Question: What is prayer?

Answer: Prayer is a request to the Creator to give me the power of bestowal. The general power of bestowal, upon which the world is based, dwells within the world; it is the foundation of the world. This power is called the Creator, the Emanator, and it is the foundation of all of reality. If I turn to it, I can only ask for the power of bestowal. What else could it give me?

I ask this power to approach me, which is to say, to influence me more with its power of bestowal. But when the Creator begins to affect me with His bestowal, I can hold onto this in various ways. If I am ready for it and have similar characteristics, I feel His approach as good, good for me. But if I have opposing characteristics, then I perceive His approach as something bad.

So, there are two forms of grasping the Light: like a “rooster” or like a “bat.” Why does the bat ask for light, that it will be like the darkness?

A prayer is called the raising of MAN, “Mei Nukvin.” The feminine desire, Nukva, my will to receive, wants to rise to the level of Bina; it is asking to be given the characteristic of bestowal.

What is called prayer is when we turn to the Creator, to the Light, to the characteristic of bestowal, asking this bestowal to dwell in us and become our own characteristic. I cannot be like the Creator, “a part of the divine above,” but I want His characteristic to begin to dominate in me.

As long as the Creator illuminates me through His bestowal, this characteristic is found in me and to that degree I have that characteristic. But if the Creator takes His bestowal from me, I fall immediately. It is as if a magnetic force is holding me in the air like a piece of metal. It acts on me all the time, and so I am suspended in the air. The moment that this influence stops, the moment that the magnet stops streaming its flow, the force that holds the piece of metal, and its field disappears, then immediately this piece falls.

So we also receive the force of bestowal. We don’t receive it directly within our nature; instead we always remain with the nature of the will to receive, like the piece of metal suspended in the air. It can be suspended in the air only due to the influence of the Light. Therefore, prayer must never stop; we depend on the Creator all the time.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/28/13

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If a person feels that he is in the “white” daylight—everything in his work seems great and he seems to understand everything, feels that he is advancing in his feelings and his mind, and develops like we see in this world—it is not called spiritual development; it is developing on the level of our world. He can study all the articles and the whole theory by heart, but it isn’t called spiritual development.

A person advances in states where he feels confused, detached and fearful of everything that happens in this world on the corporeal level in which he exists for the time being. This happens on the level where a person is, each time. King David said, as it is written in Psalms, “You have hidden Your face from me and I was frightened.” This state is called darkness.

However, it is actually in the dark that a person can examine himself and see whether he can be adhered to the Creator in this darkness. He doesn’t ask that the darkness will disappear and that everything will be clear, understood, calm, and secure. He is happy that, now, in this darkness, he feels the sharp need to be adhered to the Creator. He is happy and grateful for the darkness and wants to remain in it.

It is because he is sure that if he can ask to be adhered to the Creator above the darkness, then it will be a form of bestowal since it doesn’t bring any reward to his desire to receive.

These are the states that the Creator prepares for us. Sometimes, after ten or twenty years, we encounter an obstacle along the way that was prepared by the Creator decades ago. It is all according to the long-term plan of creation. These interruptions whose cause is concealed from us stem from our Reshimot (spiritual genes), from previous lives.

A real overcoming is having the power to turn to the Creator with a prayer, with a request, agreeing to remain in the dark in order to hold onto the adhesion to the Creator in it. In the darkness, we declare that “There is none else besides Him” and don’t ask Him to remove the concealment, but rather, want to rise above it in faith above reason and to be given the power to carry on as if we are in the daylight.

The moment we actually reach such a desire, we come out to the Light. Our desire must be final and absolute so that our request really will be regarding the darkness and not regarding the Light, only regarding adhesion and the ability to bring the Creator contentment in the darkness that is felt by our ego so that the darkness will turn into Light for our desire to bestow, and then comes dawn. We should understand this very well since this is actually the method of advancing.
[104254]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/13

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Overcoming is not fighting like a hero. Overcoming is to discover our weakness through the environment, through everything that we have learned. The wisdom is not to look within myself for the powers to overcome, but rather, to understand that everything is arranged by the Creator every step and each small detail. All this is in my favor, for my advancement, in order to help me reach adhesion.

Therefore, I am happy about every state that comes along. As it is written, “Even when a sharp sword is placed upon one’s neck, one should not despair of mercy.” He should not despair of mercy since everything is calculated.

If a person holds himself above all these trials, which we even may call “surprises,” then he has nothing to fear. He feels secure and in adhesion with the Creator.

Overcoming is when I quickly overcome all the thoughts and all the inclinations to one side or another and reach a request. I leave all the worries and being thrown side to side and reach a request to the Creator. I don’t ask Him to change my state, but rather to have the powers to remain adhered to the Creator, not in order to ease things for myself, but in order to bring Him contentment.

