Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 71: And then, each and every one of us will be rewarded with intensifying his own internality, meaning the Israel within us, which is the needs of the soul over our own externality, which is the nations of the world within us, that is, the needs of the body.

That force will come to the whole of Israel, until the nations of the world within us recognize and acknowledge the merit of the great sages of Israel over them, and will listen to them and obey them.

Also, the internality of the nations of the world, the righteous of the nations of the world, will overpower and submit their externality, which are the destructors.

And the internality of the world, too, which are Israel, shall rise in all their merit and virtue over the externality of the world, which are the nations.

Then, all the nations of the world will recognize and acknowledge Israel’s merit over them.

From here it follows that everyone who yearns to discover the Creator and is called the internality of the world, Yashar-El (straight to the Creator), must know that even through his work within the group, he influences the external desires. If he goes out to the general public, then he discovers and receives an even greater imperative to connect with the inner part.

So even though it seems to us that our going out is required in order to connect the external public to us, essentially this is designed to strengthen the inner connection and unity. In this way, we attract more Light, which through the inner part of the group reaches the external public. But in fact we did it in order to connect with the Light. Here all the time is this mutual work.

It is said that “Someone who saves one soul of Israel is as if he saves the entire world,” since through the shattering, mutual integration of all in all is maintained, and in every person among the seven billion there is his own part and parts of all seven billion.

The truth is that this is not seven billion but many more, for this is about the integration of all the generations, all the incarnations of the souls who already finished their correction and those who have not yet begun their correction, of everyone totally. The mutual integration works above time, because this is talking about the structure of the soul.

So the person must say that the world was created for him, and he should be concerned about correction in this form. And this correction cannot be individual, rather it must be related to all according to the structure of the soul. So every moment one must act exactly according to this principle: “What am I thinking about, what is it that I yearn for? Is my yearning spiritual or completely egoistic if I don’t take into account the integral picture of the entire world?”

Here the work of scrutiny is very important, that in principle, the entire world is found in each one of us, and each one, in order to correct himself, must take into account the entire world. It is necessary for you to pay attention that the awakening that is given to you is not for yourself but in order to submerge yourself in the world, in all the others.

Through your doing the work with your influence on the entire world, in that, you aspire to bring the whole world to correction and to discover the Creator within it; you prepare your individual vessel for giving contentment to the Creator.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We would like to make a radical change in our lives. Today we live under incessant pressure and the glittering colors in our lives fade rapidly. It doesn’t matter what we succeed in getting; the inner emptiness in all this is impossible to fill with pleasures and the ways of attaining them.

In this pursuit we always wind up losing. Work and various tasks take up just about all of our time, so almost nothing is left for time at home, for ourselves, and for the family. We are thirsty for a new life where we wake up in the morning with a smile on our faces, happiness in our hearts, and with a feeling that everyone is ready to support us and we support all of them.

The next revolution will take place specifically in the relationships between us. It will be internal and will reach to the foundations of the comprehension of our world. Life will go on at different frequencies, saturated with warmth, unity, love, mutual connection and happiness. This is a revolution in the comprehension of the world, in consciousness. It is an inner revolution in each one of us that will change the relationship of the person to himself, to others, to society and  to life in general from start to finish.

We want to learn how to become true revolutionaries and how to make real changes in our lives.

Question: Is this connected to the ideological platform of the Jewish people? Indeed the value of love of others is already rooted in it – all the principles, which are highly relevant for the future of social transformation. Is there a connection between the ideology of the next revolution and the ideas that became the basis of the Jewish people?

Answer: Of course. All the previous revolutions took place on the physical plane. Their ideology was limited to the question of how to satisfy the person and how to build society in such a form that it would better serve the population. For all their ideological cleverness and in all the revolutions, the Jews almost never participated until the Russian revolution. But this was a deceptive revolution, such that even its organizers didn’t understand what they were doing.

In general, it is possible to say that from the time of Marx and onward a “Jewish ideology” began to appear in the world.

In fact, the sages of the Jewish people were also ideologues. The first who took this role upon himself was Abraham, and after him Moses, David, the prophets, and on to Rabbi Akiva, the last of the period of the Temple, when the people still existed according to its ideology. Yes, there were a few currents inside it that sometimes opposed each other, but all of this was in a framework of clarifications between these or other lines.

In the end of the matter, the goal was clearly to realize the principle, “And you shall love your friend as yourself.” The Jewish people began from this, Abraham based it on this principle, and the people lived according to this principle, more or less, until the destruction of the Temple that happened two thousand years ago.

In those times the Jews lived in mutual connection, and so they didn’t have kings in the conventional sense, nor dictators and tyrants. Among the Jews, a king did not induce fear in his subjects because “in sum” he was a judge. In other words, he was also subordinate to the laws of nature and did not stand above them.

Everyone felt, understood, and learned this ideology, which was he message of general unity. The entire system of laws was based upon love of others, for which the Jewish people existed. As a result of this, it shaped a unique society characterized by a unique comprehension of reality. All of our origins are from here and the entire wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about this.

