Question: These days before the Arava convention, the friends are experiencing great pressure and fear of the unknown. How can I help them during the lesson to focus this pressure in the right direction?

Answer: A person should reach such a level of fear and pressure like at the foot of Mt. Sinai: “You either connect or here will be your burial place.” It is because a person should bury his desire to receive, not identify with it, and rise above it. This is called the receiving of the Torah. He asks the Light to perform an action that is the opposite of burial. But he must see that this is what he wants to do with his ego in order to connect with others and to reach bestowal.

Of course, at the same time he must feel tension and pressure. There isn’t a more tense situation in all our lives than this passage. It is birth and birth is a most natural process, but at the same time, it is the most dangerous and dramatic event in a person’s life.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/12, The Zohar

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The Constitution of the Convention in Arava: Our brother, the physical and spiritual conditions that you must observe are before you. Prior to joining us, check carefully: Are you ready, do you realize and feel the importance of the stage to which you connect; do you understand that the Torah, the Reforming Light, will change you so that you love and serve everyone? Do you want this? You should be clear that you come here not to receive, but to receive the force of bestowal.

Even while just reading the story of the Torah about the exodus from Egypt, we see that it involved people of all types: elderly, young, children, men, and women. They differed, some with a great desire to receive, others with a great desire aimed at bestowal. All of them, including Moses and Aaron, were still in the receiving desire. However, the Creator was revealed to them; we will discover what revelations they were.

This is why we open the convention in the Arava to all the men. We do not check whether they participate in all our activities. A person may arrive at the convention but he will not be able to take part in it fully if he does not study during the morning lessons, if he does not pay Maaser (tithe), if he does not participate in the meeting of friends, in their connection, and if he is not involved in dissemination. These are the four conditions according to which a person is my student and a member of Bnei Baruch, a friend for everyone.

First of all, we are talking about physical actions that are followed by deeper levels to the extent a person invests one’s heart and really wants to exert in order to reach the goal. So, there are different gradations.

However, it is never too late to start. We see that this month, more and more people study during the daily Kabbalah lessons and many began to pay maaser because they understood that these funds are dedicated to the dissemination of the method of Kabbalah in the world. In essence, this is our correction. We exist for this purpose: to perform the role of Israel for the world, to receive the method from above and pass it down.

Thus, understanding and awakening are growing in our community; finally, people take the straight path. However, we do not need to be great, we just have to realize the opportunities that we are given. This is what is important.

Many kinds of desires came out of Egypt: children, old, young, men, women, slaves, goats, and sheep. There were all levels: still, vegetative, animate and speaking, but each desire wanted to participate in this fully. A child who is completely ready to take part is also included.

Therefore, we open the convention for everyone. A man can say: “I have been watching the lessons on TV for a long time, and I will try to do the rest.” And he too can come. We turn no one away. In spirituality, only a person can check his heart before the Creator, no one can interfere in this.

However, we ask—and it is very important—that people at least try to be with us during the days of the convention with their whole heart and soul. That is why we put material terms and conditions for the inner work that must be followed.

People who enter the grounds of the Arava convention are obliged to observe the Constitution. They are given all the conditions for participation. If they do not take part in the shared effort, they harm everyone, and this will cause them a lot of damage.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Question: If they expel a person from the convention for whom I signed the guarantee, does that mean that they expel me together with him?

Answer: Of course.

I will say only one thing: If we all try, no one will breach the bylaws of the convention. If the force of the group dwells among us, if we really unite with each other, no one will be able to remain on the side. After all, we create the spiritual force that attracts a person like a magnet, and he is not able to think contrary to it.

We are all guarantors for each other, and we generate this general force. A serious approach is required here: silence, not one unnecessary word spoken. And this will maintain us in unity.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/2012, Constitution of the Arava Convention

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Question: How do we reach the correct plea during the congress in the desert? Various desires are constantly changing inside of me and I am afraid that I won’t be able to arrive at the correct thought.