By that, the state ends, and I go on to the next state where an even greater surprise is prepared for me. So, it turns out that life is full of surprises.
[104251]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/13

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Question: Why at the end of the Passover holidays does one feel heaviness of the heart, and how is it possible to help your friends who feel it harder than you?

Answer: I didn’t think that you would already reach heaviness of the heart. I thought the opposite, that during the holidays we felt the need to advance in two lines: right and left, in order to connect them at each moment to the middle line, to the Creator, to “There is none else besides Him” Who directs us. We are incorporated within Him and adhere to Him in that we all connect to one man with one heart and merge with Him into one whole.

And in this way we remain adhered and happy in the most difficult heaviness of the heart since we are able to connect it to the same state of unity, rise even higher, and be even more dependent on the Creator. And that is a wonderful action that is given us, and one needs to give the effort in order to execute it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/13, Writings of Rabash

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Rabash, “Dargot HaSulam,” Article 932, “The First Innovation”: All innovations begin only after the person merits leaving acquisition for himself. And before then, he is absolutely immersed in his desire for pleasure, and this desire dominates him. Therefore, no innovation can happen in him, everything comes only from his ego. An innovation can come only through the power of another nature, which a person doesn’t have yet. For this reason, all innovations begin only after the person leaves his ego, the desire to receive for himself, which is to say, he leaves Egypt.

And this is the idea that it is forbidden to teach Torah to idol worshippers.

One who serves other gods is a person who still doesn’t have contact with the Creator, who hasn’t exited Egypt. This is the name of a spiritual level, so, a regular person of this world is not to be called this. Idol worshippers are people like us who are drawn to the Creator, but they still ascribe particular importance to material values, to reception for oneself.

For this reason they are called AKUMA (an acronym for “Servants of stars and constellations,” and also round-about (Akum), “indirect”). You see they are not directed “straight to the Creator” (Yashar-El), like Israel rather they worship stars and fate, which is to say, they are found dominated by various egoistic forces and values.

It is forbidden to teach Torah to idol worshippers. “Forbidden” means impossible. You see the Torah is the Light, the entire upper system, all the spiritual worlds, the relationships between a person and the Creator. It is impossible to teach this to an idol worshipper, who is found in egoistic receptivity and has no connection to the system of bestowal.

And indeed, when the person is in Egypt, which is to say in egoistic receptivity, he cannot be a Yehudi, (from the word “Yichud” – unity, which is to say uniting himself with the entire creation and with the Creator), for he is enslaved to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. The person is enslaved by his ego, the king of the material world.

And when he is a slave to Pharaoh, he cannot be a servant of the Creator. It is either Pharaoh or the Creator, because everything depends on the intention, with what a person identifies himself and what he wants to serve: personal benefit or bestowal.

“And this is the idea, ‘For the children of Israel are mine,’ they are my servants,” the Creator says, “and don’t be a slave to slaves.” You see, Pharaoh is also a servant of the Creator, he is an angel, and he is a system which carries out the thought of creation from compulsion, without any free choice. Pharaoh is an angel; you see it is written: “I created the evil inclination.” The entire creation, the entire ego is found in the hands of the Creator. And if the person serves in the name of Pharaoh, he is called a “slave to slaves,” for he serves the slave and not the Master.

When a person serves himself, he cannot be a servant of the Creator, for it is impossible to serve two kings at the same time. And only after the person leaves Egypt—after he receives enough Light that Reforms, raising him above his desire for pleasure—which is from reception for oneself, then he can be a servant of the Creator. But in order to remain a servant of the Creator, he needs to choose this all the time: in each and every moment, with every desire. And then he is ready to merit to the Torah. What follows from this is that the first innovation is the departure from Egypt.

The Torah begins with the departure from Egypt and onward; therefore, after this the giving of the Torah happens. The Torah includes all the Light of Infinity, all the upper Light, which fills the upper worlds and is designed for the gradual correction of the will to receive of the creature until he reaches equivalence of form with the Creator.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/31/13

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Question: There are two forces in creation: the plus and minus, the desire to receive and desire to bestow, the male force and the female force. Perhaps the connection between the male and the female forces is missing in order to discover the one force that is called “One?” If that is true, then how can we connect?

Answer: Only by including the Creator, there is no other way! Only He can create harmony between the plus and the minus. It says “a man and a woman, Shechina (Divinity) is between them.” A man and a woman, plus and minus, these two opposite forces will never be able to connect without the revelation of the Creator.

In nature there must always be a resistance between the plus and the minus in which the mutual energy between them becomes prominent, and it’s the Creator who plays that role. First He reveals Himself in the form of the ego, the resistance between the plus and the minus, then He connects everything into one system, and then on top of this resistance, His revelation becomes disclosed and we begin to feel Him.

