Question: At the convention, you said that our problem is that we cannot tie all our intentions together yet: me, who has to be corrected, the friends, the Creator, and the world. What are the stops on the way to the one unified intention that combines all the elements?

Answer: We have to constantly clarify things internally as to what we have to think about and thus summon the Light that Reforms. It is written: “It is better to sit and do nothing,” since if you don’t know what to do, you can even cause more harm. It is like giving a small child power, or a person who doesn’t know what he is doing; he can only cause harm.

So, on one hand, it is concealed from us so that we don’t harm ourselves and others. On the other hand, how can we come close to the right action? It turns out that we constantly need to think about the right intention and only to that extent will we be able to come closer to the Light. There are Masachim (screens) that conceal the Light from us only because our desires are incorrect. The moment our desire comes close to the right state, these Masachim disappear.

So every person must constantly check himself, and decide how he should really invest his powers. Life helps us, the general despair, the aimlessness, the confusion, and the state the world is in now all help us. It isn’t that we are not being ridiculed anymore, as they used to do about a decade or two ago, and in every generation in the past ages, we have reached a point now where there is no choice. So we have to show not only to ourselves, but to the world, what we should all yearn for, what we should reach, what intent while reading The Zohar.
[82382]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/12, The Zohar

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Question: As it happened that during the last congress in the North, our group divided into two parts: The first one, 10 people, isolated themselves from the world on the first floor of the center and completely simulated the conditions of the friends at the convention in Israel; the second one, 20-30 people who due to various reasons could attend but only participate part of the time, were in another room.

I was among the isolated 10, and I could not concentrate on anything but one thought: “How could it happen that we divided into two parts?” But I could not pluck up the courage to raise this issue with the other 9 people. This question haunts me; what should I do? Could I raise it for discussion or would it be against the unity of the group, even in this decision to be divided into two parts during the convention? I just think that the spiritual committee should insist that the group stays together no matter under what conditions.

Answer: Contradictions exist until the final correction everywhere and especially in Kabbalah, but in spirituality, opposite things are united in a common intention; they co-exist although they are separated by the law of equivalence of form. So, we need to get used to the fact that we can be different, but together; moreover, we should not strive to put everyone and everything at the same level. Equal does not mean the same, but equal in the intention and at different levels.

We are all different and no one forces us to be the same, but just to aspire for the same goal. Also, everyone strives for the goal in various ways. We are different, like the cells of one body; in our intention to the common Creator, the Creator unites us.

Stay as an example to follow, and those who cannot, due to objective reasons, are not worse than you, but will be in the other sub-group at the congress; similarly, the body has organs that are different in their importance organs, but they belong to one body.

The equality of friends does not mean sameness!

Ask, we will find out.
[82417]

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Each of us contains 613 different desires, relating to our connection with one another, which we have to correct. First of all, I have to see that they are all egoistic and that I want to use the neighbor and the Creator.

This direction, “Israel, Torah, and the Creator,” meaning from love for the creatures to love for the Creator, first works in the opposite form: for the sake of using the Creator and the creatures for one’s own benefit. First we have to discern precisely this fact, and it becomes revealed on the condition that both the creatures and the Creator are used correctly.

At the first stage, wishing to achieve the general connection with the entire universe, through the creatures to the Creator, we discover our transgressions and mistakes, and that is how we reveal the evil inclination. This does not happen all at once. As one advances, a small part of egoism is continually revealed. We demand its correction, and in the Light of correction we reveal a greater part of egoism, and then again ask for it to be corrected.

Light comes from the Creator through the group, illuminating and correcting the evil that we discover, and as a result we discover new, stronger, harsher waves of egoism within us. That is how we advance from small mistakes to more serious ones, and then from small transgressions to bigger ones, gradually revealing and correcting ourselves.

But we always aspire to love, unification, the unity of Israel, Torah, and the Creator into one whole. We wish for the Creator to become holy, “separate,” special, meaning for the quality of bestowal to always be the greatest value for us. That is how progress occurs.

And the most important aspect of this work is to understand that all corrections are concentrated outside of a person. His spiritual advancement occurs outside of him. And outside of him there is only the Shechina and the Creator that fills it.