Answer: A person arrives at Mount Sinai in such a state when inside of him there are Moses, Aaron, the Cohens (priests), Levites, and the nation of Israel—600,000 men, it would seem such a force. Even though it exists, it is not yet clear for a person that it exists inside. Besides this, there are women and children inside of him. There are even Egyptians, completely unrelated to the nation of Israel (Yashar El – straight to the Creator), who fled along with them.

Even the mixed multitude (Erev Rav) is intermingled within them, meaning that there are impure forces (Klipot) concealed inside, which cannot be corrected now, but will only be corrected later after all of the corrections. And all of them are standing and facing Mount Sinai before receiving the Torah.

Who must receive the Torah? Everyone receives it to the extent that he needs it, according to these levels. And so, there are strong men under the leadership of Moses who is standing before everyone (the point in the heart), and there are desires that are simply connected to them. While there are also ones who, as soon as possible, even as soon as tomorrow, will cast the golden calf, and will act against the Creator, against Moses, and in general will want to return to the Pharaoh, to make such a revolution.

Such different desires coexist inside a person, yet he still reaches Mount Sinai. He cannot arrive there otherwise! He carries Egypt inside of himself, even Babylon, the whole of the path he has traveled, all of this is inside a person. While now he reaches the so-called resistance before Mount Sinai, bringing the entire burden with him, as yet, he has never corrected anything in himself! He only occasionally felt these qualities inside of himself, one against the other: Babylon and the land of Canaan, and bad and good deeds.

He was imprisoned, confined to a pit by the Pharaoh, and he was also the young Moses who sat on Pharaoh’s knee and grew up in his home. He escaped from Pharaoh’s palace, slew the Egyptian, and suffered from his nation Israel. Everything that is written in the Torah is contained inside of this person who is now standing in the desert of Arava: All of this happened to him.

Therefore, it is important for us to prepare ourselves for unity as best as possible. If you want to be in the mutual guarantee, then you will receive the Reforming Light. You may not receive the correction yet. The giving of the Torah is only the beginning. You are now given the methodology of correction, and from here, you begin to realize the corrections according to this methodology.

This is the receiving of an instruction book that explains how to correct yourself! This is precisely what we should be ready for. There is no need for something more. I must know that I am going to receive the force for such a correct connection with the group, inside of which I will reveal the Creator, the spiritual world, the higher system, the higher dimension.

It is not demanded of us to be righteous people and real friends, feeling love for each other already. I only need to be ready for it, to have the willingness to do so, the need for me to make this calculation and cry from the bottom of the heart that I want to change. That’s all.

I have desires of all levels inside of me, starting from Moses and ending with the mixed multitude; all of them are with me. And the difference between Babylon and the land of Canaan, Egypt and the Mount Sinai is only in the clarifications. All of this is the same desire, only ever more clarifying itself, and that is why, instead of Babylon, it starts to be called the land of Canaan, instead of the land of Canaan, it starts to be called Egypt, instead of Egypt, the Red Sea, Mount Sinai, and so forth.

But all of this is the same desire, just passing through different states bearing such names.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/12, Writings of Rabash

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Rabbi Elimelech from Lizhensk, “A Luminary and the Sun”: The main thing is to unite with each friend in love, serve the Creator with the single heart, to give a hand together, to extend connection among us and solder with each other’s hearts to become one whole and serve the Creator wholeheartedly.

In general, all our work is in one action: to unite as one man with one heart, to solder with each other’s hearts to become one whole and serve the Creator wholeheartedly. This is how we correct the breakage created specifically for us in order to reveal the degree of our separation and to build a bridge of love over it.

It’s in this manner of working with the help of an obstacle given from Above, the height of a bridge extending over the abyss of our egoism, that we build our common spiritual Partzuf and reveal the eternal reality in which we are to live. Thus, we’ll be getting even more blows of separation on the way and will be building a connection of love in mutual guarantee, unity, and complement like a perfectly tuned mechanism of an integral system. Each time we have to aspire toward perfection. Malfunctions and new details that need to be added to our system to become perfect will be revealed to us. And we’ll be happy to find and fix these details because corrections lead us toward true perfection.

