A very strong congress has just ended; we feel tired, indifferent, sleepy, as if a heavy cloud embraces us and converts us into pessimistic elderly people.

The Creator took our egoistic desire away, the fuel that pulled us ahead. Before, we were burning with desire; we strove to get spiritual rewards and were ready to fight to attain spirituality. Each one of us considered himself a hero, although we felt like “supermen” only because our egoism was quite “hot” and was pushing us towards new achievements.

The Creator wants to help us; thus, He takes our egoism away so that we replace it by another power. Now, instead of being pushed from behind, we get inspired by the greatness of the goal and are hauled forward by it.

Now, we really have an opportunity to move ahead, but instead we complain that we do not have any energy or desire any more. Do you remember how “hot” and huge your desire was? However, it was not yours; it was given to you from Above. You were simply pushed from Above, and as a result brought to the group of Kabbalists.

At this time, your desire disappeared and you think that it’s better to leave the group and drop Kabbalah since it doesn’t attract you any longer. Do you really think that if it doesn’t appeal to you any more, it means that there is something wrong with Kabbalah? Everybody judges to the extent of their own corruptness. It’s obvious that without motivation one cannot advance. Even machines cannot work without fuel.

One should turn to the group, the books, and the study; he should demand help from them! Plead to the Creator!

If you have no power for this kind of appeal, it means that you experience deficiency of the general force, mutual guarantee. If there are friends of yours who lost their “life-force,” you should at least cry for them; it’s as if you are at their funeral; mourn over the wonderful friends that you lost! Look at the heavy tombstones that lie on their chests, that is, the stony hearts that they cannot rid themselves of.

At some point they were shining with a desire, but now we can only cry for them. Soon, you yourself will descend into the same pit. However, if we are ready to help each other before it happens, we’ll be able to rise from any kind of downfall. Not only will we be able to overcome our indifference, we will cope with genuine hatred should it arise among us.

Only the power of the group can initiate a desire out of “thin air.” At this time, we don’t have this kind of desire, nor can it emerge from anywhere. However, we have to “ignite” it artificially, as if we are starting a new business and advertise our new goods. It should become our common spiritual business; as a result, it will trigger such a strong need in us that we will simply be “burning” with desire. Underneath this desire, there can be nothing at all!

People are waiting all night long at the doorsteps of the stores to buy a 5th generation iPhone. Learn how to advertise your “goods” by escalating artificial needs. After all, the goal that we pursue also seems “artificial” to our egoism.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: This convention seems to have opened a new door for us and everything that we do seems tasteless from here, as if we have lost all its previous juiciness.

Answer: So why haven’t you asked for it?! You are constantly saying: “We! We!” so why didn’t you all ask together?!

Question: I feel that this is a new state in which I still don’t know how to ask. It is as if we’ve touched something, but we haven’t processed it enough yet so that we can actually fulfill it.

Answer: You are not asked to put your request in nice elaborate words. A father understands a simple cry.

Question: So why haven’t we asked?

Answer: Because you cannot unite and support one another. There are still different calculations that control you: shame, lack of readiness; in short, there is no true decisiveness yet, when you simply break through without any calculations.

Question: Where does the shame that doesn’t let me break through come from? We speak so much about closeness and unity, but I know that there are still locks in my heart, limitations that dictate what is allowed and what is forbidden.

Answer: It is because the Creator is still far from you; at the moment you don’t feel that He is close. You have to try harder to imagine Him in the form of the unity of the group, which is actually what we have started this week. The “Creator” is the essence of the outcome of our unity. This is what we have to pray for and turn to.

In any case, we need an outcry, a prayer, a request that is free of any calculations. If you cannot reach that it means that you are still far from the Creator or that the Creator is far from you.

But all the complaints are also justified and helpful. The more you complain the better. They will lead to the right and accurate calculation.

