The Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam (Rungs of the Ladder) (1987/88), Article 27, “What is, The Creator will not Tolerate the Proud, in the Work”: … Hence, when one prays, he acts as a “representative of the collective” because he is praying for the entire assembly of Israel, of which he is a part, and for this reason one offers a special prayer, namely requesting the Creator to give him help from above, in order to know his true deficiency, and precisely according to this, one prays for help.

Often, we stand on the path of the correction of the soul, not knowing what to do. Something happens to us, but what it is, is unclear. For example, we do not understand how to address the wide audience, how to take care of it.

From time from time, it will appear more distinct. We do not know what exactly to ask, what exactly we lack. This problem occurs constantly and we must get used to it.

In general, our Reshimot aimed at the purpose of creation, albeit broken, are directed toward correction. And it would seem once this Reshimo has been manifested in me, what more is there? It remains only to awaken, ask for the desire, and receive the Light that Reforms.

However, it is difficult to discern exactly what I am missing. Therefore, a person raises the “prayer before the prayer,” and this request is not verified yet, as much as our work with the masses is not verified. In this case, it is important to establish the primary connection, like an annoying child who in principle does not need anything but wants attention. Something similar happens between adults; it is a matter of communication or its renewal.

It is customary to behave with the Creator in the same way. Honestly, it is not important what question I ask Him. The very address helps me take the right direction. I want connection. I want His attention, I ask Him to look at me, and only then do I raise the true request.

The initial prayer does not even have to come from the heart. Let’s say that I open a prayer book, and reading the text, I tune in a bit to the desired wave. Then, the true desire is revealed to me from Above.

Why is this desire considered true if I have not experienced it before? It is because the Reshimot that remained after the breaking of the soul are revealed to me.

Thus, writes Rabash, the prayer that a man raises for what seems missing to him is just a wonderful means, due to which the Creator sends him from Above the answer for the knowledge of what he really lacks. This is what a person really asks the Creator about.

This happens because it is very difficult for us to find and extract the true Reshimot remaining from the breaking of the soul. They appear as a sequence on the path from here to the end of correction, and the main thing is to ask, to demand, so that the correct desire is revealed to me.

It is said about this, “Let them understand what they say; answer what they ask.” In other words, put the right prayer into their mouths.

Thus, the true prayer is revealed from Above. When a person comes to this in his mind and heart, when he merges with this desire, then he reaches this miraculous means, the prayer that precedes the prayer. He prays from the bottom of his heart, not yet knowing what he will ask later.

This state is called a “messenger of society.” A person prays for the whole community of Israel, in which he is included.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/14

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Question: How is it possible not to depart from an intention for a single moment and do everything for the sake of the Creator?

Answer: For this, you must be in full and absolute adherence with the friends so that, among you, the feeling called the Creator is revealed.

The Creator is your inner feeling, Bore (Bo Re), meaning come and see with your inner vision. Reach such a state, feel it, and remain within it. This is called adherence with the Creator.

However, this is attained only with a shared, collective Kli, in other words, in your right connection with the friends, with mutual wholeness, building a mosaic such that all of its borders merge into the creation of only a single desire.

This happens under the influence of the Light. From our side, only effort is required, half of the coin (the Shekel), and the second half, which is the realization of this effort, comes from Above.

Speaking about the Creator (about the love of friends) and being with the Creator (realizing the characteristic of bestowal and love) are two different things.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/10/14, Lesson 2

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Question: In order to leave the ego, is it necessary to want this?

Answer: The person does not want to leave the ego! I can play all the time, deceiving myself that I want to leave the ego. But in fact, I don’t want that, and every time in the next stage, this will become clearer and clearer, until the Upper Light will change me.

Question: Through involvement with integral education, we see how we advance and grow together with the external public, and here the sharpness of the goal, the intention, becomes blurred. It follows that we still are continuing to develop egoistically.

Answer: Every moment you must check yourself: “What is happening with me? What am I doing?” You need to watch all of your physical actions, every word!

This is constant internal work, “What motivates me? What for? What kind of conclusions must I draw from this? What kind of result will this bring me, spiritual or material?” In the end, it could be that we are slowing down our actions, but they will be more correct.

