Question: When you are incorporated in a collective action, you sometimes feel united with the friends even in your thoughts, but at the last moment you feel that something is missing, an effort within an effort, the last drop. How can we achieve this last drop so we can come to the general cry, so that we will be able to open our hearts once and for all?

Answer: That last drop is exactly the point of birth, the point of the exodus from Egypt, and it’s the most difficult. A person is ready to go almost to the end, and then he sees a wall in front of him, something he can’t overcome, and suddenly he has endless excuses. His evil inclination tells him, “You still have to take care of this and that, you haven’t studied all of the Study of the Ten Sefirot yet, you don’t know all the Shamati articles yet, there is still so much you have to do,” and so on.

And it’s the same in relation to the friends, meaning that when you actually reach the point that you can now break your ego and connect, to make the welding point between you and the friends, you can’t do it. To create a point of soldering means that this drop of glue will now fall on the connection between you and the friends, and glue you together in a single adhesion. You can’t do that. At the last moment you suddenly pull back.

Only a general effort will help here. Therefore the prayer of an individual doesn’t help. A prayer should be the “prayer of the many,” when you pray for the friends and not for yourself, and when the entire group or most of the group prays together. But you are telling us about an individual effort. You can tell me about an individual effort for another thousand years, nothing will happen to you. The direction is familiar but it’s wrong because you don’t worry about the connection with the friends.
[71426]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #3, 2/24/12

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The prayer of the many means the praying for others. You will come out of the dark, only if you worry about others. This is our only work. But see what we have to go through in this world throughout history in our evolution by different blows and preparations, until we attain this. And what is all this for, meaning science, technology, all these crises, the economic problems, everything? From the negativity of everything around us we’ll reach the understanding that there is no other choice but to connect.

We cannot reach connection directly. Only when a person examines his dealings and sees that they’re futile is he ready to exert himself in the spiritual work. Even then he is not ready, but he comes to the group and is empowered there. He is empowered positively and negatively and then he is ready for connection.

Of course, it is done by blows. The plagues of Egypt are all for connection. We experience disappointments as a group and individually, and this is in order for us to realize our own helplessness and to understand that there is no other way to advance but by connection. Only then will we be ready to exit Egypt. Through all the sufferings, all the plagues of Egypt we read about, all the hard work, and when they wanted to build beautiful cities, through hard, thankless labor, they suddenly discover that they don’t get anything from all that. All the years of hunger they experience, all the plagues are on their ego which doesn’t let them connect.

How many plagues do they have to experience until they understand that there’s no choice but to escape—into the darkness, no matter where or how—only to escape? But this work can be done easily. We are on a different level of development than the level of which the Torah speaks. We don’t have to experience all this physically. They have been through all that already. Every spiritual action must have a copy in corporeality, and this action already took place in history, so now it can take place only in spirituality.

So our path is really much shorter. There is only the spiritual effort left without suffering in material bondage, wandering in the desert, and without going through all those phases. It remains only to make spiritual effort and to connect!
[71435]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #3, 2/24/12

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Kabbalists tell us that the upper Light is in absolute rest and that nothing changes but the person himself. When a person changes, the Reshimot, (reminiscences) in him change, and if he knows how to organize the Reshimot, this is the world he gets. So there is no problem in working with ourselves, among us. If we know how to connect, how to organize our society so that it will constantly be connected the way it should, we will feel whatever we want in it. These are actually all the tools that were given to us and we don’t need more than that.

If the Light doesn’t change and the Reshimot in us constantly advance us towards it, we must constantly be more and more similar to the Light among us. It is simple and it depends only on us and not on any external factor. It doesn’t even depend on the Creator because the upper Light, His force, is in absolute rest. The way you place yourself with regard to it, together with the society, (because otherwise you don’t perceive it, everyone and more importantly all of us together), this is how we receive bestowal and feel it in the form of our world.

Therefore, wanting to connect our aspirations above ourselves so that they will be connected above us and in them we will feel our spiritual reality is the most important action for us. This is what the prayer is for. A prayer is when a person judges himself. To pray means to judge yourself. First a person must be his own judge: “Who am I, what am I in my present state, and who do I want to be?” the gap between what there is now and what is desired the next moment is actually raising MAN, which is a prayer.

We should determine correctly where we are now. This is called “the recognition of evil”: Our present state is still bad. And so at every moment, even in the more advanced states, the present moment is felt in us as bad and the more advanced state is felt as better. So it says: “Stay away from evil and do good.” Why does it say, “Do good”? What is the good I can do if the good is waiting for me in the next state? To “do good” means to imagine, to try, to play with it, to be in it, in this good.

