It’s not enough to simply connect with our friends’ sparks. We also have to study; knowledge will shape us and teach us how to connect with the sparks. So far, we have no idea how to unite, since we are not familiar with the system of spirituality. So, we read about it, listen, and study. We learn that we have to connect and form a system that consists of 10 Sefirot, Partzufim, worlds, Surrounding Light and Direct Light. All these names describe the connection between us that we need to achieve.

The main thing is to tune ourselves to receive help from Above. It’s not enough just to think of connecting with our friends’ sparks; we need someone else who will tie us together. We have to appeal to the upper force so that It does this work for us. We bring our broken connection to the higher force and complain to It about our inability to unite. It’s similar to a crying baby who approaches his mother and father complaining that he cannot do something because it is broken and doesn’t work anymore.

The upper Light deliberately broke the bond between us so that we would demand it be restored. When one appeals to the upper force with this request together with his friends, it means that one is already inside the corrected system. It is called “Israel, Torah and the Creator are One.”

Israel stands for all of us, for those who are oriented “directly to the Creator” (Yashar – El.) The Torah is the Light that we search for in order to get glued back together. We study its actions with the books. The Creator is the upper force, a source of the Light that returns to the benevolence and assembles us back together. That explains why it is called the returning to the source of the good state that existed before the shattering occurred. This is how we attain correction.

We have to clarify numerous phases at this point. Although, we should understand that one is totally unable to do it on one’s own because he will always tend to work internally and presume that he has enough power and qualities to appeal to the Creator and scream to Him on his own.

But, I will never be able to address the Creator without presenting the broken vessel that consists of at least 10 friends who want to reconnect. I will be one of them. And if there are friends who understand that they need to connect in order to reveal the Creator and if they try to appeal to the Creator, for bestowal and love to reign between them, it happens.
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From a Talk at the Meal Commemorating Rabash, 9/20/12

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Three conditions of a prayer are the conditions that enable us to unite with the next degree: GE of the lower with AHP of the upper. They demonstrate the loyalty of the soul that is required and disappointment in one’s own strengths, dedication to the upper One, faith in the greatness of the higher degree, and the feeling of one’s worthlessness that allows one to cancel himself.

This refers to the faith in the greatness of the upper One, which fully depends on the influence of the environment. A person is unable to reach it on his own. The need for the upper One only depends on the environment because a person is not able to develop a need to bestow on his own. This is an abstract goal that contradicts his nature, and this is why it can come only from the environment that rules over him.

Only the environment can give me the strength that will allow me to rise above my body and decide that death is better than a life without the quality of bestowal, without a spiritual sensation, so that I would agree to bestow instead of receiving, no longer wishing to continue living in my egoism. The ability to carry out these three conditions depends on a person’s loyalty to his environment, on the environment’s ability to convince him of these values.

He is unable to develop this attitude on his own, and, even if he mentally and logically understands that the books state that such are the conditions of the spiritual world, he still will be unable to come closer to them. The environment was given the power to influence us in order to help us attain the perfect system, the quality of bestowal, to come out of ourselves and connect with other broken souls.

It is a known fact that when getting into the wrong crowd, a child who was formerly good and well-mannered in a short time becomes a criminal, and he even becomes the worst of them all since he uses the education he has received for the worst. Conversely, a good environment can correct a former offender, even though this is more difficult to do.

What is special about an environment that strives toward a spiritual goal and connection is that the Light from a higher degree helps it. It performs the actual action of lifting us from the plane where we now exist.

We wish to connect in order to become like the higher degree, and this is why we attract the Light that Reforms. Similarity to a higher degree represents a great connection between us, and, when we wish to connect with the purpose of pleasing the Creator, to materialize His desire to reveal Himself to the creatures, our connection receives an unnatural power from the higher degree.

This power depends on our drive to connect despite the fact that we are unable to attain it. In regular life, it is very easy to connect for the sake of an egoistic goal. There is absolute unity and loyalty in a criminal mafia, but we are unable to accomplish it, and, naturally, we will not be able to do it until the Light corrects us.