Question: What could the criteria for this truth be? Indeed, each one of us is found in his own truth, in scrutiny.

Answer: It is necessary to scrutinize the truth all the time. It is necessary to advance! In the end nothing just disappears, for all of the efforts will be gathered together.

So, it is not necessary to be clever. In other words, it is not necessary to draw conclusions on the basis of what you feel now, how you think. There could only be risk in this.

The main thing is to invest effort. If you cannot do this internally, then invest external effort. In the end, it will create a new level of consciousness.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/10/14, Lesson 2

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The dependence of the upper Partzuf within the lower Partzuf is worse than slavery. There is dependence through the force of evil, alien power. But there can also be slavery through the good life force, when the upper loves the lower.

And then it transmits to the lower because of its love, and does everything that the lower requests, of course, only if it is for the good of the lower. It will always be waiting in order to know how it can help the lower. This is slavery, as if, in an inverted form.

The upper cannot cause any damage to the lower. But until we begin to request, to raise MAN (Mayin Nukvin – female waters), to raise the upper AHP (Awzen Hotem, Peh),  the upper will not raise its AHP. It will only wait.

This is called, the Shechina’s sorrow, Malchut of Atzilut greatly longs to raise its AHP and waits for our prayer. But by itself it is not able to raise it, but only according to a request, according to the awakening by the lower ones, the sparks GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim) that are in the worlds of Beria, Yetzira, Assiya awaken the AHP of Atzilut that fell into the worlds of Beria, Yetzira, Assiya.

The upper is with us in slavery, like a parent with his beloved children. Love captivates us as slaves, just like hatred. However, love makes a slave of the upper, one who loves, and hatred turns the lower into a slave, one who hates.

If the upper hates, then the lower becomes its slave, and if the upper loves, then it is in slavery.

Question: In which situations does the upper answer the prayer of the lower?

Answer: The upper answers the prayers of the lower on the condition that they are ready to annul themselves for the sake of connection and ask the upper for the strength to connect between themselves into one Partzuf. The upper realizes their connection and creates a common Partzuf within which the Light is revealed.

This means that in order to receive help from the upper you need to want to connect with others in the common Partzuf, not your individual one but the one that belongs to everyone, which is called Malchut. This is called the prayer of many.
[136914]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah lesson 6/8/14

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Question: What determines our ability to absorb the deficiencies and the pain of the public and raise this prayer to the upper?

Answer: Through this work you have to identify the pain of the concealment of the Creator behind the pain of the lower, of the people. The only thing missing in this world is the power of love and bestowal, which means the revelation of the Creator.

All of the public’s corporeal deficiencies have to be processed and turned into a desire for the revelation of the Creator to the created beings, to the revelation of the force of bestowal. Thus you raise your fallen AHP (vessels of reception) from the lower level, which means from the public, when you are I impressed by their suffering. But when you raise it to your level, you process their MAN (their prayer and demand) by your vessels of bestowal into the demand for the Upper Light, which is the only force that can works on  everything.

Then you turn to the AHP of the upper with a different request. People want cheaper food, cheaper housing, etc, while you demand the Light that Reforms, the Light of love and bestowal. This is your work, the work of the priests. You receive their corporeal demands when they all cry out like babies: “Give me, give me!” but you process their deficiency into the right deficiency of the upper level, which is why you are in the middle.

The role of the one in the middle is challenging. You are like a mother who hears her baby crying and who needs to understand exactly what he needs. She processes his cries into the right need. This is the challenging work of the middle level. On the one hand, you are made of the Creator, and on the other hand, you are made of the public by being between them. This is the role of the priests, the ministers of the Creator.
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From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/08/14

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Question: How do you ask the Elyon (upper) for what is truly useful to you?

Answer: Ask the Elyon to let you know what it wants. This is the most certain, the most useful: “Make His desire your desire.” (Avot 2:4). But to make your desire like His desire, you must know what His desire is. So ask about this!

Question: But that doesn’t work!

Answer: I don’t know if you asked. Maybe you received, but didn’t understand that this was the answer.

Question: How do we identify the AHP de Elyon (vessels of reception of the upper)?