But after this, in the period of the destruction of the second Temple two thousand years ago, the people shook off its ideology and from then on, became more and more distant from it. In the beginning there were still some threads of connection, but they were weak and were disconnected with the decline of the generations.

If we were to ask people today, what is the ideology of the people of Israel, only isolated people would conduct the conversation in the right direction. Others, namely the religious sector, would just talk about the physical aspect, about the physical performance of some customs and no more than this. Secular people ideologically align themselves according to the western comprehension. In general, they copy it and try to be “like everyone else.” This is essentially what the founding fathers of the nation of Israel, Herzl, Ben-Gurion and so on wanted.

But on the other hand, they are probably not open to the wisdom of Kabbalah today, which is the legislation of the Jewish people that explains its true ideology. This talks about the fundamental principle of “And you shall love your friend as yourself.” The Jewish people must be built upon this, setting an example for the whole world and being a “light to the nations.”

In fact, these laws, with all of their ramifications, already exist and we don’t need to find anything new. The goal of the people is to realize them, to love others, and after that to teach others, to introduce love into the world, and this means to be a “light to the nations.”

The time has come for the Jewish people to return to its roots, to its inner essence and realize it. Without this, all the nations of the world are found in darkness and don’t know how to organize their lives. They lack that ideology, which is the basis and foundation upon which it is possible to be strong and stand against all the winds and all the disturbances.

So the Jewish people must rediscover its origins and understand them correctly, in the spirit of “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” and not in the framework of the formal implementation of the customs that depict them. Specifically ,the spirit and ideology, must be learned from the sources, and accordingly change society, the system of education, and show everyone that this is the true and correct basis of the whole world.

Question: You said that from the time of Marx and on, the “Jewish ideology” began to be revealed in the world. What does this mean?

Answer: Even the Baal Shem Tov began to disseminate among the people its original ideology. He traveled to various places in the world and spoke with people about love of others and about general connection. He did much in this area, and this was specifically the essence of his work. He didn’t record his own material, rather he transmitted it orally to his students who wrote books and later became acclaimed teachers who worked only in the Jewish environment.

The Baal Shem Tov molded this ideology among the people, and now what we provide to people passes to all of humanity. We don’t understand how this network of connection works, but if we thoroughly investigate every revolution, every social change, we find the “seed of Israel” there, acting as a leader. It is possible to discover this in religions and faiths and among all kinds of revolutions everywhere. And if in particular circumstances we don’t see this, we eventually discover this, when threads that are not seen at the moment are discovered.

We will yet discover that people without a spark, without a “part of the divine from above,” without a connection to the spiritual world and the characteristic of bestowal, are simply not ready to advance humanity. It is specifically the characteristic of bestowal that causes development

Question: What is the characteristic of bestowal?

Answer: According to our nature we are “beasts,” we are an egoistic desire that wants to make life as good and comfortable as possible.

It is possible to see this in everyone, since the prehistoric period. If there were no mixture with those who have a “point in the heart,” a unique source, the beginning of this force that motivates development, bestowal and closeness to others, people would continue to be like their ancestors. They would have no push towards personal development.

Ancient Greece, China, India, America before Columbus, Africa, Siberia – billions of people lived according to their traditions because there were no Jews living among them, who were the people that came out of Babylon because of their attraction to development. And development means attainment of the characteristic of bestowal, which is connection with others.

Europe discovered the Indians in their most entrenched condition. Africa, from which the human species began, remained the same Africa for thousands of years. China advanced somewhat, but this was only because Jews were found there for many generations.

This is a law of nature: If people don’t have an inner drive towards development, towards bestowal, towards connection, they don’t need industry, commerce, or connection with other regions. The person remains in his own place and it is good for him. There are people who have lived this way in the past and are still living this way, even in developed countries.

On the other hand, a person with a “point in the heart” wants to rise above this world, without not knowing where, and this impulse prompts him to develop.

Question: What is this “point in the heart?”

Answer: This is an attraction to the power of bestowal, a desire to go outside of oneself, to change oneself and change the world. Every person like this is essentially a revolutionary. It was specifically these people that Abraham gathered in Babylon and led them in a new way.

Question: Abraham began with a perceptual revolution in the consciousness of the person, in his relationship to life, to the higher power, to others. For us Abraham symbolizes kindness and love. Does this say that going outside of myself towards social changes is a revolutionary impulse?

Answer: Yes, this is the revolution. Indeed there can be only one true revolution – when you bring a new force into the world, the power of bestowal that rises above the power of reception.

On the other hand, if you just change and vary the power of reception, this doesn’t give anything. Yes, we are involved with something, but essentially, we are “trading a cow for a donkey.” When slavery was overthrown and there was a little more freedom in the other social structures, there was no true, qualitative change from this.

So Abraham was the first true revolutionary who brought the power of bestowal and kindness into the world. With this he founded the ideology of his group which later became the nation of Israel.

As was said before, at the beginning of all real changes in human history, even if we don’t see this now, there were Jews. Specifically they laid the foundations of Christianity and Islam. During the period of the persecution of Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages, they “stood at the helm.”