We have to be happy with the evil being revealed. I am happy and rejoice in these apparent and appearing impairments, writes Baal HaSulam in the Igrot (Letters) 5, P. 11. He continues: I do indeed regret and complain about the impairments that are still covered, and are destined to be uncovered, for a covered corruption is in no hope…. Thus it’s very important for the flaws to be revealed. And they have to be accepted with joy. When a person is connected to a group in the right way, he accepts all the obstacles, problems, and difficulties with joy because he understands that by overcoming them and building a proper connection above them, knowledge, wisdom, and love will become revealed above evil. To the extent of an evil abyss’s depth, he climbs a spiritual height and perceives the Creator’s eternal world.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Rabash, Shlavey Hasulam (Steps of the Ladder), “The Need for the Love of Friends:” There is a special power in the adhesion of friends. Since views and thoughts pass from one to the other through the adhesion between them, each is mingled with the power of the other, and by that each person in the group has the power of the entire group. For this reason, although each person is an individual, he contains the power of the entire group.

When children are together they learn good things from each other. Actually they sometimes “infect” one another with bad things, and in general, if a person is ill he infects others. Can this be happening in the group too? What do I need this for? Isn’t it better to stay at home?

There are those among us who think that it is better for kids to stay at home, and not be with children their own age, although this is absolutely contrary to our approach. Of course they receive both good things and bad things from the environment. There is no doubt about that, but a person can’t grow without the two things.

Therefore there is a special power in the adhesion of friends, if it isn’t a society of criminals or a gathering of jokers, of course. It’s said that dispersing the evil is good for them and good for the world. But we’re talking about those who want to reach adhesion with the Creator. In such a case, adhesion, the connection among them is only for their own good. In the mutual connection among us we want to discover the upper force, the force of bestowal and love. If we discover it among us, according to the law of equivalence of form, we will discover its root, the Creator.

The views and the thoughts pass from one to the other, if we are on a certain level of adhesion, in connection. Therefore each one is mingled in the power of the other, and that is the main thing. I need the power of the friends. Alone, no one has enough powers to attain spirituality. Whoever sits by himself and doesn’t connect with others has a problem. It could be that he hears talk about unity, but he doesn’t act and doesn’t carry it out. Many hear, but they don’t actually listen, they don’t connect to the action. I understand that it’s necessary, that there is no other choice, but something inside stops me. I don’t know what to do. I make “Herculean efforts,” come very close and retreat again. Everyone has this strong internal psychological barrier. No one can approach others easily.

The external ease doesn’t reflect what is happening inside at all. A person who finds it easy to hug the friends will soon discover that it’s actually very difficult. There are people who are very easy going, they connect, and converse with others easily. But in fact they can’t even imagine what an internal connection is.

Therefore, we should understand that it’s about working on internal unity. Even if it’s very hard, it’s thanks to this that a person begins to receive spiritual powers from all the friends. Rabash says, each one is mingled in the power of the other and by that each person in the group has the power of the entire group. When I am incorporated in the group I acquire its power. If I had the true power of the group now, even one gram from each one, it would be my net profit.

Therefore, although each person is an individual, he contains the power of the entire group in which he is incorporated. Everyone becomes equal to the group in his powers. Then we connect again and not just to connect or multiply our powers, but we actually raise them in the power we have attained, for example, one thousand in the power of one thousand. Thus it isn’t just power but the power of a “nuclear explosion.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Everything in reality, good and bad, and even the most harmful in the world, has a right to exist and should not be eradicated from the world and destroyed. We must only mend and reform it because any observation of the work of Creation is enough to teach us about the greatness and perfection of its Operator and Creator.

Gradually, along the states of its development, humanity begins to understand this. Before we wanted to correct the world and we thought that we understood something in it and that we could make it better. Now, we are not so sure of ourselves any more, and we are even beginning to realize that it is impossible to play with nature.

It needs to be understood that nature is perfect. This system has descended from above, and if we want to feel good in it, then we have to imagine ourselves being inside nature, and not higher than it. We are only a small, integral part of it, sensitive and weak, thanks to our extra-sensitivity. That is why it is worthwhile to study nature to discover how to reach balance with it in the most correct way.

