Question: How can we explain to the friends that it is impossible to attain correction by oneself and that we need a group?

Answer: This is what our sources say. I only have a shattered vessel, so what should I do with it? I have to absorb my friends’ desires in order to draw the Light that Reforms.

Together with the friends we raise a common prayer, and as a result we receive the force of correction. I will not be able to receive this force if I am alone. At least ten people are required in order to attain it. Only then will we begin to connect to each other and to build the common vessel between us.

It seems that we are together now, but actually it isn’t so. So how can we unite? We activate the force of the mutual prayer for that. No one operates on his own. The common desire to correct ourselves connects us, and in it we want to reveal the special force that will dwell between us, to reveal the Light, the Creator. When He is revealed, we each will disappear as an isolated entity, and one desire filled with one Light will arise.

Can I reveal the force of bestowal by myself? What or to whom will I be able to bestow? I must simply have someone else there too. My point in the heart (•) is my first urge for correction, in other words, for connecting with someone. This means that I have to absorb his desire. Then I have two desires: a desire to draw away from egoism and a desire to draw closer to bestowal.

So I have to receive my friend’s spiritual desire and to attach it to mine. Without this I will not really want to bestow. This is the only way I can raise MAN, a request for correction.

“The minimal multitude is two,” but actually, two is not enough. The more friends there are around me, the more chances I will have to be impressed, to attach their powers to me, and to demand correction. By that, I demand namely the connection with them. I supply the “territory” in which the connection will be realized, my wishes about what needs to take place here, and our common force. In short, I have to prepare the most possibly correct “mold.” It can be done only together. All our work takes place in the group.

Besides, women also support this group, and human society surrounds it on the outside. These factors also have either a positive or negative effect in pushing us towards connection.

Question: What does one feel when the Light fills our desire?

Answer: One of the points is me. All of us together is we. The yellow part in the drawing symbolizes our connection, and the red color symbolizes the upper force, the Creator. We have to unite Israel, the Torah, and the Creator into one, and this has to be revealed in our feeling. The Creator is the upper force, the source. The Torah is unity, the vessel. And we are the parts moving toward unity.

Let’s hope we will succeed in this.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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To develop our spiritual sensation, we unite and connect. We have to attain the kind of unity that is called, “mutual guarantee.” Essentially, this is the vessel for feeling the spiritual, eternal and perfect life that is outside the body.

For that we have to do what Kabbalists, who are people that have already gone through this path, advise us to. They are our teachers and are therefore called “Rabbanim” in Hebrew, which is the plural of Rav, meaning a “great” person before whom I bend down my head like before an experienced instructor that is worthwhile to listen to.

He accomplished the transition from the sensation of just this world to the sensation of the upper world, and moreover, he went through many states and levels there. Therefore he can help me with advice throughout the whole path, until I complete my development in the true world. By virtue of Kabbalists, I reveal the gates to the world, enter it, and advance.

Kabbalits advise us to unite, and in that unity, by making great efforts in spite of our egoism and natural disregard, to look precisely for the feelings we disregard. I reject the neighbor and hate him, I am unable to even think about how we can be truly close to one another. But Kabbalists tell us that we have to be as one man with one heart, uniting in the mind and feeling to such an extent that no boundaries will remain between us in thoughts or desires.

This is all painfully opposite to our nature. We are being offered such conditions that we would be willing to trade them for anything else. We are nauseous from this and are thrown away from it at every moment in different directions—anything but unity. We just want to cover ourselves up with half-hearted advice and actions, lie to ourselves and others that everything is normal…But we can’t.

What can help us here are demands imposed by physical unity: We act all together and no one can evade his responsibilities. That is exactly why we are in this world of actions that are not defined by intention. In spirituality, the thought is the action, but in corporeality they are divided: I can think about one thing, desire another, and do a third.

This is the wonderful quality of our world: Here we can start the path to spirituality without even yet thinking about it for real or wishing for it sincerely. We are able to make actions that pride, passion, ambition, envy, and shame incite us to do—everything that is inherent to our egoism.

Therefore, being in the group, at the end of the day, I must carry out what it obligates each of its members to do. After that, by virtue of that, I advance involuntarily. I must only push myself into the group, take on obligations, and sign a “unified agreement” with the friends that under any circumstances, they have obliged me and I have obliged them to need one another. That is how we advance, using our egoism.

Thus, in our world we have the opportunity to start the spiritual path from zero, from pure ambition. We activate its negative qualities, connecting with one another by the unity of mutual help, and use all the negative qualities just to observe this unity. In this case, you obligate the friend and he obligates you, and you both advance, having no other choice.

