Question: What do we mean by “unity” when we speak to the world?

Answer: To unite according to the condition of mutual guarantee means to be as one man with one heart. In order to unite hearts into one, to unite all desires into one desire the way it was before the breaking of the vessels, we go through two stages.

In the first stage we neutralize the will to receive for the sake of reception and thereby carry out the condition of Hafetz Hesed, “Do not do to another what is hateful to yourself.” By virtue of this I no longer harm my neighbor. I no longer judge a person by how good or bad he is, how much I can use him, control him, and deceive him.

I no longer look for profit from the world. I simply don’t want anything. Once I attain the entire magnitude and guile of my evil, which pushes me to harm others at every second, I yearn to maximally minimize the use of my desires. I only ask for the things I cannot do without, the bare necessities, hoping that then I will attain the quality of bestowal.

I want to become a point, like Malchut that becomes included in Bina. Just one point. It’s as if I don’t exist. My “I” is included in Bina and devoted to it,like a drop of semen in a womb. For now I am just a drop that does not exist by virtue of itself, but on account of the upper one.

This is the first stage where our hearts are not united yet, but they also aren’t repelled from one another.

At the next stage they start coming closer, as it is written, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” With all of my heart (because I don’t have other instruments), I check the heart of the neighbor and see the extent to which I can fulfill him and receive from him. My heart works entirely to serve and fulfill his heart, and he treats me the same way. This is the unity of hearts that we attain by carrying out the principle of love for the neighbor as for ourselves, thereby becoming as one man with one heart.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/11, “The Peace”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (The Mutual Guarantee)”: The commandment of “love thy friend as thyself”… cannot be observed by an individual, but only through the consent of an entire nation. And this is why it took until they came out of Egypt, that they became worthy of observing it.

The full measure of man’s great desire as well as the full measure of his aversion to others have to manifest within him. The magnitude of his desire is Pharaoh, the extent of his rejection is Mount Sinai, and the measure of his aspiration straight to the Creator is Moses. Thus the entire Biblical story of the exodus from Egypt is outlined within man’s soul.

And until then he does not need the Kabbalistic method; he does not need corrections. He doesn’t strive for actualization, isn’t ready to be as one man with one heart with everybody, and doesn’t demand help of the Creator.

This scream is yet to emerge in the group, but we must come to it. Then we will discover that we are truly dealing with a method here: the means of correcting desire.

And then they were first asked if each and every one of the nation agreed to take that commandment upon himself. And once they agreed to it, they were given the method.

What is this question that is asked of everyone? Indeed, it is the Creator asking them. And what does their consent signify?

In other words, a desire, a lack, aimed precisely at correction must manifest within man. “Do you wish to correct your nature to that of bestowal or not? Are you sure this is what you want? Are you ready to unite with the friends? You’re incapable of it, but do you desire unity or not?”

Here you need to want to escape the ego (Pharaoh) at any cost, even if it means crossing the Red Sea (in Hebrew, Yam Suf – final sea). “To escape at any cost”—that is what everybody must feel. If that is the case, then we are ready to unite and receive the force of unification called “the light that Reforms.” That is what we call the giving of the method, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: How should my need for mutual guarantee be expressed?

Answer: By you shaking others up, waking them up, and doing it inside of you rather than with words. Words actually emasculate the meaning. Our entire work is done on the inside rather than the outside. What’s important is the extent to which I try to shake up the friends inside of me so that together we will go towards mutual guarantee.

We do not attain it with our own forces, but demand the revelation of the Creator. After all, mutual guarantee is the force of the Creator that connects us with one another. Alone we cannot extend the threads of connection and perform bestowal to one another. Nothing will work unless the Light becomes revealed between us.

Today we are connected only through hatred. But if the Light will set in between us, we will unite in love and bestowal. Mutual bestowal, where the Creator fills the space of our relationships, is mutual guarantee.