The most important thing is to understand that we are located in a perfect, eternal, and corrected world! But if we see it as something else, then this is only because we are looking through uncorrected qualities, as it is said: “Everyone judges by his own flaws.”

Only this correct view of the world can build corrected relationships in us towards the environment and ourselves and will allow us to live well and confidently, with hope for a good future.

We had to arrive at this conclusion through the price of suffering for thousands of years, and getting blow after blow until we finally grew smarter and saw that it is so.

Today, it is finally becoming clear to man, what the Kabbalists were writing about three to four thousand years ago.
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From the  part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/10, “The Peace”

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Question: In the last convention in Israel I felt an unprecedented sense of connection. But afterward, for a week I felt such a descent, which, too, I had never felt before. Now I am afraid of conventions. What can I do?

Answer: It is very good. It is excellent. We should really be afraid. We also see that before the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt.

Just imagine that you are being thrown out of the place you are used to, and that you escape in the middle of the night, not knowing where to. Pharaoh’s cavalry is chasing you. You are confused, you jump into the Red Sea, and suddenly a miracle takes place. Actually it isn’t so delightful. Then the people praise the Creator: “The horse and rider drowned at sea.” But we should understand that a person goes through very extreme states that resemble birth; he feels great pressure like an embryo during labor pains.

Then after the journey in the desert almost a thousand laws are “imposed” on you: what you should do and what you must not do, and what punishments you will receive if you don’t follow these laws. In other words, you get the plan of your future correction, even before you are at the foot of Mt. Sinai: “This is what is expected, whether you want to or not. It makes no difference. Take it and start doing it.”

Only now do you discover what the work of the Creator is. Up until now you thought that you are a hero among zeros and now you see a list that reaches the sky before you. In every line it says: “if you don’t perform—you will get problems, catastrophes, death….”

Furthermore, you are also told: “On the whole, if you don’t connect—this will be your burial place.”

Then the point of Moses gladly comes out of every heart, the point that pulls us toward the Creator. We connect these points and discover to some extent the connection with the upper force. It is done gradually: At first only the point of Moses discovers Him, while the other points—the sages, the elderly, the priests, the Levites, Israel, the women, the slaves and the children are standing at the foot of the mountain. They say, “We shall do and we shall hear.” In other words, all our desires that are ready to surrender receive the force.

It is happening today, and the next day we immediately build the golden calf.

It is important that we understand: It is all within our reach. We escape the ego, and we really need to feel this escape. You come to the convention, fully ready, fearing that you might not fulfill the mission and reach the desired goal. You are afraid of being restricted and obliged, just like the escape from Egypt.

On the other hand, you feel obliged to all the friends. You look at them and you desperately look for our collective point of connection.

Eventually, we should bring all our powers to one moment. But for that moment we should be taut during the whole convention, like a taut string. We should be connected in time, movement, and place, in the connection among us. It is said: “Israel the Torah and the Creator are one.” This is like the situation of the great priest in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur….We should reach that one single unique moment and then it will happen.

Then the path will continue, but it will be with the connection to the Reforming Light.

These are the conditions: You are actually running away; it isn’t in your power to go back to your previous life; you must achieve the desired goal; and at the same time you must pull together all your powers for that single moment. This aims you very sharply at the target. Let’s see how all this will happen.

In The Book of Zohar, (Nasso [Take] Items 98-99) it says: “…and they shall gather at the foot of the mountain. At the foot of the mountain they were told: ‘If you receive the Torah, good, and if not, there shall be your burial place.'”

This means that we with our egoistic desire will see the beastly life as “wonderful.” We will feel that we are in this “beastly burial,” and some won’t even feel that. Then instead of internal mental, goal-oriented, human disturbances, we should expect beastly problems from which the whole world suffers.

Therefore, we must prepare for the convention very seriously. If we’ve taken it upon ourselves, we mustn’t withdraw. It is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is not to be afraid.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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When a person comes to Kabbalah he does not understand why he needs humanity. Kabbalah tells us that there are forces that operate above our world that depict this world in our perception. This is why we want to fly away somewhere into the unknown, to the Creator, His spiritual system.

