your intention will change, and you will really be able to realize it.”

It is written in regards to this action: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are One.” This way we begin to see complete reality. Now instead of the corporeal world before me, I see the environment. And I do not care about what is in it. What matters is that on my search for the strength to bestow that I pass through it and attain the root, the Creator who exists within my friends. I want to unite with my friends in order to bestow to them; I find the Creator inside them, who provides the strength for me to connect with them, and then I unite with Him through them.

And then the person begins to work in two lines. On one hand he sees how the Creator impels him to use his neighbor; he sees different cruel thoughts that come to him from within the group about ways to use others, profit at their expense, and receive pleasure from the group. But in response to this direct pleasure, the person restricts his intention, and on the contrary searches for an opportunity to bestow to his friends while remaining in the same line. He wishes to use himself for the good and benefit of his friends and returns to the Creator through them, thus building the ten Sefirot of the Reflected Light.

Now the person has “two sides of the coin.” By comparing them and evaluating the degree to which he can use them, he becomes ready to accept the Creator’s invitation and develop the right attitude towards Him. Two realities open up before him:

• When I directly receive pleasure from the Creator through nature or the environment, if I am ready to continue receiving more and more of it, this kind of existence is perceived as “this world.”
• But if I bestow as much as I can and dedicate myself to my friends and the Creator, then I reveal another, opposite existence in the Reflected Light.

This way the person acquires two worlds.
[71254]
From the Arava Convention 2/23/12, Lesson #1

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Question: If a person gets discouraged in the process, does that mean that he didn’t invest enough effort toward love for the friends?

Answer: If a person is discouraged from his spiritual development, then that usually stems from pride, from his positioning himself above the others. And this is a general disease that is found in each one of us. Pride is the foundation of the desire to receive, which comes to us directly from the Creator. The Creator is unique, thus we also feel ourselves as being unique.

And I am really unique because I am a piece of the general puzzle that is not found in anyone else. Thus, I justifiably feel that I am special. The question is only is how will I use my uniqueness? Will I try to complement the others in any way that is possible?

The spiritual puzzle isn’t the same as a corporeal puzzle where each piece is in contact only with a few of the nearest neighbors, and far away from all the others. In the spiritual puzzle I am connected to everyone. This is astonishing! Imagine to yourself that there are 600,000 pieces of the puzzle and I am connected to each one of them. Also each one of them is connected to all the other pieces. This is not a simple connection, but at each level, all of our Keterim (crowns) are connected to each other, at all the levels of Bina (wisdom) they are connected to each other and so on.

Thus between us there is a tight connection of bestowal that we still need to discover. At the end of correction, thanks to our sensation and understanding of this complicated connection, it will become revealed in “620” times greater intensity: instead of Nefesh de Nefesh, NRNHY de NRNHY.

Imagine that there was this simple system of 600,000 pieces that was connected in a series, one after the other, like a herd of sheep. And suddenly they connect in all kinds of ties, complementing and filling each other in all situations and attributes.
[71599]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/12, Shamati #35

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Question: In the convention in the desert we wanted to receive such energy that would enable us to reach connection. I think we actually succeeded?

Answer: I think that the convention was special since we’ve achieved a certain level of adhesion, and the Reshimo (reminiscence) from it remain in us, in the whole group and in each of us individually.

What takes place in spirituality doesn’t disappear, and this Reshimo symbolizes the spiritual vessel among us. Everyone feels it to some extent, more or less, but this vessel already exists. It has already been born! But in such a way that we have to make some more efforts in order to clarify it, to reveal it, and to feel it more and more clearly.

We should relate to this general vessel as to the Shechina (Divinity), to the place for the revelation of the Creator. The stronger we connect, the more contentment we bring Him. Thanks to our connection, the connection of our desires, we can bring the Creator contentment and so we begin to feel the Light in our desires, and accordingly we will feel our spiritual ascent and the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.