We have to aspire to it even though we cannot attain this on our own. Everything will come through from the darkness if we really desire to reveal mutual guarantee for the sake of the Creator. And “for the Creator” means for the sake of the quality of absolute bestowal.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/11, “Arvut”

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Baal HaSulam, “Arvut”: “A holy nation” is the reward in its final form of Dvekut [adhesion] with Him, which includes all the rewards that can even be conceived.

There is a part of humanity that receives spiritual awakening—the group (Bnei Baruch). These people are obligated to carry out the correction inside of them, to acquire the force of the mutual guarantee, and by virtue of that force, to begin bestowing to everyone else.

Besides, they have to observe the law that is described by the verse, “You will be a kingdom of priests unto Me.” Stated differently, this is talking about the state of Hafetz Hesed: Priests do not have their own property. Like Bina, they aspire only to bestowal. This is the quality we must acquire as well.

As for the quality of “the holy nation,” this is already a receiving desire that we use and raise to the level of holiness. Thus, it acquires an intention for the sake of bestowal and reaches adhesion.

This unity, this force, or this state has to reign in the group. There are no other possibilities here. We are talking about the laws of nature. If we don’t want to carry them out the good way, we will be forced to do it the bad way—through suffering. There are no compromises here, but a program that becomes realized with just one parameter of free choice: You can accelerate your development before you are obligated to this by the special, systematic force.

At every phase, this obligatory force descends to us and begins advancing us forward. However, we can move faster than it, and in that case we will reach the goal by the good and fast path, without blows from behind.

Thus, we have two possibilities to choose the means of advancement. But the advancement itself is immutable because in the final state, the program of development is already realized in full. The two phases of this realization are “the kingdom of priests” and “a holy nation.” They demand for us to attain mutual bestowal, love for the neighbor as oneself, and thereby, adhesion with the upper Light, the Creator.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/11, “Arvut”

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Question: How is our work on mutual guarantee connected with the rest of the world?

Answer: The people of the world have a need for mutual guarantee which comes from the breaking, from being in a bad state, from sensing the crisis.

But we don’t have that need. We feel good because we sweeten our egoism with the study materials, thereby “clogging” it. Even the desires of the outside world pass us by and we don’t feel them. People lack food, sex, familial relationships, money, honor, power, and knowledge, but we are fine because something much greater is promised to us. True, we haven’t attained it yet, but we are already “floating” above the material desires.

Thus, it turns out that the external world’s need for mutual guarantee, for unification, is much greater than ours. People roam about from morning till night, not knowing what to do and not having a solution, but we are fine. Everything’s clear to us and we are almost righteous.

So who’s worse? Who’s farther from the goal of creation by their desires: them or us? We are worse. Therefore, in order to force you to help them, to correct them, they are turning their hatred toward you. They are driven to this by forces operating in the common system. The Light influences people so they will, in turn, influence you. After all, their desire is greater than yours. And thus, they come up to you with hatred, whose consequences will turn out very grave if you keep dragging things on.

Question: Can I do anything besides working on mutual guarantee in the group?

Answer: What’s necessary is precisely your work in the group on mutual guarantee, in order to splash it out into the world.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/11, “Arvut”

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The new era demands a new upbringing and we have to inculcate it in the nation. This is the reason why we are first turning to scientists, and next, together with them, to the government in order to demonstrate the need for global upbringing to the power structures. Only this will enable us to smoothly join the interconnected world.

However, even if we achieve a general agreement with this condition, we will still be far from realizing it. How can the government be convinced? How should society be built in practice? In our opinion, the changes must first happen inside of man. The people of the country have to change, become different, integral. They have to desire unity and feel how to achieve it from the inside. Then this general atmosphere will start changing every person’s environment and will even penetrate the corridors of the government.

If the parliament affirms laws of mutual guarantee in order to impose them from above, this will take on coercive forms, but there is no coercion in spirituality. Man has to undergo inner changes that lead to the spiritual phase of development. Therefore, without suppressing anyone, we have to provide the right influence and education to people, but instead of doing this in the name of the government, it should happen through integration into the education system.