And this is a prayer: To what extent am I in the recognition of evil in the present state, and how much I yearn for the desired state, to attain the good. How do I check the evil and the good? “To bring contentment to the Creator,” “to bestow upon Him,” it is all very vague and no one knows what it means. We don’t understand and don’t attain this, but only reach this attainment after having prepared ourselves.

How should we prepare ourselves? Here we receive a great gift: an environment in which I can aim myself at the Creator, the state from which I can leap to spirituality. The moment I adjust myself to this state with the others, it is revealed among us. Kabbalists prepared prayers for us, a plea from a person to “us” and to the Creator, which are actually very helpful in helping us reach the right approach.

The truth is that no one is worthy and no one deserves this. It is a wonder that it is possible to transcend from corporeality to spirituality.

Baal HaSulam says in letter 56: The Creator measures a person his measure. And so it says in the Bible: “that the sin of the Amorite is not complete yet,” and this is also our issue. The sin of the Amorite is the shell that protects the fruit, called “an awakening from Above,” or the Land of Israel. And this shell will not move even one bit, before Israel fully complete the measure of “an awakening from below,” that is obliged and that is called a “virtue.” That is the exertion and the labor above human power.

Because what is in a person’s power is called just simply work and is not an exertion, and when Israel come to this point, then they complete their measure, and then it means that “the sin of the Amorite is complete.” Meaning that it is clear to all that there is no Land of Israel and the honor of the Creator, the Divinity belongs to them. Then the shell called the “Amorite” is broken and Divinity is raised from the dust, and not before that, not even a moment, as it says.

On one hand, we should really understand that we don’t belong to spirituality. On the other hand, we must be audacious like is inherent in children and their demands. The lower level is always unworthy of the higher level, but makes demands of the higher level. It is written: “My sons have defeated me.” Audacity is what helps here. What audacity? I don’t deserve anything, but I demand it. All this must be included in the prayer.

What is special about a prayer? A prayer cannot be from one individual, but from all of us together. One person who prays is like a shout in the desert; it doesn’t affect anything. We must raise MAN, Mei Nukvin, when Malchut rises to Bina and Malchut is Knesset Israel (the assembly of Israel), which means that it assembles all the requests together. If a request comes from an individual, it is not received; it is not included in the spiritual vessel, in the Shechina (Divinity). So let’s try and feel our prayer, our collective desire, together.
[71455]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #3, 2/24/12

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In reality, spiritual work is very short and easy if we rise above egoistic intention and want to check to what extent we exist inside of it. We need only to look from the outside because it’s impossible to explore and experience this while you are inside your ego, as it rules over you and bribes you, depriving you of the ability to study critically.

In order to be an objective researcher and impartial judge, you have to be completely independent of what you examine. And this is a very high degree. But you need to try and begin from small things, to evaluate yourself as critically as possible. This is called the realization of evil. You must constantly check what your intention is to any action, look, or movement. At this point, you can immediately proceed to request to change your nature because our nature is egoistic, but there is another form nature: bestowal.

We see in our history how many billions of years were required to develop the still level of nature, hundreds of thousand years each to develop the vegetative and animate levels. Then we see how fast human evolution was as the last stage of development of the animate level that goes beyond the normal animal. It took only 20-30 thousand years. But each degree has its set stages, called the Sefirot, and we see how much the 20th century has added to our final development in comparison with all the previous millennia.

The same will happen in our spiritual development, only much faster. Everything that unfolded in history for thousands, millions, and billions of years can happen to us in a few hours. There is no time in spirituality! These changes can be instant. And especially because we live in such a time when all of humanity (that is, the whole universe) begins to approach the realization of evil of its egoistic intention, its ego, it’s not a miracle that it will be revealed completely. Many people in the world already need this and more or less understand, but just don’t see the opportunity to do something. They all say nice words, but don’t go beyond them.

This means that our changes can be very fast, and everything depends on us. And that is why “we have gathered here to ascend to the degree of man,” who is the master of his intention whether it will be for its own sake or for the sake of bestowal. We just need to catch this intention “by its tail” and constantly analyze in what intention we are, doing only this all the time. No matter what actions we perform, the most important thing is intention.