I think that this time we’ve taken a big step forward. It isn’t just a step; we’ve actually stepped inside and delved into clarifications, opening our hearts wide, although we haven’t scraped off its peel with an “iron brush.” It is indeed a good clarification: We have begun to sense, to feel, where this unity actually is, how we discover the AHP of the upper, a higher level, how we identify it, how do we all adhere to it so that it will raise us, and what is the relationship we have with it.

We’ve been through many things that relate to connection and unity, and although they seem very sublime, distant, and abstract, they will gradually come together in our feeling. Then it will be easier for us to turn to them and to fulfill them.

I think that this convention is very deep and has brought us the deepest most intensive clarification. It is meant for people who are actually only two steps away from entering spirituality. I am very happy that thanks to the feeling in the group here and throughout the world I can speak in a way I never have before.

Question: What should the right request be?

Answer: “Open the gate for us!”

It is at the time you feel that all the roads are blocked, that all the gates are locked, that you cry out. This is the 50^th gate, the desirable state we spoke about and read so much about. Now you are feeling it in practice, and only the collective prayer is missing, the pressure, the persistence. Try, make an effort, it will come…

I am very happy about the states we have been through.
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From the Convention of Unity, Day Two 9/21/12, Lesson 4 

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Imagine that you come to the lesson and your arm hurts badly; you will think about the pain all the time, of course. It will interfere with your studying and will cause great discomfort; you won’t know how to get rid of this pain and you won’t be able to forget it.

The question is how should we feel the same pain for not having reached the end of correction yet, for not having reached our ultimate goal? I don’t want to wait a single day! If it is so important to me, I am burning with impatience, like a baby –I want it now and right away!

The problem is that I don’t want what I should want. Where can I get the right desire from? This is a reason for a prayer.

I see no rush to connect with the friends and to reach the love of others in order to reach the spiritual goal. These are problems on top of other problems that set many obstacles before me one after the other. If I really wanted to reach the goal, I would love the friends; after all, it is unattainable without them. But the point is that I don’t need this goal: Does anyone want to give? And so I don’t need the friends and I don’t want to pay for the goal by love of others. It all seems very distant, foggy and unrealistic. I sit in front of the book during the lesson thinking: “What am I doing here anyway?”

So we are given a tool called the Torah in which there is the force that brings us to the goal. For us this is the upper level from which the force called the Light comes and pulls us forward. This is what we have to think about during the lesson just as you think about the arm that hurts and which you want to heal.

It doesn’t matter what you are reading at the moment, you have to think about your “illness” and to dream about the healing. If you don’t have a deficiency for that, ask that it will be given to you, connect to the friends, check which desires they have.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The group is my Creator. If we are in a corrected connection, and I suddenly fall from this connection and am outside it and alone, then a difference is created, a gap (Δ) between myself and general unity. Thus, for me, this connection is the upper level, the Creator, my savior. Thus I turn to Him, pray, and ask that He take me back. I want to be integrated in Him, to adhere to Him.

The Kabbalists tell us that there was a descent of the worlds from the world of Ein Sof (infinity) until the level of this world, and now I need to gradually return through rising through the levels. But I don’t know anything about it. I only know one thing, that there is me and my upper. What is the upper? I don’t know either. For me It is limitless. I don’t understand or feel It. I only know that there is something higher above me.

I have one, unique way to imagine the upper to myself, and that is the form of the group. This is since it is a complete system in which everyone is connected together (Σ). It turns out that this is my upper level according to its properties and definition.

So you ask, “And where is the Creator, the upper force, the Light?” Indeed, within this system the Creator is revealed, the upper force. I feel Him there. This Light is discovered in our Kelim (desires) as impression in the attributes that they acquired.

When our desires begin to connect in all kinds of connections, impressions that we call Light will appear in them, but it’s not the Light itself, but some kind of vibrations in the soul that It invites. You measure these vibrations and determine them as the Light of Ruach. And other vibrations will already be the Light of Neshama or the Light of Haya.

I attain only myself, but from the actions of the Creator in me, I will know Him. What I feel within the connection, I give it a name the “Light’’ and ‘’upper world.’’ What I feel outside the connection is called “the lower world’’ and my ‘’I.’’

