Question: If love towards friends means to prefer his desire more than mine, what desires are we talking about?

Answer: As Baal HaSulam writes in his article, “The Last Generation,” one needs to be concerned that each person in the world will have his necessities for normal material existence met. And if the friend himself will relate to it like that, he will not need any extras.

And all the rest needs to be directed toward the support of the friend on the spiritual path. So what does it mean that I love the friend? How can I fulfill his desires? If I worried about food for him and anything he needs for his existence, in the other things, I support him spiritually: showing him my awakening and transferring to him the feeling of the greatness of the Creator and the importance on the spiritual path that awakens me and fulfills me in force. I act towards him as toward my child, which I want to attract to a beneficial action, and therefore I show him my interest, the desire, my appreciation. Exactly in the same way, I must show an example to the friend. It means, that I supply him with spiritual nourishment besides the corporeal nourishment, it means, that I love him.

Precisely this attitude, we must develop in our group. To give a friend the feeling of the greatness of the goal and my personal example of the loyalty to it, this is called to love the friend. And by that I prefer his desire above my desire. I take into consideration what he needs, the necessary corporeal means, and all the rest is toward his spiritual development. All this I must supply to him.

I must worry that he will arrange his life in a normal form, to help him find a job, etc. And from a spiritual aspect, I must encourage him with the greatness of the goal. And by that, I prefer his desire above my desire, I am worried for his development, and not mine. If I worry for a friend, this is the best thing for my development. But all of that I do in order to reach the love of God.

One must connect to a whole one: Israel, Oraita, and Kedosh Berach Hu (Israel, the Torah, and the Creator). Otherwise, it turns out that I simply love the friend in a natural egoistical love like for my child.

Precisely this form of work is called “the work of God.” If I relate to a friend in this way, through him I direct myself to the Creator. Love of others is necessary only in order to reach love of God. Through this man reveals the concealment that was made by the Creator, so we will practice in the love of others and reach the love of God.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can we build the correct intention with respect to the group? How is it expressed? How can one understand that he is in the correct intention?

Answer: The intention relative to the group should be very simple: I came to the group to get rid of my egoism, to rise above it, to adhere to the Creator, to reveal my next level, become a human being. This is how I should view the group and do everything that leads me to this goal.

We need to remember this and to adhere to this rule. Moreover, I do not look at the faces, characters, anything; I do not care; they can say whatever they want. First of all, I want to eliminate my “I,” I just want to go along with them. And then, we will move on.

I can actively engage in the work of the group above the fact that I have annulled myself only after I have succeeded in elevating them. Usually people start to enforce everything with their egoism, begin to change everything by force, as it is customary in our world. It cannot happen in the group.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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The Writings of Rabash, “Maoz Tzur Yeshuati (The Rock of My Salvation),” Article 13: … but what can a person do when he wants to praise (the Creator) and his heart is sealed, and he feels that he is full of deficiencies, and that he cannot open his mouth and say a song of praise. The advice is to work above reason, and to say that everything is “concealed Hassadim,” which means that he should say that everything is Hesed, but that it is concealed from him, because he isn’t qualified to see the good and the delight that the Creator has prepared for His created beings.

Question: How can one reach the state of praising the Creator?

Answer: Suppose you feel bad, problems follow you, you have unpleasant thoughts, unfulfilled desires are torturing you, and you are upset and mad at everyone around you. Now you have to rise to the level of there is none else besides Him and that the Creator is good and benevolent. You do that by building the corresponding calculation, you make many efforts, search incessantly, and gradually you rise above reason.

At the same time, it’s important to clarify why you are doing that: Is it because you are confused? Or is it because you have an unpleasant feeling? Could it be that it’s because of the fear of punishment? Or is it because you want to bring the Creator contentment?

Eventually you see that everything stems from Him, that He is good and benevolent as He raises you from the previous level to a higher level.

This is how you advance: You thank the Creator for what He has done, and of course, you immediately receive new problems and descents. Time after time you rise and descend, increasingly faster than you can calculate and arrange, in order to stabilize your attitude to what is going on.