We should be more sensitive, pay more attention, and treat more subtly the general feeling that was born inside us.

None of us should stop for even a moment in one place. It all depends on changing the intentions and not on the number of actions. This means that it depends on our attitude toward the connection and unity we’ve achieved.

We have achieved unity and have created a vessel, and now the question is: “What do we do with it now?” This is the most important thing: a qualitative change in our work with it. This is the clarification, the search for a permanent solution.

You will have to think about that yourself. If I tell you about it now, I will be stealing your exertion. It is like bringing a child a box with a Lego toy and then pushing him away and starting to put the Lego blocks together myself.
[71517]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/12, Shamati #35

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We must not be ashamed of weakness, thinking that weakness can cool our desire for advancement. There is a “gate of tears” on every step, which only opens after the realization of one’s own helplessness. And how could we even have the ability? After all, advancement happens through additional power of bestowal. We do not have it; we must acquire it.

This is why I am right to discover that I have no ability to advance. And I am also right to discover that I have no desire to advance. What happens next? Just one thing: the right appeal to the Creator through the group for Him to correct the connection between us is made. And then, each time this is done, a new stage of our unity becomes revealed.

A person is unable to do anything on his own. No matter how strong he sometimes thinks he is, no matter how certain he is that he will attain everything; he will fail at everything. It is written: “Do not believe in yourself until the day you die.”

This is why having a group, which constantly awakens the person, is a necessary condition. And for this reason, when a person does not know how to advance and becomes desperate the person’s pride is usually to blame, thus he is unable to receive support from the group.

There is nothing to be ashamed of here; the person just needs to work with it. But essentially, this is the only disturbance. There is an enormous strength in the group. Like in the tale about Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma. He was a great Kabbalist in his generation, and his students were very simple people. But he received a lot of strength from them since he knew how to work with them. And he was a great person! And this tale speaks of small people.

This is why when a person says that the Creator is not helping him, it is his pride speaking. How does it manifest? It is in his inability to cancel himself before the environment to receive the value and greatness of spirituality from it, and to then perceive the power of the Creator who helps him and the realization of the greatness of spirituality.

This is why there is no reason to cry over disturbances. It is written: “My soul shall weep in secret” in concealment, in darkness. Crying is good, but everything depends on what you are crying about: Do not cry over not having help; there is help. You need to cry over the fact that your pride is not letting you lower yourself a little before your friends, the Creator, and receive help from them.
[71614]
From the Arava  Convention 2/24/12, Lesson #4

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It says: “There are many thoughts in a man’s heart, but the salvation of the Creator comes in the blink of any eye.” So all our claims are justified, but they should all come down to one claim: We need to reveal the Creator; otherwise, we have no chance to understand, feel, advance, or achieve success. This means that we cannot remain the way we are, not understanding anything and not reaching anything, and we cannot come out of this state.

This desperate, hopeless state is the best; it is exactly the way things should be. It is the revelation of the vessel that really needs treatment. But it has to be revealed as a result of clarifying the problems, the intentions, the “there is none else besides Him” from the start, that everything that I do is in order to reveal the Creator. What do I need it for? Because this is the goal of creation and I bring Him contentment by that.

The revelation of the Creator can only be in our collective vessel, in a collective desire. We build this collective desire from the points in the heart, which we connect when we rise above ourselves. Except for the points in the heart, everything else is our beastliness, and we lower it downwards. Thus we clarify the total structure of our general soul. That’s the way it should be.

The revelation of the Creator takes place unintentionally, which means in great confusion, and it is good. We should only hold on to the thought, to the intention, to the search, and add it to the joy of “what kind of work we, of all people, were given.” You may be dreaming of another place, of sitting at home in front of the TV, in an armchair, watching some series, or something like that. But just think of how special you are of all the billion people in the world, in order to help them, in order to discover Him, in order to serve the friends and in that to find peace and joy.

Now I’ve probably confused you even more….
[71265]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #2, 2/23/12

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