We can’t actually feel Him. He is felt in our desires, in our vessels, in the resistance that we create between the plus and the minus.

Suppose that this is our resistor, plus or minus, our ego (Ego). If there is a “current” flowing through it, which means that we are connecting despite the ego, then on top of the resistor (R) we begin to reveal the Creator.

The Creator is opposite from our ego, since He created the darkness from the Light. So it’s on top of this “instrument” that we discover the Creator. This “instrument” is our Masach (screen).
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From the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13, Lesson 3

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Question: It is said that he who cleaves to the Upper One does not fail, that he is above all problems. How can we increase the desire to cleave to the Creator, to overcome all adversities, and rise above everything that we feel from the Creator?

Answer: We have already discussed that a person cannot do anything alone. Those problems that the Creator gives us just seem personal. No one has personal problems because of the Kli (vessel) that became shattered in the world of Nikudim. In other words, the soul of Adam that was in the world of Atzilut was common, and all the problems are the demonstration of the shattering of the correct, common state. That is why it is impossible to say that I am uncorrected. There is no human being who was like that because I am uncorrected only in my attitude toward the common state that was originally created.

The shattering occurred not in every one of us but between the parts of the common soul, and that is why we need to correct the connection between us. This is very important. We need to remember this and constantly try to imagine the corrected state, and then we suddenly will see how the general mosaic comes together and turns into a beautiful, joint Lego, and the upper world is manifested in this combination.

Question: When we are connected together, the Light passes through us to the 99% of humanity. In this case, do we need to cleave to the Creator more strongly to be able to transmit the Light more?

Answer: Of course. This is because the world will demand more and more from us. It is in a critical state even now. We need to perceive its state as a plea to us because when a baby who is feeling bad is crying, his parents guess what he wants. So, are we: The world screams, it feels bad, and we must guess what it needs. It needs unity. That is why we must act in this way.
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From the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13, Lesson 4

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Question: If the group has someone with an addiction and he has fallen from the general process, what efforts does it have to make in order to be in partnership with the Creator and to overcome our enemy, the ego?

Answer: The Creator doesn’t respond to a person’s individual requests. He actually does respond but not really in the person’s favor, since the person doesn’t give Him a chance to be revealed.

Suppose, I cry out now that I expect the Creator to be revealed to me. I have books and everything that I need! I lock myself in a room and begin to think, to shout, and to suffer.

Will the Creator be revealed to me? No. Why not? Where is the resistance that we build between us? Where is the enemy? He is gone. Where is the place in which He should be revealed?

The Creator should be revealed in the resistance, in the ego, in the fact that I cannot connect with the friends and ask for His help. Only then is He revealed!

But if I think about myself and only mumble: “Well, reveal Yourself to me,” then it will lead to nothing. Why should He reveal Himself?

“I want to rise to you…” what does it mean to rise to Him? It means to become equal to Him, to be close to Him in my attributes. What does it mean to be close to Him in my attributes? One unique and special. This means that the more we connect, the closer we are to Him, and so He is revealed in us.

There are seven billion people in the world. When we begin to rise, then in the next level we will feel that we are like one billion and then like one million, and then as one hundred people, and finally as one. This is the ladder upon which we ascend to the Creator.

But if I cry out: “Raise me, reveal Yourself to me!” Then, how can He reveal Himself? There is nothing in you; you are but a point. Only our world can be felt in a point.

Today, His condition is that you can succeed only if you begin to connect and at the same time worry about the whole world. See what a crisis He has put the world into. This is what Baal HaSulam writes about. Only by thinking about the whole world do we gradually begin to rise.

On every level humanity will feel that it is becoming smaller, more compact, and its members will feel closer to one another like in a group, until we all become one. Only when we become one, will we be equal to the Creator.

So we have no other choice but to start connecting in order to reveal Him and to see that we cannot do it by ourselves,

How many times have we read the passage from The Zohar about Rabbi Shimon’s students who were great sages and were on the level of Arich Anpin of Atzilut, the highest level of attainment, which is the revelation of the Creator, the feeling of the upper world. See how they hated one another so intensely that they were ready to kill each other when they started writing The Book of Zohar.

We have to reach such states in which we demand that the Creator be present so that He will connect us. But the relations between us are cold: I don’t really feel like it; I am in a bad mood… we haven’t even reached the feeling of hatred yet.
[103862]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13, Lesson 3

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Question: What does “revelation of the Creator” mean?

Answer: The Creator (Bore) means: “Come and see” (Bo-re) which means revelation.