This is exactly what we saw when we went to the convention in the Arava desert. We found ourselves together without external influences and discovered that the group can obligate every person to rise and come closer to the sensation outside the body, where a person begins to discern details hitherto unknown, a different existence “outside of the skin of his body.” It turns out that “outside of us” is really possible. That is how we advance.

Today we can unite with one another in this world by means of the right egoistic actions. However, now every one of us has to “jump out of his skin,” rise above his personal egoism, above his entire being, and unite with friends into a single whole. Stated differently, every person must rise above himself and go from the material group to the spiritual one.

Then the common vessel will form, the common soul, the holy Shechina where we will reveal the Creator on the first spiritual level. We made a big step toward this and acquired a common sensation, and now we must strengthen ourselves.

Thus, we build the vessel of mutual guarantee: We pledge not to forget one another and all together we take care of our spiritual life. After all, this is the purpose of our current existence in the material world, the goal of all people and this whole reality. Only by virtue of mutual care will we rise to the level of spiritual unity.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 11/20/11, “Mutual Guarantee”

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Question (from the Hebrew blog): The advice is to expand dissemination and to educate the public. We should not rest on our laurels just because people come to the mutual guarantee centers. We should organize various study groups in schools for a nominal fee and through them introduce the values of mutual guarantee.

I have no doubt that parents will be happy to send their children to these study groups. It is desirable to do this namely in secondary schools because teen’s behavior begins to deteriorate at this age. Of course, children should be stimulated by prizes or awards. I would be glad to hear your opinion.

Answer: This needs to be worked out and carefully implemented so that people gradually realize the need to unite in order to solve all our problems.

Question: Do I have to hate my ego all the time? It’s all I have. If I go after the things I want, I am nothing.

Answer: If you use it correctly in order to rise above it, you should appreciate and love it as help against you.

Question: What is the “stony heart”?

Answer: Our desires that we can never correct ourselves. They are corrected by the general Light of all the souls at the end of correction.
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Question: Could you briefly formulate the purpose of the convention at the Arava desert?

Answer: We have one goal: having united, to reveal adhesion with the Creator. We have to reveal a close interconnection, a strong bond in reaching the goal, in ascending above our corporeal desires, above everything that appears to us in this world.

In our mind and feelings, we have to rise above the reality that we feel here and unite all our hearts and thoughts. Our goal is not to simply assemble the common “We” out of individual “I’s,” but to rise to an even higher degree and become one whole. It’s similar to drops of water merging into one big drop without leaving any boundaries between them.

The influence of the upper Light helps us achieve this state. We can’t imagine this state, but the Light can lead us to it. This ascent to the first degree of unity will be the crossing of the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality). Further, we’ll find ourselves on steps of the spiritual ladder, and we’ll be able to climb to the very end of correction.

In addition to it, in our first spiritual state we want to reveal forces to correct the world and to help it on its path toward the purpose of creation where we all unite in order to merge with the Creator. We want the world to reach it peacefully rather than through sufferings, which also can push us forward.

Thus, all our work is in finding the spiritual world, that is, in degrees of merging with the Creator. Then, we will help humanity to reach a predestined state of perfection in a good way where we’ll all give pleasure to the Creator together.

Question: What kind of thought should each friend arrive at the convention with?

Answer: I want to lose my personal self-awareness. I want to rise in my mind and thoughts above the body and unite with the mind and feelings of all the friends who will form the collective head and the collective heart, as it is said: “Like one man with one heart.”

We should imagine this picture at the time of the convention by trying to live it, to live inside of it. I’m no longer an owner of myself; I “sold” myself to the group; I’m loyal to it, and it takes care of me like the upper Partzuf takes care of the lower one, like the whole takes care of the individual, like the mind takes care of the body. From now on, I’m driven and governed by the group.
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From the 4th pat of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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We are standing at the threshold of a very important event: We will ascend and even leap up. We have all the conditions for that.

It truly is a unique state we have been given from Above. It’s not an event that is planned, organized, and thought out for a long time, and then it finally arrives. Rather, there is an “awakening from below” (Itaruta de-Letata) and an “awakening from Above” (Itaruta de-Leila), when an opportunity comes from Above, and the main thing is not to miss that moment!

And that is why we did everything so unexpectedly, and it’s good that our friends from around the world understand that. I truly feel it is a mercy from Above shown to us so that both at the December convention and afterwards, we are prepared to fulfill what has been placed upon us in order to correct the world. That is why such opportunities open to us.

We are very excited. You asked how to maintain the excitement, but it will come from all the friends that will join us here; we will all be excited. And you will be even more excited when you begin to catch these drops of mercy trickling from Above.