A person imagines that there is an entire world around him: still, vegetative, animate, and human, but all of that is just his illusion, his imagination. In reality, none of this exists. When a person begins to reveal the true reality, he discovers that all of it is devoid of the spirit of life, and it is enlivened only by the upper force of the Creator, who is standing behind all of these images and shadows. By themselves they are just garments, wrappers, not having inner fulfillment.

Let us hope that we will reveal this truth quickly and will begin truly working with the Creator through these garments.
[82496]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/12, Writings of Rabash

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Our sensitivity to the revelation of the Creator depends on our yearning for the revelation of His greatness. It is like raising the sensitivity of a detector 10 times more, 100 times more, 1,000 times more, 10,000 times more.

I tune the detector by raising its level of sensitivity, and thus it helps me discover what I was looking for. Raising the sensitivity means raising the importance of such a phenomenon compared to other phenomena.

Suppose I am in a certain space where different phenomena take place: electric fields and magnetic fields, and many radio and television waves going through it in different frequencies. I tune myself to a special phenomenon and my sensitivity rises specifically to that. I focus on it and choose it out of all the other processes.

Our world is full of different noises in different frequencies. Suppose I want to know what is being said on a certain cell phone, I have to tune my detector specifically to that frequency. In the same way, I have to focus all my attention of the greatness and the importance of the Creator and raise my sensitivity to that as much as I can. Being persistent at that allows me to discover the phenomenon called the Creator, which is the general force active in the world, the “general frequency.”

It is like a basic carrier frequency or stem cells, which are the basic phenomena in our world. I have to discover the force that is at the basis of all of reality.

When we speak about greatness, importance, and respect, we want to express our increased sensitivity to this phenomenon specifically, and thus we reveal it. So a person who tries to feel that there is none else besides Him, the good and benevolent Creator acting behind the scenes and generally hiding behind the friends and the group, this person will constantly raise the sensitivity of his detector, of his soul, and will advance that way.

This is because the soul is the tool for the revelation of the Creator
[82136]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: You always guide us during the conventions, leading us from one lesson to the next.

Answer: I cannot say anything about that in advance. I don’t know how things will work out before I see you in the convention. You will summon my attitude towards you according to the state you will be in.

In bestowal everything depends on the one who receives and nothing is predictable. I am a power supplier—you will receive bestowal according to your connection to me.

So the matter is not in the subject of the lectures and the workshops, but in the preparation. Your intensive collective preparation will generate from me everything that you need in the right order. I listen to the friends, feel the general atmosphere among all those who connect to us, and this determines how the workshops will be managed.

Question: How can we raise the level of our question in order to add feeling to it? Before every convention there are the same questions to which we’ve already received the answers.

Answer: The questions may repeat, but we have to feel a new depth in them. The phrasing of the questions isn’t important, what is important is the depth. If a person is only superficially interested in how he should connect, it isn’t a question at all.

We have to be more serious since we are in a process of clarification, which means that we are constantly summarizing what we pick up along the way. So on the basis of all the clarifications and the conclusions, we reach new questions. Even though the questions may sound familiar, they are much deeper.

There isn’t much depth in your questions, there is no burning necessity for a new study of the unknown layers: “What should we do today in order to reach the unity that we have not reached yet? What do we lack? What should we add?” I must hear the echo of this search in your questions.

Question: How can we constantly soften our heart until the congress itself?

Answer: The key is the influence of the environment. It is this factor that influences the workshops. At first I don’t want to hear others, I look down upon them. I am not interested in what they say, who are they? Their words only irritate me.

But after a few minutes a new thought comes to me. Where do they come from? After all, they don’t appear out of the blue, this is how the Light operated, and there is nothing but the Light. Occasionally we manage to sink faster inwards and to feel ready for he influence of the Light. This is the whole essence of the workshop.

The “workshop” is our intensive, collective, integral group effort. This effort that is aimed at unity resembles the Light in its attributes and summons its influence upon us.

Of course it will eventually take us less time to reach unity in the workshops. Although it is impossible to explain, the desire already understands which internal movements are required in order to feel the excitement and the impression from the unity. Thus the workshop is our “tool,” our means.

But we can also do the same thing during the morning lesson. We need to do it every day for three hours!

Question: During the workshop we “rub” against one another and there is a kind of spark going through us. How can we reach the same feeling during the lesson?