We cannot force anyone to build a new system of interconnection. That would be equivalent to placing a person in a dungeon, isolating him from everything he is used to. Connections have to be formed gradually, thanks to the inner changes inside a person. By changing, he will start interacting with others differently as well.

Until now we changed under pressure from egoism, which rages inside of us. It grew from one generation to the next, and as a result, we changed the world. But now the situation is different: The world is not changing any longer. It is being expressed as “round” and integral, and it is us, the people, who have to change.

In this case, how can the government and parliament help us? The authorities still don’t understand it, but their only way to help is to create a system of upbringing that will give people a new form. Only then will it be possible to change anything in the country. However, this process takes time. It cannot be accelerated by parliamentary creativity in lawmaking. There are many laws, but who actually observes them?
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/11, “Arvut”

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The Zohar, Chapter “Truma,” Item 759: Once the Nukva was adorned—meaning built by [Partzuf] AVI [Aba ve Ima]—and ZA and Nukva returned to being PBP [Panim be Panim], that shape of man, ZA, came by craving for the Nukva. There, in the Nukva, the second man of Beria was engraved and depicted, as his form. It is written about him, “And begot a son in his own likeness, after his image.”

The Book of Zohar talks only about what is happening in the network that connects the souls. The entire sum total of these connections between us is called “the upper world,” whose pictures are described by The Zohar, including forces, Lights, various forms and images. There is nothing more for us to imagine because this is what we are living in.

Each of us individually is a desire to enjoy, and outside of every one of us, in the connections between us there is the upper world, filled with Light. Therefore, I have to “wrap up” my will to enjoy, cover it as if in a shadow, perform a restriction on it and create a screen and reflected Light, and then to exist outside of it, in my relationships with others.

This is exactly what The Zohar talks about: which form or image I take on in relation to others. If I do this, then I reveal everything we read about in The Zohar. Otherwise I am inside of myself, in my will to enjoy, and I feel only this world.

We can perceive either inside of us or above us, outside of us. “Outside of us” means in the attitude to the neighbor, where “a neighbor” is the people with whom I want to build a connecting network. This is called “the group.” If I relate to the whole world in this way, then the group is the whole world.

While correcting my qualities, if I desire to reveal the force that founded everything, then I reveal it according to the law of equivalence of form. As soon as my connecting network with others acquires a spiritual form, a spiritual essence, the true mutual bestowal, the level of mutual guarantee even on the first stage, then inside of it, I immediately feel the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/11, The Zohar

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Question: What is mutual guarantee?

Answer: Mutual guarantee means that I act according to how I understand and feel my relationship towards others, my interconnection and interdependence with them within a single system where we are like organs in a body. There are many stages of our closeness to each other inside this system until we reach the stage where we start acting as cells in a body, when from what comes to me I take everything necessary in order to completely realize myself for the benefit of society.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that there 125 steps of our connection with each other before we reach a perfect system. Thus, we correct ourselves, our ego, and obtain the property of bestowal and love towards fellow men to its fullest. This is called a complete correction of a person, when he or she becomes global and integral within all of nature.

Thus, having built himself with all of nature tied within and thereby affecting all the lower levels (the still, vegetative, and animate), a person achieves the level of all-inclusive nature. We can call it the Upper force or Nature with a capital letter. It is then that a person feels himself eternal and perfect like the whole of nature, which has no beginning and no end, no time, movement, or space. His perception of reality changes because a person perceives himself differently: He discovers vision and perception on a new level.

Mutual guarantee can be explained with the example of the interaction between all parts of nature: between the still and vegetative, the vegetative and animate levels, how they feed and support each other. There are plenty of examples of mutual help in nature: how bees and birds help plants reproduce, how all of nature is interconnected. This is a special, very interesting science. It is simply amazing how all the parts of nature depend upon, are interconnected with, and need each other.