The group are not the faces I see in front of me, but its inner model, our connection, that exists invisible to my sight. There is a group that is in unity and in the state of Gmar Tikkun (the final correction) and there is the image that I see, human beings as such.

What I see depends on me. But actually, the group exists in a corrected form; I need to believe that in faith above reason. The Creator says: ‘’I brought you to a good place. You need to become adjusted to it, to connect to it, to bow your head before them. I brought you to such a place in which I will be revealed, if you buy it!”
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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It is very important to take part in the conventions and meetings that we hold since this attack really advances a person and allows him to get closer and to connect to others.

There are people who even find it very hard to sit among others and they count the hours until all this is finally over and they will be able to go home. But it is important to feel even such situations deeply, since it is a very good way to learn. We should only try not to get stuck in this state for a long time and to move forward as quickly as possible. Everything is determined according to how you subdue yourself before the environment.

We shouldn’t think that we are advancing only during these attacks when we are under the influence of the powerful environment, subduing ourselves before it, since we have no choice. It is possible to advance even faster during the usual daily lesson. In every lesson a very strong Light is revealed to us, even stronger than during the convention.

The whole point is that during the lesson we cannot hold on to the same sharpness of the senses and devotion in the same intensity. During the congresses the special actions, the special conditions, and the feeling of the attack, influence us. During the daily lesson it is a continuous war.

We have to build up power during the convention, the power we have attained during the attack, but later we have to fulfill it day by day and to understand that these are the true conditions of the war. During the lesson we are in a daily war, until we finally reach the true prayer.

I have to constantly examine myself and constantly keep the three conditions of the prayer. There is nothing but a prayer, a request, which includes the feeling of how great the Creator is, a self-check of whether I did everything possible, and of whether I am really devoted to the goal with all my soul and value it more than life itself. In order to do that I must constantly examine myself since everything that is connected is the essence of my attitude to the upper, to the higher level, to the unified system.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/23/12, Shamati #209

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, article 209: “Three Conditions in a Prayer”: There are three conditions in prayer:

1. Believing that He can save him although he has the worst conditions of all his contemporaries, still, “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short” from saving him? If not, then “the Landlord cannot save His vessels.”

2. He no longer has any counsel, he has already done all that he could, but saw no cure to his plight.

3. If He does not help him, he will be better off dead than alive.

These three conditions sum up many other conditions, which a person has to gather inside him in order to reach a true prayer, an outcry. The outcry is the desire in the heart. It is born the moment we reach a desire that is adapted to the revelation of the spiritual world, the revelation of the attribute of bestowal, the moment we are ready for it even though we are on this side of the Machsom (barrier), which means that we expect to get something from this discovery.

It isn’t a pure request yet and it cannot be pure since there is the shattering between the levels.

We always pray in Lo Lishma (not for Her name), for ourselves, and from that we reach Lishma (for Her name), bestowal. It says: “I have labored and I found.” But still, our desire has to be adapted to the level we are about to reach. It is impossible to rise to it without keeping the three conditions.

Suppose I kept two conditions and understand that I have done everything in my power, but there is no salvation. How can I determine that I have done everything in my power? Even if I suddenly decide that it is so, it is only for one brief moment and then the next moment I already begin to search for something else that I can do. After all, how can I be certain that I have tried everything?

So there is the third condition “better off dead than alive.” A person reaches absolute despair and cannot go on this way. Then the third condition seems to increase the second condition by bringing a person to such an extreme level that he cannot wait any longer to check and see what else he can do, but he cries out with a prayer.

If I don’t get what I want then I am better off dead than alive. Then the second condition helps me, since we operate in two systems: the mind and the heart. So I can always say in the mind that I didn’t do enough in the heart. Emotionally I can always admit that I haven’t attained in the mind the necessary examination and clarification of my feelings.

So eventually, all the conditions add up to these three conditions, which add up to one condition: one prayer, raising MAN.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/23/12, Shamati #209

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

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

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

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

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Question: How do I force the upper to awaken me?