Still this process continues. First you operate out of fear, since you are afraid of different troubles and don’t want to feel unpleasantness. But gradually you balance yourself with the Creator and begin to think about bestowal a little. Then He immediately throws you off track and now you try to work together with Him. Next time you already want Him to feel good, and the time after that you really operate for the Creator, by wanting to justify Him, not because you want to save yourself or others from suffering.

Thus you advance, by clinging more tightly to the intention of in order to bestow each time. You constantly understand and assess the situation, but the assessment is always according to one criterion: “To what extent do I think of the Creator?”
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What should a person do if he is in a state of joy too much?

Answer: There cannot be “too much” since we have to be in Ein Sof (Infinity) in this state. It cannot be a question of time since everything disappears, both time and distance.

Question: What can we do to not simply remain in this state, but to make the best use of it? I understand that I have to turn to the Creator, but it takes so long to receive an answer.

Answer: The fact is that many have similar complaints: “There is no answer!”

The spiritual world is, on one hand, integral, analog, and, on the other hand, it is impulse. This means that there is a kind of dualism. Is an electron a particle or a wave? Is the Light a particle or a wave or both? We don’t understand that at the moment. Physicists say this, but they don’t feel it; this just comes from experimental studies.

On the one hand, our senses are seemingly constant, flowing in a current, and not in pulses. On the other hand, they pulse, that is, in ten Sefirot or five phases. If you come one millimeter before the first phase, you feel as if you haven’t even started the work and still have no contact with it.

If there has to be a thousand volts, then there has to be a thousand volts. Suppose you have a thousand rubles. You pay, and you cross the border, like when boarding a plane. However, if there is one penny missing, no matter what you say, you will not be allowed to pass.

These are the attributes of the upper world. You must have a certain potential of desire in your question so that you will be rewarded with an answer. However, in the meantime, you don’t reveal it. You are in a sea of Light, but, if your vessel cannot contain the Light (which means that you don’t reach it by your sufferings, both in quality and in quantity, according to the intensity of the question until you reach a certain volume), then you will not feel the answer. It is because your question isn’t ripe yet, and you see it from your unripe state.

You are saying, “I am already somewhere in this Light, so what’s next?” If you arrived in the last full feeling of your current state, then, after that, you would feel the next level in the form of a new desire. So, go on feeling, but try to understand more for what and how. The clarification of this state is lacking.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 3

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Question: How do we work in the group to focus our intention and to achieve the right desire to ascend?

Answer: We have to imagine the ascent from our world to the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) as something that is attainable now, at this very moment. We constantly play it in the group and in the workshops. We constantly imagine it as the desirable state. I want to be constantly included in it; this is my goal in every movement I make. Only if we imagine this goal do we summon upon ourselves the good and beneficial influence of the Surrounding Light from it.

It is a physical law. To the extent that I yearn, I summon the force of the Light upon myself, and it operates and influences me and corrects me by drawing me to a new state.

Question: So does this means that we have to see our friends as great, even if I don’t agree with them and don’t feel that they really are so?

Answer: Of course! What does agreeing or not agreeing have to do with it? Who am I? I am a small, worthless, uneducated person, who has no attainment of the spiritual world. I criticize my friends because I feel comfortable with that, out of my egoistic attributes. It seems to me that they are all wrong and that they are all bad. Of course, I mustn’t accept what I see and hear as the way they really are.

On the contrary, I have to understand that my ego is between me and my group. I see them through the ego and receive everything from them through it.

This means that the questions of who they are and what I receive from them have no solution until I annul my ego.

But when I annul it, I will be able to see what is before me. Then I will see that it is the Creator! Not the friends, not the group, but the Creator! I will see a totally perfect state.

Now, when I am detached from them, inside my ego, when I am in a kind of an egoistic cocoon, how can I judge anyone?
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

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Abraham’s group exited Babylon and became a nation. It reached its private end of correction at the level of the First Temple, the Light of Mochin de Haya. Immediately following that a descent occurred. In other words, a chain of exiles followed.