Out of this entire state, we have to receive a great deal of strength that will make us ready for the correction of the world. This coming year is truly an extremely decisive and fateful year. Let’s hope that together we’ll actually lead the world out of the deep precipice of the ego in which it finds itself and elevate it to the degree of Bina. Then, we will merit to ascend as well.

Among us are friends who have been with us for many years, and they still maintain that same hope. It’s because they await the collective awakening, the collective realization. It is like a couple with no children, who all the time maintain hope that they will finally have children. So now we are reaching a situation when we will finally be able to carry it out!

I am certain this convention will turn out nicely and well, and we will feel great excitement. And most important is to carry this on to the big convention in December and to reach a great force of connecting there. Connecting is up to us, and what will fill the connection is up to the Creator.

So, let’s hope that we will reach such a big force, such a pressure of connection between us, that the upper Light will truly be revealed to us, at least in its first measure. And then we’ll be able to illuminate the entire world, which is called “to become a light upon the nations,” to all those who still don’t understand or feel much. And then this will draw them near, will attract them. Accordingly, we’ll carry out the order of the Creator and bond with Him. To Life!
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From the talk during the meal before the Convention at the Arava Desert, 11/18/2011

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)“ (abridged version): Arvut is like two people in a boat, when one of them begins to drill a hole in the boat they will both drown together, that prevents the observers of the Torah from even beginning to fully keep the measure of “Love thy friend as thyself,” which is the ladder for reaching Dvekut (adhesion) with Him, and so they shall both drown together!

Mutual guarantee is more than being responsible for others. The spiritual vessel is a common vessel. With the Surrounding Light, the Light that Reforms, the Creator awakens a certain amount of Reshimot (informational genes) and brings them to the first level of unity called “this world.” This is how the Reshimot see their reality: When they begin to draw closer, they appear to each other in the form of the friends.

Eventually we have to unite, and so we have to care for everyone. We don’t sign any strict contracts made by lawyers, and we don’t keep anyone by force, but we try to support every one by thoughts and desires.

As far as the spiritual vessel is concerned, we have to understand that it is common. It doesn’t belong to anyone, but is between us, in our unity. It isn’t strings stretched between us, although this is how we depict our mutual connection. Actually there is no separate you and me in spirituality. We are all like drops of water that merge into one big drop, and the previous state disappears without any trace.

From this example we can understand how different two adjacent levels are in their intensity. If a hundred friends on the first level, including me, unite into one drop, then on the next level the drop becomes me. The same thing happens to everyone: Each of us grows one hundred times bigger compared to the previous level. We begin to connect again in mutual guarantee, and then on the next level we grow ten thousand times bigger compared to the first level, and so on until we make up the whole Partzuf of Zeir Anpin.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee)” (abridged version): If Israel keeps the Arvut, they can bring contentment to their Maker.

Mutual guarantee is the vessel of general bestowal. We connect in this vessel, forming, shaping it. It doesn’t exist by itself, and it waits for us to connect to it. This means that our desires aimed at bestowal upon others connect and thus form the vessel called mutual guarantee. Only from this mutual bestowal can we reach bestowal upon the Creator.

We discover that in our world we can no longer exist in the desires to receive and that we must rise to the desires to bestow. Likewise, in the vessel of mutual guarantee we also discover that we cannot live in it without bestowal upon the upper one, the Creator. Mutual guarantee among us alone is meaningless. What was the purpose of the shattering of the vessels? Why did we go through this whole process? Why did we connect? It seems that our work is futile. We bestow upon each other, but don’t actually fulfill the bestowal.

We can only truly fulfill it in our attitude towards the Creator. The mutual guarantee that we attain can be fulfilled only if we aspire to something higher, the search for the meaning of bestowal.

Why? It’s because the Creator is the source of our reality. When we connect, we discover its upper source in the mutual connection, which is called “generality plus one.” It is revealed to us like the Creator, and then we begin to understand and to attain the Thought of Creation: He has created us as such low and base beings so that we have to connect on the path of suffering and troubles.

Only then does the question about the meaning of life, from which we begin to ascend, become accurate and bring us to the Light. Then we also discover that we cannot simply bestow upon each other because there is no need for that. Having no choice, we have to aim our bestowal towards the upper source, and only in this way do we fulfill ourselves.

In doing this, we discover a higher dimension: adhesion with the upper one. Then we receive the answer to the question about the meaning of life. So, mutual guarantee is the tool that leads us to adhesion with the Creator.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: A convention in the Arava desert will be held this weekend, which will be attended by several hundred men from Israel to unite, to crystallize the inner force of mutual guarantee between us, and to become the nucleus for unification at the December convention. How can we do this?