The easiest way to explain mutual guarantee is through the example of the work of our body parts. When I don’t feel well and go to see a doctor, he examines whether I am in balance or not, what part of my body is out of balance and isn’t working properly. This is called an “illness.” If a part cannot perform its work relative to all other parts, for example, the kidneys cannot remove toxins, the liver cannot clean the blood, or the lungs cannot provide enough oxygen, this is an “illness.” According to this, we check whether people are healthy or not.

This is how we have to check human society, whether it’s healthy or not, according to how much each receives and gives, to what extent he is in connection with other parts because he must do so for the benefit of others. And it’s everyone’s mission.

That is, each gives up his ego directed at oneself and engages all his talents for the benefit of others. What does he get out of this? He obtains the perception of a higher reality, eternal and perfect, raising him to the degree which is much higher than his current animate level.
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From the talk about a new book 7/11/2011

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Question: Coming back to the topic of Israelis protesting rent prices: Are we allowed to add a certain “surplus value” to it?

Answer: If we gather together to solve the housing problem and achieve mutual guarantee between us, our power is increased manifold. It isn’t a simple unification of soldiers on the battlefield or athletes on a sports team. Rather, we unite to solve a problem not for ourselves personally, but for the entire country.

As concerns housing, we’re dealing with a cartel that’s in cahoots with the government. They’re working together and making lots of money thereby. We see that the former head of government as well as mayors of several major cities are under investigation. Any way you slice it, the authorities are connected to real estate.

A private house in America costs $150,000, and that’s with people making a lot more money on average. But our prices are twice as high. Does anybody really think we’re dealing with some special, unsolvable problems here? No, it’s nothing but corruption. Usually there are limits to this sort of thing, but not in our country.

We need to set a goal to put a stop to this and solve this problem, which has truly become national. Then we will act in the interest of everybody and won’t rest even if everyone will be given their own private house. We must do this for the sake of the people.

If our protesters arm themselves with this intention, they will achieve a great deal. They may even form a public movement which will not stop until it reaches success.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/20/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Gurantee)”

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Question: If I try to direct the world toward the goal of creation, could you say that I give the guarantee for the people? Is there a unilateral guarantee?

Answer: Yes, you move people forward. They cannot show reciprocity in return yet. Nevertheless, this is progress, and it is very important.

We should understand that our mission is to advance the world, and our progress depends on its steps. Of course, this dependency is not direct, but moving the world forward requires serious effort. We don’t do this at the expense of our inner efforts; however, we will not be able to develop internally without making a contribution to the development of the world.

Everything is arranged in the form of an integral system. I, the group, the world, and the Creator have to be a single complex. This is why now we need to take care of everybody. As Baal HaSulam writes, the entire world is one family and nothing can be done. Focusing on a narrow range, remaining in one niche, we will not achieve the desired result.

On the other hand, in going out into the world, we have to be cautious because we can lose our principles and slide into a purely psychological approach of “Let’s be close to each other, let’s be friends.” No, it will not work. As in Russia or in Israeli Kibbutzim (communities), it will be a connection devoid of internal force.

A connection requires the force that unites us, the upper Light. You have to address the world with Baal HaSulam’s materials, not necessarily with the texts, but with these messages, with these principles. Gradually, little by little, you have to explain to people that this comes from the science of Kabbalah.

The path is long, but you should be clear on this by now. You have to be immersed in the method, saturated with it. If you do not constantly study Kabbalistic materials, if you do not absorb it, digging deeper and deeper, you will feed people only nice words, New Age or mysticism. You, yourself, won’t notice how you will slide down.

If a person does not dedicate a few hours a day to serious studies in a serious group, if he does not work on this in the morning and in the evening, he loses his path. Religions, beliefs, mystical traditions, and the like stem from this. Everything came from Kabbalah.

Moreover, our egoism, our world call for concessions, saying: “It does not cost you anything. Add a little here. Change a little there. You may miss something, but you will reach people.” No, you will not reach people. You will come to them without your strengths and without a spiritual force, already corrupted.

This is a very big problem. That is why when a teacher leaves, good, strong groups lose their way, lose strength and wither.
[48812]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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