Question: Do you mean that this revolutionary attraction to change is built within Jews, and without them no social change will happen?

Answer: Without a doubt. Indeed, changes of this type require the force of a new, unique, and powerful key. This also causes the development of religions.

Moreover, the ideology of the people of Israel is the opposite of all the rest of the ideologies. And therefore the whole world still rises up against the Jews. Antisemitism is a common characteristic of all peoples, and it is impossible to explain it only according to religious reasons. On the contrary, it is derived from broader categories and not anchored in religion at all. This is a unique phenomenon that is caused by all the other ideologies being egoistic and directed towards the earthly plane, while the Jewish ideology is aimed in the opposite direction, apparently against them.

From here is derived a difference that cannot be resolved. Jews are recognized even in the most remote places in the world. And this is not according to external appearance. They are identified according to their fundamental, “supernatural” aspiration, their aspiration to rise above nature.

Question: Come; let’s look now from the past to the future, what is expected for the Jewish people? Will primordial love be at the head of the revolution in education, in relationships between people?

Answer: Absolutely, yes. Only we are ready for this. First of all, we must learn this ourselves and after that give those principles to others.

After all, the others are not ready for anything and so they still blame the Jews for all of their troubles. They accuse because the Jews haven’t begun to correct the world, and with this they cause a deterioration of conditions. And because there is no other method in this world, everyone will decide that it is necessary to kill and to destroy the Jews.

In any case, the correction depends upon us.

Question: Does this mean that the next revolution must begin in Israel?

Answer: Solely and only in Israel. And this must occur as quickly as possible. Otherwise the Jews will cause the world to continue to deteriorate, and this, on one hand, will threaten the Jews themselves, and on the other hand, will endanger all of humanity.

Question: You are talking about correction of the world; but each one understands this according to his perception and gives his own interpretation. What does this mean to you, in the context of the revolution in education and in systems of relationships?

Answer: According to Jewish law this is very simple. Our world is egoistic and demands correction from the Jews, which means to transform egoism into altruism in order to move along the tracks of unity, equality and mutual love. This is the Jewish ideology.

Today we are standing before the necessity for this revolution, for real change. Until now the struggle was only about the place of the master where the slaves served. All of the vicissitudes of this struggle could not be called a “revolution” in consciousness, where instead of the egoistic desire to enjoy we give higher importance to another desire , which is the desire to bestow.  With this we replace the power of Pharaoh with the power of the Creator. This is a real revolution.

On the other hand, the replacement of rulers is not called a revolution, since indeed, the principle of exploitation of the other remains in place.

Question: In truth, throughout all of human history the revolutions proclaimed freedom, equality, and justice. We always wanted this, we toppled the government, changed the rulers, but in the end, even today humanity demands the same ideals, yet without success. How will the next revolution give us freedom?

Answer: Everything depends on what freedom is from our perspective. We are talking about freedom from hatred, rejection and the desire to exploit others. In brief, this is freedom from our present nature, from the Pharaoh that dominates us.

Each one of us must rise above himself and then no desire to dominate others will remain. Indeed we want the power of bestowal be instilled in us.

Question: This means that the eternal paradigm of all revolutions will be changed – the conflict between the exploiters and the exploited, between the rulers and the ruled?

Answer: A society which will instill oneness between us will rule us. Nobody will be above, but will exist only in oneness in which we discover the fundamental power of nature. This is truly the higher power  that is found above us and is the higher characteristic of bestowal and love.

The people of Israel must aspire to this. With this it will realize its true constitution and ideology, and will ultimately reach correction of the self and correction of the whole world.

Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah has been revealed in our day and teaches the Jewish people its ideology and its ways of realization in life.

Question: Revolution is a change in consciousness. How do you see the turning point that will cause the next revolution?

Answer: This depends upon the recognition of evil, how much the person can endure the recognition that his ego is what is destroying everything, including himself, his family, his children, society, the nation, the ecology and the world in which he lives. This depends on whether the person will or will not want to hear about this and that he must be involved in self-education.

The ego that dominates us must pass through a complete order of troubles or “blows” which the story of the “Exodus from Egypt” talks about. These blows were required so that we would gather the power to flee. Was the “seven years of famine” enough for us? And how are the ten “plagues” expressed today in the ego such that we won’t want to identify with it, to experience its pain? The “plagues” will divide between us and the ego, and we will ultimately want to depart from this characteristic.

This is the problem. It could be that we still need great suffering, terrible troubles and world wars. Or we will promote a remedy for the blows  and explain to people what is happening so that humanity will begin to understand what is happening to us. So we will go, as it is called, “with the Light of the face” of the Creator, and we will quickly reach recognition of evil. We will discover where it comes from and what the remedy is.

Question: How is the Creator connected to revolution?

Answer: The Creator is the general power that dwells in all of nature, the key power that connects nature into an integral system. This power connects all the parts, but we are like a cancerous tumor within the system that eats itself and the entire system, not allowing it to be integral or correctly connected in harmony with mutual wholeness of all the parts.