During the Babylonian exile, the people of Israel still remained at a spiritual level that was higher than at the time of the Egyptian exodus. Only after the Second Temple was destroyed, did it fall completely. First the bestowing vessels (the spiritual part of the nation) were shattered, then the receiving vessels collapsed, resulting in the desire becoming subordinate to the egoistic intention. In the first stage, the altruistic desire only changed its vector, but it didn’t break completely. In the second stage, the broken receiving vessels were included into the desire that belonged to the nations of the world, fully applying the pressure of exile on Israel, which now is coming to an end. Compared to the situation today, all previous exiles were just “temporary zigzags downward” and only at the last stage, the people of Israel were mixed with other nations and joined them in their genuine opposition to the Creator.

So, if all the other exiles were measured at the prior stages, the last one plunged Israel to the very bottom, depriving Israel of all spiritual Light. In Babylon, they still were a nation, although they were fairly disconnected. When Haman gave them the impetus to unite, Mordecai only needed the Light of Hassadim to bring the people together. But today, that would not be sufficient, since the shattering has penetrated much deeper and now requires a more powerful correction. At the time of Mordecai, Jews were detached in their bestowing Kelim, but they didn’t hate each other, and and it was very easy to reconnect.

In Shamati , Article 144,  Baal HaSulam writes: Haman said that in his view, we will succeed in destroying the Jews…, meaning that he can separate them even more and bring them to an even bigger egoistic desire that would lead their bestowing vessels to shattering and would force them to hate each other even more, thus making them subordinate to the receiving vessels. …because they are separated from one another; hence, our force against them will certainly prevail, as it causes separation between man and God. And the Creator will not help them anyway, since they are separated from Him. The law states: The Light cannot impact desires that are in the state of detachment.

This is why Mordecai went to correct that flaw, as it says: “the Jews gathered,” etc., “to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life.” This means that they had saved themselves by uniting. There is nothing but the force of unity and the power of separation. The latter is Haman, Pharaoh, etc., and the former is the righteous in every generation.

Hence, “exile” and “redemption” are measured by the level of unity or the level of separation. One should not imagine some periods of time, distances, or nations… The only thing that matters is unity: When the nation was more united, it was the level of the First Temple; when the unity weakened, it was the Second Temple; when the unity is even less than that, it is exile. Once again, our states depend on the degree of our connection.

The evil forces aimed towards disintegration elicit an egoistic desire in the people of Israel. Behind these forces, there is the Creator, because there is none else besides Him. He instigates these states to make people comprehend the heaviness of the burden they are carrying and make them go through multiple hardships in order to force them to wake up and rise to unity out of their helplessness and weakness.

So, the real exile happens when all bestowing vessels work for Pharaoh. They build the prosperous cities of Pithom and Ramses; they aspire to bestowal, but the results of their work are applied towards egoistic desires. It’s bestowing for the sake of receiving; it fills the “treasury” of egoism.

Even those who disagree can’t rid themselves of slavery, since egoistic profits keep them in their selfish shell and make them bestow for the sake of fulfilling their receiving vessels. Our desires keep growing, but they permanently stay empty. We spin our wheels until we begin screaming to the Creator; in other words, until the global crisis hits us. This is exactly what is happening now. Let us hope that we will be able to wake up the “Egyptians” and entice them to act.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/27/12, “Exile and Redemption”

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Question: What does it mean to “correct past mistakes and transgressions” and become a “complete righteous?”

Answer: We reform desires that have gone through the breaking. A person comes face to face with his evil inclination, and he perceives it as his own; that is, he takes the blame for it. He doesn’t identify himself with the point in the heart and cannot observe his desire from aside as the material given to him for correction. So far, he doesn’t cling to the Creator, who created this evil inclination, but identifies with the evil inclination itself. The Light has not clarified his desire yet and hasn’t severed it from the person to move him to the Creator’s side. So, one thinks that it is he who is bad and not the evil inclination.

The Light has not sufficiently reformed him, hasn’t illuminated his desires, so a person doesn’t see the source of all evil and then of all good. In other words, he doesn’t consider himself subject to a singular power beyond which there is nothing else, and he doesn’t realize that he is always ruled by one source, which determines how bad the desires are and how to correct them.