However, we attract the Light that Reforms with just a single desire to attain this. The group becomes the source of the upper force, which has an indirect effect like the Surrounding Light. This is not yet the Direct Light of a spiritual degree, but, time after time, when the Surrounding Light influences us in response to our attempts to connect, it helps us bit by bit, gradually building our connection.

In this way, through our mutual efforts when we operate from below and the Light operates from above, we finally attain the first contact with Him. This Light robes in our vessel, and we reveal our first spiritual degree.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/23/12, Shamati #209

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A person fights cruel battles on the way to achieving the goal of creation, attacks and struggles with problems. It is so hard to attain this goal and in fact, it is practically impossible since it is against our nature. We cannot transcend nature; we don’t have the powers for that.

A person can only work in the range of the opportunities he was given. The goal we are seeking, trying to discover the spiritual world and reach equivalence of form with the Creator, is above us and is opposite from our attributes, so a person simply cannot do it.

Therefore, Rabash says that a united group of people should get together, in one place, under the leadership of one man, under the influence from Above, from the teacher, the Creator, the group, and all its members. Only then will we be able to take any steps to change our nature.

It isn’t so bad that we cannot change ourselves. The problem is that despite everything, we are constantly trying to reach the goal by ourselves: we get angry, we get pressure, and operate as we are used to in this world—attacking again and again, making a collective effort. We think that we will fight and win.

But we cannot succeed and win this way. Eventually we have to reach a state in which we really want the desired goal, but we cannot attain it. This is the recognition we should come to.

We have to fight; we have to try, but the more we tell each other that we need help from Above, the less energy we will waste in vain.

Why should we fight in vain against this monster, which is our egoistic nature? We will not be able to beat the ego by our own powers since they also stem from the same ego. It is impossible to beat the ego with egoistic powers; a person is deceiving himself!

This is why we were given a group. A person begins to understand that as long as he fights alone, he will stay in the same system, in one vessel, in his own cocoon. He will spin around himself like a dog chasing his own tail and will never break out of this closed circle.

If he understands this, he begins to look for a group. It may be that he has been in the group for a long time, but isn’t aware that this is an environment that was given to him to work in. He thought that these are just friends with whom he studies and dines with as is accepted in our world. But eventually he despairs of his own powers and understands that he needs help from Above.

He doesn’t see the Creator and he doesn’t know how to turn to Him. He doesn’t know whether the Creator hears his requests or not, and whether He responds. Perhaps he is just shouting in the desert, wasting his efforts and tormenting his heart. But he doesn’t feel that it leads to any results.

When he understands that he is lost without the friends’ support, he really needs a group.

Otherwise nothing will help him and he will end his life like the animal he was born. From that moment on he begins to look at his environment differently. He understands that it was given to him for a reason, and that the Creator has brought him to his good fate and told him “take it!”
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From the Talk Dedicated to the Memorial Day of Rabash 9/20/12 

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The difference between our actions is only in whether they lead to the Creator or not. We cannot reveal the Creator if everyone is not connected first, a connection without any differences, for the general wellbeing of everyone.

I should feel that I don’t exist anymore as an individual; I only perform these actions and forget about myself. I don’t even see or know what I have done. I don’t need that, since otherwise I can start enjoying my merits and look for ways to justify myself.

This reflects what bestowal is to some extent. Of course, it is impossible to reach such attributes. When we clarify it more to ourselves, we discover that it is unattainable and gradually begin to realize that it has to come to us from somewhere on the outside.

The more we try the more we see that we cannot do that, and so it becomes clearer that only the upper force can help us, something unreal. Then we demand that it will happen. This is already a prayer.
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From a Talk before the Unity Convention 9/20/12

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The connecting system among us is gradually revealed thanks to the fact that we connect. Within this connection we feel our desires, which gradually begin to connect, and the general force that flows in them.

This force and the Light that is revealed within our desires is the image of the Giver that is on the outside. We have built it by ourselves and discovered Him. This image is called the Creator, which means Boreh—come and see (Bo-Reh in Hebrew).