And within this cancerous tumor that is humanity, its inner part is the people of Israel. This inner part possesses the knowledge about its role, about the manner to heal itself and the entire collective body and all of nature. Yet it is not doing this. It is found in the center of things, yet doesn’t want to wake up.

So imagine to yourself, who is the first who must be awakened through troubles, and what troubles will fall upon him if he will not realize his mission in time?

We must now begin publicity to the people of Israel that explains their constitution, ideology and the ways of realizing it.

Question: Can you summarize briefly how the people of Israel are connected to the future revolution?

Answer: The future revolution will be implemented by means of the ideology of the Jewish people. It will dominate the whole world, meaning that they will teach it everywhere. A small group that went out from Babylon and learned these laws must now, first and foremost, realize this for itself, and after that teach the “Babylonians” who were scattered throughout the world, which is now all seven billion people. They are already waiting for this, since they are suffering and have no chance of finding a solution by themselves.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/3/2014

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The Four Exiles of the Jewish People

The Jewish people passed through four exiles, which formulate the gradual development of the desire to receive, of all of the matter of creation: Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey. All natural phenomena develop according to this formula.

The first exile was not felt as an exile, meaning that the people didn’t feel that they were slaves during the period of slavery. Since the desire to receive was very small and if the person were to satisfy it somehow, he would feel good. So everyone agrees with that.

The more that the desire to receive continued to develop, it needed more and more independence, more independent involvement in life, in development and in communication, until nature, according to its formula, transformed the entire world into an absolutely integral connection. And we humans are not yet in an integral connection, we are late with respect to the conditions of nature that wants to develop us to a state of general connection.

An infant who is born does not communicate with its environment and has no group, societal, or human tendencies, but the more that he matures, he begins to feel that he needs a family and a society and cannot live without them. So we also need to reach a state of connection between us. So the beginning of our advancement is the gradual understanding that we are within our original egoistic nature, in exile from our higher state, from a higher level.

In nature there are four stages of development: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. We are now gradually passing from the animate state to the speaking state. This is the next level that we have not yet reached. In the meantime, human development is still on the animate level because it is concerned only with existence, nourishment, raising children, and so forth. And all of this is done in a very unattractive way because the person is not an animal that develops instinctively according to the balanced laws of nature.

The four stages of ascent on the steps of the ladder are compulsory, and the transition from the previous state to the next state is implemented according to ten Sefirot, which we don’t feel or according to the four letters of the name of the Creator, Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey, that include all of nature. So the passage between the levels and between each level must go through four levels of development (no matter how small they may be).

In nature there exist four states of advancement. The first state is departure from the state of the animate level to the level of man, in which there is already advancement towards solidarity, connection, the characteristic of bestowal and love, but in the meantime in an embryonic state.

This happened in the days of Babylon, when Abraham took 5,000 people out of there and organized a group from them that could be called the first communistic or Kabbalistic group. This was a spiritual brotherhood in which everyone participated according to the principle of equality and concern not for themselves but only for one another. Abraham united all of those who were interested in living according to this principle and took everyone who was ready to go towards this ideal out of Babylon.

Three stages of development of the Kabbalistic society are symbolically called the Forefathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or the right line, left line, and middle line. Continued progress was contingent upon additional development that was made possible only on condition of the discovery of a greater ego, its correction and rising above it.

So Abraham asked himself how it would be possible to reach the characteristic of absolute bestowal and love. He investigated and discovered that this requires constant development of the ego, upon which his small nation rose.

So the next stage in development required the growth of the ego in the group of Abraham, the discovery of the second level of the ego (the first was discovered in Babylon) and rising above it.

But this is not just rising above it; rather, it is passing through a process of the development of the ego where everyone receives understanding, everyone delves into it and begins to work with it. Then various egoistic impulses begin to awaken and arise in people that push, influence, and dominate them. But people trying to rise above their ego act according to the method of Abraham based upon mutual concern, where possible, and not for themselves.

The Torah talks about the states through which the people of Israel passed in Egypt. In the beginning they fought among themselves and together against their ego, and after that against Pharaoh, who symbolized their new ego that was always discovered in the relationships between them. The Jewish people were in Egypt for 210 years (a symbolic period). Just as there are four phases of the Direct Light, which are the source of the four-letter name of the Creator, the formula that includes four components that develop gradually, so also Egyptians, or the ego that was revealed then in the people, included four levels. So the time of the Egyptian exile is called 400 years. Yet, in fact, it continued for only 210 years, and the remaining 190 years were divided among the rest of the exiles.

The names in the Torah: “Egypt,” “Mount Sinai,” “The Sinai Desert,” and “The Land of Israel” symbolize the inner states in the people. This is not talking about geography but about inner changes that happen within a person. When the ego grew, it was more and more difficult for people to remain on the level of love, brotherhood, “and you shall love your friend as yourself”; they fell and were elevated, fell and rose in the connection between them, until they understood that they had to be disengaged from the ego that grew to immense dimensions. In the Torah this is described as the ten plagues of Egypt.