He doesn’t understand yet that he must ask to have selfish desires revealed and how to correct them. After all, everything is done by the Light that Reforms, which reveals the left line first. To the extent that one strives to reach total correction, bestowal, according to how much effort he exerts, the Light comes and reveals his evil inclination to him.

He has to pray for the Creator to show him what he is lacking for perfection. The prayer is to reveal the desire to be human, to be perfect, faithful to the Creator, and to bestow. Revealing what I need for perfection is to see the deficiencies that I have to correct in order to achieve the good.

But I don’t ask for my deficiencies to be revealed; a person is unable to do so. Due to our nature, we can only ask for good conditions.

Our work is to come to this understanding that all desires, corrected and uncorrected, are in the Creator’s hands. And man is that small clever child who knows how to ask the Creator correctly. And then this whole monster will become revealed: the evil inclination, egoism, Pharaoh, which later on will change and get transformed into a good inclination, by way of restriction, the screen, and the Reflected Light.

All of this descends from above, as it is written: “I created the evil inclination and the Torah to correct it since the Light in it reforms.” So where does a person come in, if at all, since the Creator said that everything comes from Him? What a person needs is awareness, a prayer for a good state.

But he doesn’t want to ask for what is good; after all, his nature is the evil inclination. So he has to use the power of the group that will infuse him with these good values although he may not necessarily sense them. It looks as if they are playing a game; they are staging a good state and through this influence each other. Thus, a person achieves a greater and greater desire until the Light has finally reformed him.

All of this is arranged so as not to rob a person of his freewill. He has to be aware that he is merely acting, while, in reality, has no desire for any of it, and that he opposes the true, perfect state. And the closer he moves to the right state, the greater freewill he is given, the more of the sinner in him is revealed, and greater doubts in needing this path unfold in him. He has to discern these things, matching himself against the other side, comparing good and evil.

Hence, our entire work rests on our freedom of choice, and all we have to do is to offer ourselves to the influence of the group that we have built according to our understanding of the spiritual world. We should play so as to have the group affect everyone as if all of this is true. And then, everyone will come to the true prayer.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Malchut is called a prayer because it is a deficiency that one cannot get along without. After the first three phases of Direct Light, comes the fourth, final stage, Malchut, deficiency. If a man doesn’t have a deficiency, this is a sign that he has no Malchut, meaning he doesn’t have the beginning of the degree of Adam, human; he doesn’t have anything to start his spiritual structure with.

All the spiritual work is in order to develop our deficiency (Hissaron), our Malchut, so it becomes Malchut Shamaim “(Kingdom of Heaven),” meaning Malchut that is connected with heaven totally exists under the Providence of Bina. This is to say, to make your desire exactly as the desire of the Creator.

In this goal, a man always is conducting a dialog: He raises his deficiency, checks it, and requests to reveal what his real desire is, what does he want at this current moment and in general.  He always turns to the Creator with this deficiency in order to organize it, to fit it to the fulfillment, to the reaction from above, and to keep a constant connection with the Creator.

That is why it says: “Let it be that he will pray all day,” because this is creating our mutual connection with the Creator.  We only need to constantly direct our Malchut, our heart, to the new deficiency. And if we do not do that, then nature, as always, will push us to correction together with all the creatures by the general Light, the general pressure, that if we feel as growing tension and as the global crisis.

But if a man wants to be in personal connection with the Creator, he must always turn to Him with the correct deficiency, to reformat it, to organize it and to be constantly concerned that this deficiency would fit the stages of the progress.

It is impossible to finish this work and to relax, because by that a man feels that his heart connects more and more strongly with the Creator, in a direct and shortest connection. The levels of this connection determine the levels of the worlds. Man feels that he is shortening more and more the way to and understands better and better the Creator. And the group is the mechanism that connects them together; this is the collection of the foreign deficiencies. Because it guarantees that a person will relate correctly to the Creator.