Answer: During the lesson you don’t speak and don’t look at one another, which makes things more difficult for you. But you should overcome this. You should learn to feel one another without words and even independently of distance. The distances don’t exist, there are no walls, I only imagine all this; it is all depicted in my perception. So let’s make an effort and each one will feel the friends as his integral parts.

Don’t pin your hopes on me. I only operate the mechanism. It all depends on the connection among you. The upper Light is always ready and responds according to your desire. So there is no effort on my part: The moment there is a desire, I am ready to work on it. You are expecting something from me, and you need only one thing—to actually want connection. Thus, you will oblige me, you actually force me to act. Only your connection summons a real filling on my part.
[82051]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/12, “Questions About the Congress of Consolidation in the North of Israel”

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Question: If we imagine The Zohar as the center of the energy source, how does it permeate the soul?

Answer: There is no source that can come close to The Book of Zohar, which was written by ten Kabbalists, each of which was part of a group, part of the integrality that is the basis of nature. Nature is round, and with the help of the upper force a group representing the collective force of nature convened. And now this group, to attain all the laws, all of reality, all of Providence Above, and our work below, builds inside it the system of the Creator’s forces.

This group founded the whole system of correction. It did not exist before that. Before that there was the era of the forefathers, Abraham, Egypt, the first and second Temples—all this was a development from the top down. There was no real exile, since Egypt was only a prototype, the root of all the subsequent exiles. All this was preparation so that a group called “Israel” would be established, which is actually the same group of Rabbi Shimon. There are also the nations of the world, who are external to that group. The group of Israel is “shattered” and they go out and mix with the rest of humanity.

Therefore, there is no stronger connection than The Book of Zohar in which the authors expressed in writing everything they attained by building their internal system in spirituality, by building a hierarchy of all they did and attained, all the 125 degrees. This is all one system, and it makes no difference that I see the text and that I exist in my body. It is all a system of forces, there is no body here that understands or that doesn’t understand. These are forces that are now arranged as an integral system that can be corrected and brought to perfection.

So the composition that was created by the authors of The Zohar is not a book, but a system that was created by their work, and we want to be part of this system so that it will influence us. I want to enter its force field.

It is with this intention that we try to read The Book of Zohar. There is no other way to connect with that system, except for seeing the still letters by our corporeal sense of sight. But by that, with the help of the group and my efforts, I begin to develop my internal attitude, to enter the system of forces, by clarifying the force of reception, the force of bestowal, intentions, connection, rejection, repulsion, hatred, and love.
[81960]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/12, The Zohar

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Question: This congress is quite sudden, and we fear that we will not arrive with sufficient enthusiasm. How can we prepare ourselves in the time we have left so that the convention will not turn into a festival?

Answer: The congress will not turn into a festival; we will make sure it doesn’t. Don’t expect celebrations, but rather most likely a forced march with mattresses. So you can stop worrying, it won’t be easy.

As for the suddenness, the best and most important things appear suddenly, the exodus from Egypt, for example that took place in a hurry. So there is nothing to complain about, it is just the opposite case.

Besides, we are talking about connection and unity, so do we have to make a fuss about that and say: “Friends listen to the news, we have to unite! Let’s prepare ourselves and in six months we are going to unite…”

Are we talking about something new we haven’t heard of? Do we have to start preparing for it only now? Shouldn’t we be ready for that all our life and every moment in our life?

What do we need a congress for? It may very well be that we will receive what we want to attain today and then there will be no need for the convention and other actions will be required instead. We should expect the coming of the Messiah every day.

Question: What should I expect from the congress?

Answer: That by the connection and the unity with others I will attain the general from of bestowal called “the revelation of the Creator,” the revelation of the “upper force.”

Question: This is the first convention that in advance you are not awakening us, leaving room for our exertion. How do we examine ourselves to see whether we are preparing ourselves the way we should?

Answer: I act according to the situation. In the current state, I don’t feel that I can spur you in any way other than what I am doing. Listen to today’s lesson again, and you will see that I am constantly waking you up. It also refers to the recent lessons and workshops.

What can I do if you don’t take this into account, if you don’t pay attention to that? I am trying to do my work. Besides, you should demand! I am ready to give a thousand times more, but where is your demand? You have no spiritual hunger; it is as if you are all full: “Well, tell us some more and we will listen…” what else can I say?

Question: How can we consolidate our forces in order to break through the Machsom (barrier) during the convention?