This means that the ego expanded so much that it was impossible to remain in it and work with it. It was necessary to begin to discover it in us gradually, to go out from it, and so to rise. But it was impossible to rise above this mountain all at once, but only gradually, discovering the ego only to the degree that it was possible to use it, to rise above it, and thus transcend it.

Even though negative characteristics are constantly discovered in a person, he is not afraid of them because he understands that thanks to them he will rise, if he uses them correctly, for this is his spiritual ascent.

This is exactly how the group of Abraham disengaged from its ego, called Egypt, and began to work on itself. When they rose above the ego, they began to organize attitudes of mutual help between them, at the least they tried not to harm each other, for before then they were ready to annihilate each other so great was the hatred that was discovered between them. The symbol of this hatred is Mount Sinai. It is possible to call the states through which the people of Israel passed the Sinai desert because the work for the sake of bestowal doesn’t bring any fulfillment to the ego, for they don’t feel any taste in it. That is how they worked on themselves for forty years until they rose to the level of Bina. Forty years in the desert they searched incessantly for the characteristic of Bina (bestowal) within the ego that was continuously rising.

After the people passed through all the levels, and as a result of this, all of the vessels that they took with them from Egypt (the gold and silver vessels and the jewelry), meaning all of the egoistic characteristics in them, died (the generation of those who left Egypt died), they got the opportunity to reach the next level called the “Land of Israel,” a desire that is directed only towards bestowal and love. Land (Eretz) is desire (Ratzon), and Israel (Yashar-El – straight to the Creator). The Creator is the power of bestowal and love which is the essential power in nature and all the rest are its parts. The program according to which this power acts is intended to transform the person to independence where he wants to be only in a state of bestowal and love.

The group of people who entered the land of Israel fought for it because it was inhabited by “other peoples,” meaning various disturbances that were discovered in their character above which they had to ascend. This is called the “conquest of the land,” the conquest of the land of Israel. So gradually they reached a state in which from all the desires that were discovered among them, they created one shared vessel of mutual bestowal and love in which they discovered the higher power, the Creator, and rose to His level. This is the perfected state. But the moment that they attained this state, an even greater collective ego began to be discovered in them on the next level. This is because after leaving Babylon they took the entire enormous ego with them that didn’t really belong to them (to the characteristic of bestowal and love), but to all of humanity.

As Rambam writes, when the 5000 people who went out of Babylon reached the land of Israel they were already three million people, at the time when there were millions of people in the whole world. This is talking about a situation that existed 2700 years ago.

But this small nation built a so-called Temple, meaning that they built a condition in which the Creator, the power of bestowal and love, was revealed among them, and they existed in this form and were found in spirituality.

After that a new, more internal level was created that hadn’t belonged to them, the stony heart, which at that moment they could not correct. This level belonged to the whole world. The people of Israel didn’t succeed in holding onto the position of the level of bestowal and love, it began to fall apart and fell from its high level of mutual connection, from the level of equivalence of form with the Creator to a condition of separation that is called the second exile, the Exile of Persia and Midian. This is not mentioned in the Torah but in the Prophets, the Book of Esther and additional sources.

The people of Israel were in this exile for 70 years. 7 or 4 and 400 or 70 are symbolic units of ascent or descent that are expressed in differences in time. Everything operates according to the original formula, for the creation of the desire (the ego) was according to the four phases of the Direct Light, under the influence of the Upper Light (the characteristic of bestowal and love). From here this formula spread over everything.

A descent to such a low level was dangerous for the people of Israel in that they were liable to forget completely on what level it had been found previously and what happened to it. There was danger that they would become like the rest of the peoples, but at the same time a spontaneous awakening happened. On the world map appeared the evil leader Haman, who like Pharaoh, awakened in them the awareness of their situation. They did very great work among them, were forced to rise above the level of Haman, to kill him (their ego), and in this way they rose to the next level called the level of the second Temple.

This level was lower than the level of the first Temple because the bestowal and love here was not as on the level of the first Temple. If the first Temple existed on the level of “and you shall love your friend as yourself,” so the second Temple descended to the level of, “Don’t do to your friend what is hateful to you.” Specifically it is the connection between people that is called the Temple and not the stone walls that were erected in Jerusalem.

The people of Israel continued to work on themselves, they tried to do everything possible to remain on at least that level, but the ego grew because the ego of humanity had not been corrected.

Meanwhile, humanity developed egoistically and this influenced the Jewish people so that they didn’t succeed in holding on to the level of mutual help; they went through internal struggles between them that were materialized in our world as wars against the Romans and the Greeks.

That is how the fall of the people happened under the influence of the inner egoistic desires, the “Greeks” and the “Romans.” The desires of the “Greeks” received ideological expression, and the desires of the “Romans” were realized in action. This is speaking only about the inner states of the group of Abraham.

In the end, the nation fell from the level of the second Temple, “Don’t do to your friend what is hateful to you,” into absolute disengagement, from the level of cooperation to the level of regular people. This means that the people didn’t fall into the captivity of the Egyptians or the Babylonians but into the captivity of the wider public who were completely disengaged from all spiritual levels.