And this is how he progresses; each new fulfillment better organizes his desire. He wants precisely a fulfillment like this because to bring contentment to the Creator is possible by bringing Him the whole deficiency for fulfillment.
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Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/12

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Question: Will everyone have to exert himself on the spiritual path?

Answer: Everyone. After all, it is even impossible to go through the path of suffering without exertion, without making efforts, without building a vessel, without the necessary investment in developing my deficiency and my yearning. How can I feel spirituality without all this? How can I feel the spiritual world? How can I discover the Creator if I am not adapted to Him, if I don’t acquire an equivalence of form with Him?

I must attain this, but the question is by what means? Through more or less troubles and sufferings, or by yearning that I develop in me. It too brings about blows, but in an opposite form.

One way or another, I have to feel and to go through a certain amount of pain and suffering, detachment, urge, and yearning. There is a desire and there is a yearning. So the yearning is my exertion. I am given the desire, but I have to add acceleration to it. And how? By sufferings or with the help of the group, this is already my business.

We can advance under the pressure of very unpleasant things: wars, disasters, bankruptcies, plagues, etc. And it is also possible to advance differently, under the influence of the right environment. Still the obstacles remain and I still have to discover the thickness of my desire, but I sweeten the path by my yearning for the Creator, by needing Him—pangs of love instead of pangs of hate.

Eventually, no one can escape God’s work, but it is possible to advance under the blows, under the load of “Pharaoh,” and it is possible to yearn for the goal by the help of the environment. According to the absolute value, it is the same thing, but according to the content, these are two totally different things.
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From the 4^th part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/12, “Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Before a person approaches the study, he must form a certain intention within him, so that all of his study will be directed to attracting the upper light to himself, so it will bring him to ascend above his nature.

How can he see this? Precisely according to this, that everyday ups and downs, and serious, qualitative and quantitative internal changes will occur in him. He will feel how much he is being shaken all the time, to what extent he is in states of eye-opening, understanding, ascent, and then suddenly the opposite, in states of descent, bleakness, lack of strength, depression; and then again ascent, and again everything illuminates and everything is comprehensible and joyful. And then again the opposite.

But, as far as a person goes through such states, he will become used to them more and more. He will begin to understand that all these states have to take place, that they are natural and desirable. He will begin to disengage from them. On the one hand, these states will occur in him. But, together with this, he will follow them by some point outside and will understand that now he is in one state, later in a different state and so on. Meaning, he won’t completely be immersed in depression or joy like a small child. No, he as an adult towards this small child will be able to understand and grasp his state and draw some conclusions from it.

It’s the same in spiritual development. A person begins to understand clearly in what states he is in, what for, why, and how. He is already not submissive to changes in mood, understanding and recognition.

But sometimes he absolutely doesn’t grasp anything. Generally, he goes through all sorts of states! A certain period of time is required in order to get used to them.

Besides this, we must begin to go through these states from the “side”: I go through them, and I should go through more and at a higher frequency, but I will nevertheless go forward. Meaning, they should not knock us off course. In any case, I come to the lessons, study with the friends in the group, engage in anything that is just possible, it doesn’t matter that together with this I don’t have any feelings towards them: not love, not hatred, nothing, in any case I do it! In each degree, mechanical or more emotional, positive or negative, I must sign a precise agreement with myself: that I in any case am going forward, crawling forward. It doesn’t matter how, but I am inclined only forward.

If a person studies like this, then after a certain period, he really begins to feel all sorts of changes within him, the ascents and descents, suddenly begin to change at an astonishing speed, literally every minute, and then every second. He is going through some inexhaustible storm that carries him. This storm is going in its path; it processes inside all sorts of Reshimot (spiritual genes), informational records, and at the same time the person is in the group, in the study, and doesn’t pay attention to this.

Therefore, the main thing in our advancement is to get ourselves used to this, so that no emotional, intellectual, and psychological interferences will divert us from the goal. They will certainly toss us from side to side, but nevertheless will not remove us from the goal. And here the relationship with the group is very important, everything that Rabash writes about the connection with the group.
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From a Virtual Lesson 11/25/12

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