Answer: We need the unity that is attained out of necessity, the awakening of the desires and the impression. It says: “Each man shall help his friend.” Nowhere does it say that the teacher has to dance before the group in order to evoke joy or tears. The teacher guides the group in the right direction, but the students should follow this direction by themselves. There should be a collective desire among the friends. The teacher cannot do what the group should do, and you are wasting your time if you are hoping for this.
[81968]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/12, “Questions About the Congress of Consolidation in North of Israel”

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Man forgets that he is always standing before the Light, the Creator, the good Who does good without any limitations. And all the limitations, obstacles, interferences, distance, and concealment exist in man himself. All he needs to do is remove this cover, destroy the obstacle, and it will disappear. All the disturbances that exist within man are the consequence of laziness and pride that are being placed as an obstacle before him by his ruined egoistic desire. We need to understand that if the upper Light fills everything, then all the disturbances only come from us.

If a person really comes to desire ridding himself of disturbances through the environment (meaning the teacher, books, friends, the group, and all the work that comes with it), this means that he really cancels it. This is because his efforts turn into a screen and the Reflected Light. The disturbance was caused by the absence of the screen and Reflected Light, and appeared in man as the result of the breaking. Each of our states come from the breaking because there is nothing in us other than a broken egoistic desire that paints a warped picture of different images and forms, sensations, opinions, thoughts, and desires for us in our ruined qualities; we call all these things “this world.”

Bu the moment that we wish to overcome this breaking, we understand that we’re experiencing all this within our ruined desire, which needs to be turned inside out. We don’t need anything other than this desire to turn everything the other way around. It’s a demand called prayer, an appeal, a cry, regarding which is written: “My children have defeated me,” because they have forced the Creator to change this deformed sensation and vision for the true one.

And as soon as we incline towards correction, we incline our entire world towards justification, and it inverts. We think that the Creator does it, but we actually do it with our own hands. The Light is always at absolute rest and is always ready to help us do something. Everything depends on whether we will be able to evoke it and obligate it to do this.

This is why we need to say: “No one will help me but me!” Because everything is in the person’s hands: the spiritual spark, the corrected desire, and the environment that needs to be organized so it represents a system of proper values, a scale of priorities. And with all this, a person will be able to advance and demand correction from the Light, the source, which will become revealed the moment the person really desires it.

On one hand, it’s written that the Creator does everything. But on the other hand, it’s written that everything depends upon the person. And in reality, everything is done by the upper Light, the upper force, but only at the person’s request. Even when we suffer today and seem to want to rid ourselves of suffering, in reality, we don’t want to be free of it. If we really wanted that, we would have ended all the suffering a long time ago.

In other words, the Light, the Creator, does all the actions, but man makes the decision regarding these actions. It’s written, “He labored and found,” it doesn’t happen any other way. This is why it’s necessary to understand that all the tools are known and the place of analysis is clear. It’s also necessary to analyze one’s intention, the direction of one’s thought, and the goal. And when a person makes the right analyses, uses his environment and all the tools given to him the right way, then the upper Light is ready to do this action the moment this desire appears in man.
[81750]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Igrot, “Letter 34”

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Question: In what way is the congress in the North different from the one we had in the Arava desert?

Answer: We already spoke about it yesterday in the workshop when we spoke about how our feelings change as a result of the workshops and our attitude towards them. We saw that each time the beginning is more difficult—it is harder to come to the workshop—but the entrance and the connection come more quickly and our impression grows and becomes clearer and more stable.

It is the same when it comes to congresses, since a congress is a kind of a workshop, but more complex since it is made of more parts, and we have to relate to it accordingly.

Of course, it is harder to get ready for the coming congress and to the impression we should receive from it compared to the Arava convention, in which we felt as if we were leaving Egypt and coming closer to Mt. Sinai. There was something of the legend there, a kind of an adventure. Today we are facing routine work: We are coming to a new place, we fix what is necessary, we have lectures…the previous impression is missing, it has been changed to a “standard procedure,” into routine.

This is good since this is how nature provides us with a more mature attitude so that we will try to penetrate our feelings and to be impressed by more profound things.