The difficult times of the third exile of the Jewish people had come, which was characterized by absolute disengagement from the spiritual state. But the disengagement from the spiritual state was gradual, continuing for many years and ending in the 16^th century, in the days of the Ari or a little before him. A method for departure from spiritual exile called Kabbalah began to develop then. It also existed before this, for the students of Abraham clarified, completed, and documented it. They were great ideologues. But in spite of the many books that were called the sacred books of the Jews, a precise method for the world was lacking that would teach a person how to depart from the state of the ego, for at that time, the ego had not yet been discovered; it began to be discovered only from the time of the Ari.

The Ari was a great Kabbalist who laid the foundations for the method of correction. After him, Kabbalists appeared like the Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid of Mezritch, and many other spiritual leaders who described the same method in various styles and worked with people on various theoretical and practical levels.

But the development of this method, that began in the 15^th to 16^th centuries and continued until our times, stopped in our days. The last of the great spiritual teachers was my teacher, Rabash. He and his father Baal HaSulam founded and developed the actual method of correction. And we follow them with the help of the method that they developed; we hope to leave the last spiritual exile in which all of humanity is found.

This is a unique exile, for the descendants of the group of Abraham were dispersed through all of humanity; they lost all of the experience that they had gathered morally, spiritually, and ideologically.

Part of this group changed the entire method, meaning that they took upon themselves the mechanical practice without thinking that they had to integrate with its interior through their wholehearted desire. This is the essential problem in leaving the last exile.

We are now in a state of clarification of all the conditions in order to rise to the last level of development, because after leaving Babylon, Egypt, and Persia, the time has arrived for going out of the state of the present global crisis into which humanity has been thrown.

Today, modern global plagues are beginning to be discovered in humanity. They have not been completely revealed yet, but we have already begun to gradually recognize them and feel their approach. The threat of a tsunami is approaching, natural disasters, wars, and disruptions of order. People are beginning to understand that through stupid, barbaric, and egoistic actions, they have opened a terrible Pandora’s Box.

So we must activate this method. I am happy that I am part of this activity and can explain, tell, and reveal to people the situation in which we are found, what kind of a world we are living in, what we can expect, what possibilities are available to us, and what we must do.

I am very happy that we are found in a situation in which we can actually discover the method about ourselves, like in a laboratory, and after that to bring it to the whole world and to actively show how we work with it. It is up to us to be an example for all of humanity and to return it to the state of the higher power, meaning the characteristic of bestowal and love, in the best and most rapid way possible.
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And the fire on the altar shall burn on it; it shall not go out. The Cohen shall kindle wood upon it every morning, and upon it, he shall arrange the burnt offering and cause the fats of the peace offerings to [go up in] smoke upon it. (The Torah, “Leviticus” “Tzav,” 6:5)

In fact, there was no need for firewood to keep the fire on the altar for all resided Heavenly Fire. In the First Temple its shape resembled a lion, in the Second Temple – the dog.” (Moshe Weisman, “The Midrash Says,” Chapter “Tzav.”)

Spiritual fire needs no fuel since it burns on its own; nothing can influence it, neither rain, nor wind.

A lion signifies the complete purificantion of all ten Sefirot; a dog stands for a partial correction of the first three Sefirot, Galgalta ve Eynaim.

When we don’t use AHP, it remains outside, and then it is called “the evil dogs” that bark and don’t allow people to do their work correctly. At the same time, they urge us to start doing at least something.

Without the negative, there is no positive. This explains why at the time of the Second Temple not all desires were fit to be used for purification purposes; rather, only the easiest parts. This situation promoted an aspiration to return to the level of the First Temple.

Since there is a general plan of development in accordance to which both Temples had to be destructed, nothing could be achieved. At this time, we are facing the construction of the Third Temple.

The Third Temple is the correction of the entire humanity when all egoism is brought to the altar, burned completely, and united around the Tabernacle of the Ark of the Covenant.

There are several circles in achieving the unity: the most central one—Cohens, a little less central and more external – Levites, then the people of Israel, and then the nations of the world. This division is defined not by somebody’s ethnic background, but by the strength of one’s aspiration to the center of unity after the final shattering and mixing of the common soul took place. Those with the strongest aspiration to unity are called “Cohens” (Priests), those whose desire to unite is a little weaker are called “Levites,” etc.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/6/13

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Question: Why does it say that all of Israel are responsible for one another?

Answer: If I am the only person in the world who determines the state of our general vessel, then of course everything depends on me.

Question: However, I am not alone in this game. The others also influence it, and there is the society!

Answer: The society also depends on me, everything depends on me. All the seven billion people are in a fixed state and I am the only one who is changing and who determines everything. I am the only one responsible for those who can act freely, but all the others do nothing.

I speak with the Creator and am responsible for them before Him, for better and for worse! If He has any complaints with them, he should talk to me. This is called mutual guarantee.