Answer: The upper awakens us from the start. As it says “I am the first.” This first awakening is given to a person before he begins to yearn for spirituality. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had such thoughts from the start and it wouldn’t touch his heart.

Everything begins from an awakening from Above, called the “Reshimo” (reminiscence, information gene)—a reason, the influence of the friends, a desire that is suddenly evoked, a song—this is how I am awakened.

The awakening always comes from the upper, but usually in a concealed way without a connection to Him. It is as if I wake up by chance, suddenly. The upper hides on purpose, so as not to steal the “freewill” from me. The question is how will I work with this awakening, how will I respond to it?

First, do I understand that I have received it from the upper and thank Him for awakening me? In addition I have to clarify what exactly I have to wake up to? What are the options that I have?

This is the clarification of the question about the meaning of life, which I now have to ask myself: “What is the point in my life? Why should I go on living?” This means, what does my ego, my desire, aim at? What am I living for?

I begin to clarify the goal of my life in a more accurate manner, sorting the desires, until I find the most worthwhile desire for which it is really worthwhile to live. Suppose I had one last minute to live, and I had a chance to ask for one thing only, what would I ask for in this last minute?

I have to clarify what the most important thing for me is, what I should ask for. When we delve into this clarification, we see that we can only do it in a group. After all, it is the pattern of the upper world—as if the upper world descends into our world.

On the one hand, the relations among the friends are egoistic and they clarify this world for us. Yet, at the same time we have a point in the heart, which enables us to build a layer of upper relations, called the next world, the upper world.

Then we will be able to work on two planes: suppressing the lower, egoistic layer as much as we can trying to build another layer above it, a new level of relations based on love, mutual concern, mutual guarantee and connection.

The group enables us to build the pattern of the upper relations. It provides us with many opportunities to mutually work on our envy, on the lust, the hatred, and the love. Thanks to it we understand why we behave one way and not differently, and we begin to understand our states. Thus we quickly clarify our only right request.

We examine the other requests and see that they are all trivial and temporary and so we draw away from them. It says: “All the gates are locked, except for the gate of tears,” which means except for the last gate in which we demand adhesion according to equivalence of form. After all, we did everything we could, we tried to fulfill it and we saw that we can’t. We do not rest, but rather demand and ask, and thus reach what we desire.

This preparation includes many stages: The feeling of exile, the domination of Pharaoh, and then the struggle against him, until we manage to escape and reach a spiritual birth.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/19/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Is it possible for someone who was born in sin not to sin?

Answer: Of course not. All of us have been born in sin and we can’t avoid sinning. No one expects us to be angels. What is expected of us is to realize this and understand what a sin really is.

A sin is any desire directed against connecting with others, against correcting the breaking. The common soul broke and now every one exists in a broken system alone with his egoism. I want to use this egoism to somehow use others, but this is not bad, it’s a natural desire.

Real egoism, which we need to resist and against which we need to work, only manifests when I really try to connect with others, and a resistance arises in me, a lack of desire to be connected with them. Regular people, who operate in this world in a customary manner, are not called egoists. They’re not trying to unite into a single system.

Egoism only manifests under the condition that a person is planning to connect with the intention of correcting the breaking, meaning uniting with the purpose of revealing the Creator. And it’s possible that I don’t even want this. But if I still make an effort then the evil in me or the power of the breaking becomes revealed to me. This is true egoism.

But a regular person, who doesn’t work with this, doesn’t have egoism! First, the power of the breaking that operates between us needs to be discovered. Then we’ll be able to correct it and turn it into the power of unity. This will be the recognition of evil, the prayer will be born out of it and the correction, the goodness, will come.

This entire process only happens to those who try to connect with the purpose to correct the breaking and to reveal the Creator for the sake of pleasing Him by so doing. It needs to be absolutely clear to us that all this only happens with this intention. Then we connect to the chain of actions that help us reveal the evil, we ask for help and receive the strength to perform the correction, and we reach the revelation.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/14/12, Writings of Rabash

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