Accordingly, man also perceives the study materials personally, on his account, without feeling the urge to unite with others. This is the initial, very limited perception with which we, being egoists, all begin our journey.

Only after several years, as the result of the influence of the surrounding Light, I understand that I really must unite with my friends and reveal the Light in their inner interconnection. But when you think about yourself, the Light has an opposite affect: It shows me how mistaken I am, and then I see that I need to unite with the group. I will find the upper World there, in the depth of it.

This is a very big revolution in consciousness. Man begins to understand that the spiritual world actually exists; it exists in the connection between people, a place with completely anti-egoistic coordinates.

Then a problem arises: How do you prove this to yourself, how do you bring yourself closer to having a proper attitude. This must become so important that everything else will appear extraneous. From now on I focus only on the group, on uniting with it. It is my only aim and nothing else because I depend on it. This is the second stage.

And then the third stage appears, an even more complicated one, when you figure out that you also need to do mass dissemination. “Since when? We are going towards the Creator, after all. At first I wanted to get there alone, then I understood that I need a group. But since when do I need to take care of everyone else? A billion Chinese, a billion Hindus, half a billion South Americans, half a billion Europeans, Africans, what do they have to do with this? Who cares for whom and why do I have to do it?”

Here we explain to the person that he, the group, and all of humanity must unite in order to become like the Creator. Another obstacle he disagrees with: “My friends and the world groups have one goal, but the others do not.”

And this also is true. After all it is written: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” I am “Israel.” The group is the “Torah,” the reforming Light. And together we go to the Creator.

On the other hand, the remaining 99% are below and they aspire towards their corporeal pleasures. So why do we need them?

In response to this, again and again, we need to explain that we are a transitional link and that we must become “a kingdom of priests”; in other words, we must educate all of mankind about mutual guarantee and integral unity. Then we will connect the masses to us, like AHP to Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), and we will unite all the people with the Creator into the ten Sefirot.

It is very difficult to explain this to friends in the group. In the group is our field of our action, the source of everything, and where we reveal everything. The circle manifest there: AHP, us, the Creator—all inside, everything ends in the group in a single vessel, woven from the unity of the points in our hearts. A part of it comes from below and a part comes from above.

Our groups do not understand and do not wish to switch to being the messengers of mutual guarantee to the masses. It is very difficult for a person to allow himself something so opposite, to see how different things connect into one. But gradually everything will work out.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/12, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Right now, before the congress in the desert and the beginning of a worldwide dissemination effort, what should our plea to the Creator be in order for it to be heard?

Answer: At the congress in the desert, we must feel the first degree of our connection and within it reveal our aspiration to bestow to the Creator so that this bestowal to Him would clarify the fact that only through our connection can we have a greater influence on Him.

Today we view the necessity to connect with friends and the opportunity to obtain a connection with the Creator through our connection with friends as two separate things. We perceive the connection with friends as book-learned, as though it’s a teaching for good children, where as connecting with the Creator is something everyone will agree too.

However, we don’t connect the two terms: One is a vessel and the other is the Light that fills it. The connection between us is the vessel and the Light that’s revealed in it is the Creator. Let’s hope that during this congress we’ll realize how inseparable these two conditions are.

This realization will leave an imprint that will allow us to advance correctly. After all, our work is left unfinished. We apply efforts, but each time they’re limited to a half or a quarter of the whole. But applying efforts to the full measure, even in relation to one gram, is greater than applying a partial effort measurable in kilograms or even tons.

After all, if there is not the full 10 Sefirot then you work and you scream, but it’s all in the wrong place! It is like it is said about the rainfall that goes to waste because it rains in an uninhabited desert. What difference does rain make if it falls into the sand? If at least 10% of that rain fell on your field, it would provide your livelihood!

The same thing happens with us. We cry out to the Creator, but we don’t do it through our connection, therefore these cries go unheard. We would already be in the world of Infinity with all of our work and screaming; however, we don’t cry out in the right way. We must fine-tune ourselves and then our cries will be heard.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12,  “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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