Mutual guarantee means that I am responsible for everyone. There is nothing I can ask them to do. I am responsible for everything that they do.

Start thinking from this point and don’t think that it is imaginary. It is really so. You actually are responsible for everyone.

When you listen to the news and see what happens on the streets, or when you hear the complaints of the friends who cannot reach a spiritual level to correct themselves, to connect among them, then you should know that, from this moment onward, everything is in your hands. You are responsible for everything.

You create and make everything that is good and everything that is bad, both in corporeal life and in spiritual life. The others are not responsible for what they do. They are passive participants. They don’t determine anything. You are the only who determines how the Creator will relate to them. They encounter hurricanes, tsunamis, wars, and disasters, and who is to blame? You!

All of Israel are responsible for one another, but everyone is responsible for his own attributes and for what happens to the world with regard to it. Everyone is responsible for the wellbeing of the society and the wellbeing of the world.

Don’t say that you depend on others. You must reach the state in which you determine that the entire world is in a state of absolute goodness.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/14,Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Can we understand what we read before we transcend the Machsom (barrier)? It seems that in this corporeal life everything is constantly changing and things turn out to be the opposite of the opposite of the opposite.

Answer: It seems that we advance too slowly, but according to my experience, I can say that if Kabbalists had not determined and arranged the order of the spiritual work for us, we wouldn’t be able to advance so quickly and to attain vessels of bestowal, the soul, in our lifetime. We don’t understand how different the spiritual state is from the corporeal state. It is the opposite nature. But we think that it is simply an addition to what we already have in this life.

We have to work according to Baal HaSulam and Rabash’s method and study the Sulam Commentary to The Book of Zohar, the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah and TES, but this must be accompanied by dissemination, because this provides us with the spiritual vessel. We are actually not a vessel; we are the point of Bina, the nation of Israel that is only a conductor, an adaptor, a pipe. If this pipe isn’t connected to anything, then it doesn’t work; it is out of order and becomes one block of stone.

In spirituality there is no door that opens to let you into spirituality. On the contrary, there is a wall in front of you and the moment you are ready, you see an opening in the wall and you enter. It makes no difference where you stand at that moment.

You don’t need to worry about finding the opening. Don’t look for the opening, but seek how you can open the wall. We have to worry about building a vessel, a connection, and then you will be able to go through quickly.

Kabbalists have left us enough material so that we will build it by ourselves. Now we are starting the new phase of dissemination. It is only thanks to the revelation and the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah that we can come out of this world and be awarded with real spiritual work and the correction of the world.

But Kabbalists wrote very little about dissemination; they tell us only about the general principles. We have to search for the way to work with the public and how to actually do it by ourselves. Why didn’t Kabbalists tell us about everything specifically and why didn’t they prepare a manual for dissemination so that we wouldn’t make any mistakes?

There is no such manual. I constantly wait, like a hungry man, for the next phase to be revealed according to the work we do. If we want to advance, we have to discover the next phases by ourselves. Together we write the method for the correction of the world in our days.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/14, Shamati #8 “What Is the Difference Between a Shade of Kedusha and a Shade of Sitra Achra”

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The entire great Kli of the soul was shattered into fragments, and among the fragments are pure Kelim (vessels) that are close to the characteristics of the upper Light. It is very easy for them to be awakened, so when Abraham called to them, they were immediately awakened, got up, and followed him, leaving Babylon.

This is Israel, which only seems to be the most egoistic part in the world because it has already gone through the path of spiritual development. But essentially, this is a very refined Kli (vessel) and belongs to the Kelim of Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE).

Every remaining part of the collective Kli belongs to the nations of the world, and specifically through their correction, we attain Ohr Hochma (Light of Wisdom). They are the goal of creation, whereas Israel acts only as a help in this realization, in the role of an adaptor, a conduit.

Question: It follows that the Creator chose these refined Kelim as sacrifices?

Answer: On the one hand, we are sacrifices, but on the other hand, Israel is a unique nation that serves all the others. Everything depends on how you accept this honored mission: Do you think and receive your service to the Creator and to the world as a respectable merit or as a punishment?

You came into this world to serve all the nations of the world and through this to serve the Creator. These are the refined Kelim that are awakened first and have the readiness to connect. They have an initial preparation for correction because they have the “merit of the forefathers,” meaning that they have already passed through spiritual states that were latent in them in a concealed form and they can be awakened again.

All this is done to be a light to the nations, so that in them the thought of creation will be realized. The goal is to reach all the heaviest Kelim. They are called “the chosen people” because they have a unique role.

Israel is in the service of the Creator and the creatures, and we are in the middle as a conduit, as a pipe. And it is essential to accept this mission when it is necessary, otherwise you will always be obligated from Above. There is no reason to argue with the program of creation; the more rapidly that Israel understands what must be done, it will be to our benefit and the benefit of others and there will be less suffering.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Why did the Creator choose one nation for a special mission, and is this choice related to religion?

Answer: The true religion is to love your friend as thyself. This is the rule that Abraham publicized in ancient Babylon, and he gathered the people around him according to this rule into a group called Israel, which means Yashar El (straight to the Creator).