The Creator exists only if the created being builds and discovers Him within his desires, his intentions, his aspirations, and his efforts.

It may seem strange, since after all it says: “I am the first and I am the last,” “There is none else besides Him,” “His glory fills the whole earth.” And after all this, it says that a person himself builds his own Creator?

We are still ready to believe that we have to reveal the Creator who is concealed, as if to move the curtain behind which He hides. But it says that we are the ones who build the form we call Creator.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/12, Writings of Rabash 

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Question: How do we feel the right connection?

Answer: The correct connection is when we feel only the connection and don’t feel ourselves. It is the exact opposite of what is happening now.

If we all disconnect from ourselves, we will feel only the connections among us, which means the general body that lives and exists. Each one will not feel his own individual cell, but that he is included in the whole body, and will give himself until he doesn’t feel himself but only the general body. This means that we have attained connection.

Then the collective feeling of life in the general body that doesn’t belong to anyone personally but is a result of the connection among us, this feeling is called the Creator.

This vessel is called Adam (a human), and its filling is called the Creator, the Light of life, the mutual force of bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/12, Writings of Rabash 

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Question: We’ve started our convention after having been through many things. How can we hold on to the goal like a bulldog that doesn’t let go of his grip? How can we find the vitality in our exertion and not demand a cheap reward in the form of an impression?

Answer: You should feel pleasure by your exertion. It doesn’t matter whether the convention is a success; I enjoy the fact that we are making an effort together.

You should understand that there are no pauses in spirituality. If you don’t put constant pressure, spirituality will disappear. It exists as long as the next moment is different from the present moment. You have to be on a constant ascent, and constantly add something. This addition, the gap between the moments is the feeling of the spiritual life.

A state can stop or freeze only here in our still world. This is why it exists, so that from here our way will start. Therefore, we have to receive pleasure by putting an increasingly stronger pressure, and get pleasure from our exertions.

Question: Do we fixate on the exertion?

Answer: You have to build the greatness of the one you bestow upon.

Question: How do I turn this effort into a collective effort?

Answer: It can’t be any different. You can’t locate the Creator by yourself, but only with others. After all, the “Creator” is the group; it’s its center: this is where you channel the growing bestowal and from this you receive pleasure. The pleasure is caused by the addition and not by the state itself. Thus, a person who has made a million dollars wants more the next minute and doesn’t stop at what he has achieved.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/12, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Everything begins and ends in the vessels that we have to prepare. The upper Light is in a state of absolute rest, which means that the wholeness exists from the start. However, by our deficiencies, by our exertion, we spur this wholeness to leave the source and to be revealed 620 times more than the form of the spark in which it hides.

All the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) is the lowest, minimal level, Nefesh de Nefesh, which exists before we begin to demand it. Through our demand, by the deficiency in the vessels that we have expanded, we turn this Light into NRNHY de NRNHY. So, everything depends on the extent to which we have prepared our deficiencies.

Blowing the Shofar symbolizes Rosh Hashanah (the New Year). This means raising the beauty (Shufra) of bestowal, love, and connection of the Creator’s attributes. This makes it a reason for a holiday: Our ability to raise ourselves and to prefer the attribute of bestowal, instead of the attribute of receiving.

Thus, we prepare the right vessel inside us and begin the new year, the new phase, the new level. This is a law for Israel, which means for those who want to ascend Yashar El (straight to the Creator) according to the three lines.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/19/12, Writings of Rabash

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From Baal HaSulam’s letter (No. 52): Call upon Him while He is near. Know that the fact that you are calling upon the Creator means that He is near. It means that now you have an opportunity; if you pay attention, you will feel that the Creator is near you, and this is the sign of the Creator’s nearness.

If a desire emerges in a person, it means that the Creator passed it to him. Desires can be felt as gratitude, requests, complaints, or dissatisfactions. Whatever a person feels, it always comes from the Creator. One has to realize that he is not generating his desires on his own. The words that a person uses to address the Creator internally in his heart are also sent to him by the Creator. One never performs any independent actions. The Light elicits desires and fully defines their reaction towards It.