Answer: We begin to recognize the AHP de Elyon to the degree that we connect between us with our GE (vessels of reception). Then He gradually begins to be discerned. The AHP de Elyon doesn’t exist without the GE de Tachton (vessels of bestowal of the lower one), meaning without our connection. Only through our connection do we reach the concept of “One,” and accordingly we can create a link with the Elyon.

The Ten Sefirot on a lower level become one Sefira on a higher level. We must connect these ten into one.

Question: How do we make our GE want to connect?

Answer: Dissemination is required because this is mutual work. If you do not receive stimulation, a demand from below, then even though you have a spark, you can never awaken a connection with the Elyon.

As long as a man is not married, he still has not left childhood, he lives with his mother for pleasure, passes the time at a bar with friends or at the soccer field. But if he marries and has a child, then he has commitments, concerns, problems, and demands.

So in the same way, if we don’t go out to the Tachtonim (lower ones), to the community, and take them with us, meaning if we don’t produce spiritual children that require us to grow, then we’ll never want it. This is the order of the levels; they are all in GE and the AHP and fall to a lower level.

So if you want to connect to the Elyon, you must awaken the Tachton. Only the Tachton will compel you to connect to the Elyon; that is how this works. So The Book of Zohar was not revealed until our days, and the wisdom of Kabbalah was concealed because the time had not yet arrived for the Tachtonim to be awakened.

The moment that the Tachtonim become ready to be awakened, to the degree that we work with and awaken them, to this degree, we are required to rise to the Elyon. Otherwise there won’t be any demand on every level, only the GE, the Kelim (vessels) of bestowal.
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From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/08/14

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When we go out to the public, we always need to keep a link with the Elyon (upper one) within us. Through detachment from the Elyon we cannot work with a lower level. Indeed we don’t come to people as performers or as agitators of the crowds, rather we are bringing them the higher power, a connection with the Creator.

So through connection with the friends we must attain contact with the Elyon. If we don’t have a connection like this, we cannot be considered a higher level in relation to the Tachtonim  (lower ones) and work with them.

If a girl takes care of her little brother, she doesn’t consider him as a lower level. They are on the same level as brother and sister. Whereas the mother who takes care of yhe baby is the upper one because she gave birth to him and she has the power. So we cannot go out and take care of the community without maintaining a permanent link with the Elyon.

I am only a point, the middle third of Tifferet (splendor). My entire upper half is with the Elyon; my entire lower half is with the Tachton (lower one). So I must be connected with the Elyon and the Tachton and work simultaneously with both.

When I work with the Tachtonim, the Elyon is within me, otherwise I can’t do anything. And when I turn to the Elyon, the Tachtonim are within me. Otherwise I don’t have anything with which to turn towards them. When a mother goes to the store to buy milk for her baby, it is as if she is carrying him with her.
[137014]
From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/08/14

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The only way to awaken the AHP (vessels of receiving) of the upper is by asking Him for the power of bestowal. Then the upper will raise His AHP and convey the Light of AB-SAG to you, which will correct your vessels so that by the corrected vessels, you will be able to bestow unto others.

How can you ask the upper for that? If you annul your vessels of receiving (your AHP) and want to connect with the vessels of bestowal (with GE), with others, it is the proof, the conclusion, which you bring to the upper and demand that He give it to you. I want to annul my AHP and I want to connect to everyone by my GE ( vessels of bestowal). Thus you influence the AHP of the upper and oblige Him to rise as much as necessary to fulfill your request.

If you manage to raise a certain part of the AHP of the upper, it means that you have raised a prayer, MAN (female waters). It is the same thing.

Question: What about all the demands, the requests, and the prayers that I have been raising for years?

Answer: I don’t know if you have raised even one prayer during this whole time. What you ask for has to be compatible with what the upper is ready to hear from you. You are asking for a needle to prick your eye or for things that can harm you and so the upper certainly doesn’t answer you.

You may cry and ask, but the upper will wait for you to grow wise. All the prayers are accepted Above and are added to the work, but it still doesn’t lead to the raising of the AHP of the upper, since it isn’t MAN yet.