Answer: Indeed, there has to be a special inner nucleus in which all the points will gather into one. This point is surrounded by a more passive part—the women of Bnei Baruch, and the widest circle is the external world.

On the inside, all of our friends from the whole world merge together. Why men? Because that’s the nature of creation: They are the ones who need correction to attain love and unity, whereas women reach this differently. Then, when we attain the desired state, we will be able to pass it on to others.

Question: How should women support men at this convention?

Answer: They have to think about our success. We need this support as without it we will have a very hard time. It’s exactly the same as how “the sons of Israel came out of Egypt by virtue of the righteous women.”

Women are a very powerful part of the common system and their support is simply indispensable. When a woman worries about a man, this gives him great forces, a great impetus to realize her yearnings. Without women’s support, we will not succeed.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/11, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: How should we prepare for the convention in the Arava desert, in order to arrive there with the right demand?

Answer: We know that the correction of the world happens in stages. The men have to perform the correction first, those who feel the true desire to connect and understand that mutual guarantee can only be in the connection between us. The women join this more passively.

So we are going to a place where we will have no disturbances from foreign thoughts and desires. There we will try to lead an attack aimed at the connection between us. I recommend that only the men will assemble in all our centers because if all the men in the world try to connect now, it will be the right preparation for the December convention.

Then we will move on to the next stage of preparation. By December, we will acquire more forces in order to add the men who can’t participate in the spiritual work with us now, and the women too.

Now we are consolidating the nucleus, and in December we will unite the external circles. The purpose of the December convention is for the part of humanity that takes part in the convention together with us to become an internal force that awakens the others towards connection and mutual guarantee.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)“

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)” (abridged version): And you evidently find that the giving of the Torah had to be delayed until they came out of Egypt and became a nation of their own so that all their needs were provided for by themselves….

The Exodus from Egypt is not just an escape from the domination of the evil inclination, although in itself this is also a great achievement. A person must really escape from his ego like he would from fire. No matter what, he is ready to sacrifice himself to the end. “I would rather die than live.” At the same time, bestowal upon others seems worse than death.

The second condition is to become a nation. It isn’t enough to escape my own egoism, I also have to agree to connect with others and to take care of everyone. I actually serve them, and my reward is that they allow me to do so. On the way to achieving this goal no one will lack anything. This means that I stand before the level of Bina.

However, while they were still mingled with the Egyptians…permeated with self-love. Thus, the portion that is given into the hands of foreigners will not be secured for any person from Israel because his friends will not be able to provide for those needs….

This is what causes a person pain and why he escapes from it. As the prisoner of the ego (self love), which is called Egypt, he cannot take care of others and so he decides to escape.

But here it turns out that in the material sense, everything is fine. Imagine that you have all the food that you need and that you live in the most fertile place. It turns out that you can do fine in life, in your egoism. Until now you have been pushed by suffering, and here, when you must escape from that to bestowal, it’s as if you are held back from the front: “But you can manage within your ego too.”

Then you go back to work, but it’s now work on the next level. Previously, you escaped physical sufferings, and in order to get rid of them, you were even ready to connect. This is why people connect when they have no choice in times of war or disasters. At a certain point, connection seems to be good, but suddenly it isn’t seen as good anymore.

You rise to the next level and you are told: “It isn’t worth it; you will live just as well in the corporeal world too.” This resistance from the front prevents you from yearning for connection egoistically. There are plenty of societies that connect wonderfully because of personal interests, but it isn’t the same with us.

If a person resists the braking force each time and nevertheless wants to reach connection, he develops a new desire that isn’t aimed towards himself. He falls and rises again and again, continues to study, to work in the group, and to draw the reforming Light, until he completes the second degree.

Now he is ready to connect only in order to bestow upon others. A direct attitude towards bestowal is revealed in him which he places above all personal interests.

Then the third degree comes. It’s when a person is with everyone else, feels good being with them, and bestows to them, forgetting about himself and his troubles and connecting to the friends, to eternity and perfection. And then it transpires that he still needs a reward, but of a higher quality. So it turns out that he is exchanging a cow for a donkey, meaning exchanging this world for the next world. Then a new form of resistance appears: It turns out that you have to act for the sake of the Creator.

Thus a person moves on to a qualitatively higher level of self-detachment. Now he isn’t interested in himself or the group, but in the Source, in the abstract idea, abstract in the sense that he has no connection with it.

It’s impossible to hold on to bestowing to the Creator: The Creator doesn’t know about me, and I cannot reach Him. So how can I form a vessel of such high bestowal? For this there is a special system which we will talk about later.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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