We say that in the Arava we attained the level of Shoresh (the root level) of our vessel. The fire burned in us and we felt like heroes looking forward to an adventure. Now we’ve moved on level one or two, the desire is also “thicker,” and our attitude should be more serious. There is no room here for the “airy” euphoria, to the childish impression anymore; we should search for all this inside, in the depths of our feeling and understanding. That’s what’s important.

Today we must attain the connection under difficult conditions, without the first impression, with a desire that is thicker. We have to be thankful for having received a thicker desire. Apparently we’ve managed to do something in the past and now we should attain a much stronger impression than before that isn’t childish but much more mature.
[81971]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/02/12, “Questions About the Congress of Consolidation in North Israel”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” item 15: When you examine the above three states, you will find that one completely necessitates the other in a way that, if one were to be cancelled, the others would be cancelled, too.

If, for example, the third state—the conversion of the form of reception to the form of bestowal—had not materialized, it is certain that the first state in Ein Sof would never have been able to emerge.

It is because the perfection materialized there only because the future third state was already there, as though it is in the present. And all the perfection that was pictured there in that state is like a reflection from the future into the present. But if the future could be cancelled, there would not be any present. Thus, the third state necessitates the existence of the first.

The whole plan, including the initial part, the middle part, and the final part couldn’t exist without the future form. It is said: “The end of the action in is the initial thought,” which is true according to every plan and every action—the future form is mandatory and in itself determines all the details.

The beginning is only the point of the created being, which is separate from the Creator. In the future form, the created being should be like the Creator, when he rises to the level of Adam, the “human” level, stemming from the word Domeh (similar.) This determines the process: to get from the beginning to the end, we must start our development from the end to the beginning. That means that “the end result of an action lies in the initial thought.” An “action” is already the end, the final and complete form, from which we know how to approach things. It is the only way the spiritual work takes place.

In our world we assume that we operate differently, but it isn’t so. It simply seems that way since half of our actions and thoughts are concealed. It seems that something new is going on, that I am doing something, but in fact I don’t see what is going on behind the scenes where everything is arranged for me, where the future form determines the current form from which it is supposed to stem.

It seems as if I go through some process of development and that I can affect it according to my desire and my plan and to obey the desire of those around me. In the meantime, I simply don’t see that everything is predetermined and programmed.

The future form determines everything there is and everything that there will be, and only our attitude affects the feeling, the manner according to which we accept what is happening.

So we don’t need to think about the actions themselves at all. Our intention is the action. Our attitude towards what is going on is the one new element we can add on our part according to the principle of “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before.” The Creator holds everything in His hands and all the created being has to do is to change his perception of reality as he accepts it as good, in equivalence of form, or in the form of suffering.

Question: How can it be that although the final phase already exists we still have to make our own independent efforts?

Answer: Our independent efforts are necessary only so that we will want to format new internal values for the new perception. If you waste your energy in order to change the world, it only means that you are foolish. You don’t need to change the world in the present but to contact the future. Animals do it instinctively, and man developed this ability when he climbed down from the tree.

After all, it is impossible to advance without knowing the future. Ancient pagan beliefs were intended only to connect to the future. Today we simply don’t understand them and that actually the customs, the dances, the rituals, and even the martial arts were designed not in order to harm someone but only to “lock” the future upon ourselves.

Man has always faced the problem of contacting the future and of feeling it. If I shoot an arrow from a bow, for example, I only have to capture the moment in which I actually hit the target, feel the future moment in which the arrow already reaches the target. That’s enough. This is called “living the future,” being in contact with it. Then by that feeling I can arrange my actions on my way to it.

But we have not been developing in this direction for quite a while since the growing ego has deprived us of the natural perception that was in our basis and we lost contact with it.

If I don’t know the future form and don’t connect to it, I don’t act; it is a sign that my desire isn’t clarified yet. So there is nothing to cry about—I have to aim all my actions towards the connection with the future.

Our future is the attribute of bestowal and I have to express it by different means. When it is clear to me how I have determined my future form, I ask for its correction and then I discover it.

Accordingly, now too, if I imagine the group correctly, it shows me the future in which I am totally connected to it in all my attributes. This is my first spiritual level. On the next level I will be given a greater egoistic desire, I will draw away from the friends again, I will begin to disrespect and hate them even more in order to reunite with them after I overcome these interruptions. This process continues until we become like Rabbi Shimon’s students, united above the burning furnace of hatred.
[81819]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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