You cry out, but the upper doesn’t answer. But still, He performs certain actions so that you will understand that it is impossible to ask this way and for Him to give you what you are asking for. It is just the way we behave with children. In our world, time brings about changes, while in the upper world, our actions actually determine time.

If your take the deficiencies of the public and ask the upper to fill them, you are performing actions of bestowal. You want what is good for them but not for yourself, and so you are treated differently. You become the upper’s partner in taking care of the lower, and thus rise to a different level. By that you resemble the Creator and this is why this work is so beneficial for our advancement.
[136934]
From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/08/14

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Question: When do we raise MAN, a prayer?

Answer: We raise MAN when we can give up our receiving Kelim (desires) and connect between us only with our Kelim of bestowal. But this doesn’t mean that we don’t take our receiving desires into account at all.

Suppose that I live in a palace and I have lots of cars and planes and you live in a regular apartment and you have one car, and he lives in a tent and only has a wagon and his horse died. So what would it mean for us to connect between us?

For this we must give up all of our property for each other, meaning that we gather everything that we have together and beyond this we connect through our GE in bestowal. Connection with the desires of bestowal (GE) also requires a relative nullification in the desires of receiving (AHP).

This doesn’t mean that one really has to give up all one’s property, but it is necessary to take into account nullifying your AHP, lowering its importance. Then the connection will be made on higher levels. This means that we cannot just connect with Nitzutzin (sparks); this will require us also to connect in the future with our AHP, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Last Generation.”
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From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/08/14

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Question: What do the four properties of mercy, charity, truth and peace mean in terms of our attitude to the group and to the world in general?

Answer: The Inner Light in the first nine Sefirot is called mercy. How can we visualize it? Our intentions to treat our neighbors humanely represent the first nine Sefirot.

When acting inside these properties, we become similar to the Creator in a certain way. Mercy is similar to bestowal, the quality of Bina. Hessed (the property of Abraham) is the first prerequisite to it.

Charity (alms) is Malchut. Let’s say, our will to receive is more or less ready to adhere to bestowal. To the degree our will to receive (Malchut) supports the first nine Sefirot and is ready to accept their illumination, it obtains the alms.

Our will to receive just cannot achieve anything on its own. As a result of buying the first nine Sefirot and influencing them, it receives the “backlight.” Malchut obtains the first nine Sefirot from her neighbors. Each one of us has egoism of his or her own; we understand what others want and we use their desires. We fill their desires with the help of our own egoism.

Let’s say, I am Malchut; your desires are my first nine Sefirot. I work with them and fulfill them. What I fill them with is called mercy.  By allowing me to act in this way, my Malchut receives illumination. This “backlight” is called charity.

Truth means that after completing any action, we clearly understand that our work is just a deception and that there is no truth in it whatsoever. We keep recognizing this fact over and over again. In other words, truth always unveils the general Light called the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif) to the souls.

Eventually, the general light should become a part of the first nine Sefirot and Malchut. It shows the true state we are in and the extent to which we have to be corrected. When the truth illuminates, I feel very bad, even though it doesn’t shine in its final, eternal stage, but is only a bit higher than my current level as the Surrounding Light that I have to pull inside myself.

It illuminates the darkness of my corrupt desires. This explains why the truth is so tough for us in this material world. Nobody wants to admit or hear it.

Peace that shows us that we are not able of doing anything at all shows up last. We are trying to achieve completely unreal things! All our actions (charity and mercy that we exercise with others and ourselves) are nice and wonderful, but they do not allow us to merge with the Creator. They cause no peace! Only disagreements!

So, truth and peace bring us to an understanding that all we can do is shout. There is no alternative since we are asking for something that is beyond our nature. We don’t know what that is, but we have no other options except this plea. This is how we are correct ourselves.

It’s very important to keep in mind that all these things imply interactions between us and from these actions we reveal the spiritual vessel. the Higher world, a new reality. Now physicists acknowledge that other dimensions and cosmoses, “included and linked universes” in which we dwell in a different form exist and depend solely on the levels of the human cognition.

We explore cognitive modifications and strive to learn to reveal a new type of cognition. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is about. This process is not connected with our corporeal body whatsoever, nor is it linked to the inanimate, vegetative, or animate levels.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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