Only some of the people of Babylon followed Abraham; those who had greater vessels of bestowal. All the others had vessels of receiving. This was intentional so that they would have a chance to help one another.

First the vessels of bestowal are corrected so that they can ascend to a spiritual level. When Abraham collected them, they had nothing. So first they had to go through the hardening of the heart called Egypt, that is, they don’t ascend but rather descend.

After the exodus from Babylon, they go down to Egypt, then come out of Egypt and ascend to the receiving of the Torah. They then cross the desert, build the first Temple, and fall. They ascend again to the height of the second Temple and go through another descent to the corporeal level. This is in order to be mutually incorporated with the nations of the world and get ready for the end of the correction of the world.

The whole process, starting with the exodus from Babylon and everything that follows, is in order to reach greater connection. This is what Abraham taught. The moment they started to connect, they felt that they were in a greater and greater descent.

The Light that shone on them made it possible for them to descend more and more deeply into their ego and to see that they were far from bestowal, from the Light. Therefore, they felt the gap, the delta between the state of the exile in Egypt and the level they were on when they left Babylon, and they would have remained on that level if it weren’t for the Light. This is the gap between the Light and our ego.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Opinion (Mark Schaller, Professor of Psychology – University of British Columbia): “It’s an unconscious strategy for avoiding a wide range of potential infections, since we have no way of detecting germs themselves. But since the consequences of missing a sign of disease are serious, possibly even fatal, and the array of symptoms wide, our behavioral immune system (as Schaller has dubbed this suite of responses) tends towards over-sensitivity—which is why we might be more averse to practically anyone who strikes us as anomalous. That includes a man in a wheelchair who poses no disease threat at all. Recent scholarship bears this out; for example, research published in Evolution and Human Behavior revealed that disease-avoidant psychological processes play a driving role in prejudices against people who are obese or disabled.

“’Protective prejudice’ may also fuel an instinctive distrust of strangers. It makes sense—in terms of strict self-preservation—to be wary around those whose behavior and dress suggest they’re outsiders.

“Even if we try to hide our reactions, our instinctive concerns about those who look unusual are biases we impart to others through everyday interactions. Left unchecked, such discomfort can grow powerful enough to predispose whole societies towards xenophobia, and along with it, violence against those seen as outsiders. Yet by understanding the underpinnings of protective prejudice, we can learn to combat it rather than overextend it, on both a personal and a global scale.”

My Comment: Everything can be overcome, except anti-Semitism, because it stems from the opposition of the forces to receive and bestow. Carriers of these forces are opposite in nature. By their nature, Jews belong to the force of bestowal, and other nations belong to the force of receiving.

This is the reason for hatred, rejection, and the feeling of strangeness, which cannot be overcome or corrected. Correction is the opposite action that will help the Jews realize their root of bestowal (love of others), and the nations of the world accept the method from them and also reach this quality. Only in this case, will everyone adhere to the Creator.
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Opinion (Asaf Golan): “Careful analysis of the negotiation process leads to the conclusion that the Palestinians are not willing to end the conflict with Israel because it would force the Palestinian leadership to take responsibility for the Arab citizens, instead of inciting against the ‘Zionist entity.’

“No representative of the Palestinian administration would ever take such responsibility. All the Palestinian officials used the peace process solely to increase their bank accounts.

“The fact is that the population, which is called ‘Palestinians’ is an array of various urban clans which have nothing in common with each other, who even refuse to enter into kinship: Hebron residents do not marry with those who live in the vicinity, residents of East Jerusalem do not marry those who live in Nablus. So do the other Palestinian clans.

“In the case of signing a treaty with Israel, all these decorations, called the ‘Palestinian people,’ will be dismantled. The residents of the autonomy will enter into internecine conflicts. This is what the leaders of the autonomy are afraid of.

“In addition, an agreement with the Jewish state in the Land of Israel would be a de facto recognition that the Palestinian narrative is artificial, and its sole purpose is a war of Arab countries with the Jews under the banner of the struggle against the Zionist colonial grip.

“This is the reason that the Palestinians in a completely infantile way deny any sign of authentic Jewish history in the Land of Israel, for example, the Jerusalem Temple or the kingdom of Israel. In their view, any archaeological find discovered in Israel is part of the Palestinian heritage and the Palestinians allegedly are descendants of the ancient Canaanites and Philistines who lived on this land.

“Israel must investigate the origin of the Arab population in terms of its Jewish roots. After all, according to studies, 60-70% of the Arab population have Jewish roots. A dialogue with these groups should be established for the purpose of their conversion into Judaism. By the way, the representatives of the Hasmonean dynasty acted in this way in relation to the Edomites , and there are no obstacles to such practices today with respect to all the Palestinians who are true descendants of the Jews.”

My Comment: What will help is only the people performing their mission, their purpose, which is to show the nations of the world the ascent to the next degree of human development  through similarity to the Creator in the property of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” We need to focus all our energy and attention precisely on this.
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