How can we approach Him? We can do it solely through convergence. Let’s say, we have ten different people. If we gradually build one man out of all of them (as one man with one heart), we come to a point when we become one whole. Then, we reveal the Creator; “Re” stands for “revelation.”

In other words, the Creator discloses Himself in one general Kli (vessel), in His new property. We are the ones who “create” the Creator. We are the ones who “build” Him out of ten, twenty, a thousand different points. It doesn’t really matter how many points are involved in one joint whole.

Let’s say, there is a structure that consists of forty people; this structure is called “as one.” It is the Creator. In other words, by uniting a multiplicity into “one,” it gives us a sensation of the Creator. We feel the Creator only in this form, that’s why He is called “Bo-Re.”

We can feel it only inside our properties. Currently, we sense the world within our egoistic qualities. However, if we manage to change our isolated, shattered, and destroyed qualities and make them integral and united, we’d be able to sense “the Integral,” the unity, which is called “the Creator.”

Question: Do we disclose the Creator to the 99%?

Answer: We reveal the Creator in order to please everybody who is outside us. The Creator can be discovered only in the property of bestowal, that’s why we work to enhance connections among us and boost the importance of our unity by making it higher than our egoism.

When we rise above and exit outside ourselves, we unite into one common spiritual body that is named a “Partzuf.”

This is the exact place where we reveal the unity that is called “the Creator.”
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From the European Convention 3/22/13, Lesson 2

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Question: It’s already absolutely clear to us that there is the Creator behind a friend’s spiritual desire. But that thought constantly escapes to the side. You think, “I give and give, when am I going to get something out of this?” On the other hand, the game is rigged, and all the states were prearranged: the taking of Moses out of the river, Nachshon leaping into the water, the taking of the last stone from the Tower of Babel…Apparently there is some kind of leverage that makes it possible for us to be accommodated to a state. You once said that it’s possible to learn for years and make an effort to connect, but there is luck to everything. What is “luck” in spirituality and how does one get it?

Answer: Luck comes to a person on condition that he is ready to participate in the “game.” It’s as if I go to a casino, and there on zero, on the red…I don’t give up, I believe in luck and really insist: luck must come. I involve my associates, friends, and my teacher, that they will direct us more precisely. We must include the wise Kabbalists who have brought us to this path. They already ran the game well, correctly, sensibly, and effectively. In addition, we involve the Creator: If we do everything right, then we can receive help from Him and get a “good luck sign” from Him. It be reached only in this way.

Our luck is that we were already chosen for a special role: to lead the world to correction. If we accept this “card” and are ready to play it, we already have something in our hand. On the other hand, we must also take the second “card,” meaning the group and the teacher, with whom together we arrange the general rules of the game.

And if we organize everything correctly, then we have someone to play with, with the upper force, with the Creator. And then luck comes: The upper Light “drips” on us in drops. It doesn’t flow, rather it drips, and even though these drops descend intermittently, ultimately they correct and connect us, shape us in a form such that the Creator will be revealed among us.

This is called “luck.” To be lucky means to be ready to work, receiving the drops of Light and not being desperate in the intervals between them, being in a negative and a positive state, in the dark and in the Light, and correcting ourselves so that the trickle of “luck” will become a strong current.

Here everything depends on desires, on our Kelim. “Luck” comes to person if he is ready to accept these drops without complaint and to continue on the path, while the interruptions between have not let them become “mighty waters.” Not everyone is ready to stand in this. Someone who is ready, he has “luck”…

Question: In other words, not everyone is able to nullify himself?

Answer: Indeed, not everyone. As it is written, “A thousand enter a room, and one comes out to teach.” As is understood, this is not talking about one person in a thousand. Generally, attaining the method is already a big step forward. In the words of Baal HaSulam, even if people come in contact with the method even once, their reward is very great, and they are raised and separated from the rest of humanity.

And in spite of all this, many fall on the way. Upon what does this depend? On that same “luck”…

Question: But everything that is in me is formed by the Creator. Where is the turning point, where the one who is working is not Him, rather it’s me?

Answer: The turning point is in this: The person needs to pass from his relationship to the Creator and the studies, from himself to his friends. This is the point. If he is prepared to bend himself, and not be broken, if he is ready to persist and not abandon the path while discovering true hatred, then he attains great changes.

In general people break at this point: They are ready for everything, except to nullify themselves towards the friends. Calculations begin, excuses: family, children, daily life, spiritual pride…in brief there are many problems, but this is precisely the test, the Creator can’t help here.

One way or another, the result is not known from the start, the fate of the person is not recorded from the start. Will he be ready to bend himself? It’s necessary to work to be absolutely nullified to the teacher and the group. It’s specifically here that “luck” is needed…
[103748]
From the Talk during a Festive Meal 3/27/13

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