One thinks that the Creator answers one’s prayers; however, it’s only a reaction of the Light to a newly made desire with which one works in order to trigger the Light’s reaction. So, it goes step by step according to the plan of creation; it’s a process that we all have to go through.

The only thing that a person has to do on top of everything that happens to him is to realize and admit that he has been involved in the Creator’s work, in a process that the Light performs on him and on his vessel/desire. A person’s role in the process is to understand that it’s the Creator who makes those actions upon him. Man has to accept everything that is going on with him, reconcile with it, and start wishing to be involved in the process to the extent that he prepares for everything that will happen to him next. Then, it will mean that he is in cohesion with the Creator.
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From a Lesson on 8/23/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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There is an awakening from Above and an awakening from below. Everyone can be awakened from below in any state. For example, on Friday afternoon I can be in a state of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and two hours later in Pesach (Passover), or just in an ordinary weekday. This is what we call the spiritual levels and here everything depends on a person.

In addition, there are phenomena that are part of the general order when there is an illumination from Above that comes in order to arrange the worlds. This is an awakening from Above that influences everyone.

The difference between the general and the particular form is in the intensity of the awakening. If a person operates on his own, he corrects himself and eventually reaches his individual end of correction, by leaving the general “stony heart” uncorrected. On the other hand, the general corrections are much wider and more intensive; it’s a totally different thing. This is also the difference between an individual and a group, since it’s in a group that we discover the upper force and all the individual levels are transcended in the relations with the friends.

In the article “The Discernment of a Wife and Sons in the Torah,” in The Rungs of the Ladder, Rabash says: Good days implies the ascents of the worlds, as each one rises a level, and rises a bit above the state it is in. This means that everyone who is part of the worlds rises together with the worlds. However, whoever is not on the ladder of the spiritual levels climbs them, since they require self-annulment. If you can annul yourself, then everything that happens in the worlds will happen with you and by your self-annulment you are included in the spiritual processes.

Rabash continues: And this is the time when everyone checks the cause for which he takes upon himself the yoke of Heaven. Why should I annul myself in order to ascend with the worlds? What will I gain from that? If I had already known the answer I may have not ascended. What do I actually get? Love of others? Concern for others? General connection? Do I really need all this?

A person should check whether it’s worthwhile to pay for this by such great efforts and exertion, giving up all his previous life and annulling himself. Malchut annuls itself before Bina, which means that the desire to receive is annulled before the desire to bestow.

This question is also relevant today, before Rosh Hashanah, (the New Year). Usually people wish one another a good year. So how do I imagine what a good year is? This is exactly what I have to check. A year is a change, the next level, an ascent. What changes would I want in the new year? A raise in my salary? Or something else?

A person should check for what he should annul himself. Time after time we discover to what extent we can bear self-annulment in order to reach the level of others, and to serve others devotedly. Before you attribute nice words to the Creator and praise Him, you should relate to all of humanity. The basic condition is: from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator. Otherwise nothing works; first you have to prepare the vessels, and your vessels are humanity. Then the Creator is revealed to you there, according to your equivalence to Him. When you treat people correctly, He reveals His attitude to you. This is where you will meet in mutual vessels.

Question: Does this mean that I have to wish humanity a good year?

Answer: Myself, “I want a good year and it will be good if I adhere to the Good and the Benevolent.” How can I adhere to Him? I can do this in my attitude to everyone, by wishing them the best. Then the Creator will help me with that and there I will meet Him, which means the attribute of bestowal. No matter what I think, this is the Creator, I will dwell only in the attribute of bestowal and receive only the one force of love, and this is called “correction.”

Question: What is self-annulment?

Answer: Now you have desires, intentions, and different inclinations and you annul them in order to adhere to the Creator, Who is absolute love. You can’t be totally in bestowal if you don’t annul yourself in some sense.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/12, Customs of Rosh Hashanah

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