The world that operates on the basis of action is called this world because there is only one intention. And the world that operates on the basis of intention is called the upper world. If a person reveals that his intention is egoistic, this is already called the spiritual or upper world, however only from the “left side,” from the side of the impure force, shell (Klipa). But this is already a spiritual level, so we should be interested even in discovering evil and rejoice that we have revealed it.

The main thing is that I approach studying in terms of intention. And whether it’s good or bad, for its own sake or for the sake of bestowal is not important; my task is to get deeper into it and live only in it. Thus, I move into a totally different dimension of my life, meaning I discover the relation to it only according to intention. And I worry about nothing else. If we fully concentrate on this, we will find a tiny, narrow opening into the spiritual world! It’s only in this.

The difficulty is to catch one’s intention each time and to stay in it constantly. Then, we begin to evolve at the speed of light! It will hardly take any time at all; this is already labor pains through which we are born into the world of intentions.
[71249]
From the Arava Arvut Convention 2/23/12 Lesson #1 

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We exist in a unified reality, in the world of infinity, but from it we perceive only the part, which we are able to realize, in that form, that fragment, which is created by our qualities from the whole world of infinity. However, in any case, we are always connected to the world of infinity. We receive the strength from there and all of the changes that happen inside of us happen by means of connection with it.

This is how we learn that any change happens by the raising of the MAN (prayer) from us through all of the worlds to the world of infinity and it descends from there to us in the form of MAD. Also, any change gives birth to a new Partzuf, a state, a connection between them through the world of infinity as well, following the rule “Malchut of the upper becomes the Keter of the lower.” This is only possible under the condition that Malchut obtains the qualities of the world of infinity and this way becomes the quality of Keter.

Such a leap in the change of qualities in the matter of our world is called a quantum change: sharp, strictly discrete portions.

This is how an electron, revolving around an atom’s nucleus changes its orbit in a jump, transforming from one stationary state to another. At that, it changes its orbit instantaneously, it disappears from the old orbit and at the same moment it appears in a new orbit, where it continues its movement, as if it had not gone through its transformation, the jump.

Physicists can detect neither the path of transformation nor duration of the transformation from one orbit to another, this happens instantaneously. This is because this action is raising its force into the world of infinity, above matter, time, space, and motion, which do not exist there. That is why we cannot detect what is happening in a jump. Meaning that during the time of the transformation, which for us is a space (a quantum void) a connection between the worlds happens, our world and the upper world.

Besides this, all of the matter exists only due to similar quantum jumps, receiving the energy of the upper Light (bestowal) from the world of infinity into them.

And even a regular person at every moment of his existence falls out of the reality of our world in order to change his state for a new one, he connects to the world of infinity and returns back again, but into a new state in our world already, although it seems to us that the flow of reality is continuous. With these continuous connections to the world of infinity the changes happen and flow in the whole of the nature on all of its levels, from our world in all of the five worlds.

The rise to the world of infinity and the return back are necessary for the change of the Reshimot, the data, which define our specific states. However, these specific states, in their turn, must keep changing continuously, feeding from the world of infinity, and in this way, realize ever newer Reshimot up until their complete realization, the complete correction of the whole of nature.

This happens when all of the realities merge into one, the complete revelation of the Light, that force from which all of the parts of the universe receive ever newer Reshimot by quantum impulses, new energy and qualities. And it is not important how we call these changes in matter: the interval between the pictures of the world, a quantum jump  (discontinuity), an absence of reality, the change of Reshimot, a minimum change in a state.

Our future is in mastering these timeless states in connection to the Light, to the quality of bestowal, above egoism: Here lies life above death. It is in the absence of time in a quantum jump and it is our immortality.
[71023]

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Question: What does a person have to clarify in order to reach a deficiency?

Answer: A person shouldn’t think about a deficiency. A deficiency should be revealed by the clarification and not that the clarification is revealed by the deficiency. First, I clarify what the greatness of the Creator is. This is what I am attracted to. I follow the right line all the time, I don’t torture myself, I don’t criticize for no reason, I don’t look for descents and falls and empty clarifications. If I do look for that, it is as if I do it without the Light and without the Light I cannot clarify anything.

I am always drawn to the right and to the Light, to adhesion, as much as I can express it. By being drawn to it in the study, in dissemination, and in participation in the group, I begin to discover to what extent I am not part of it. It is already the revelation of evil, as the Light reveals the evil and it isn’t me who looks for it and discovers whatever I feel like.

The advancement and the clarification are done by the good, by the Light. Only with the help of the Light can I clarify things. I don’t fight evil by myself! I am not a hero like different warriors in this world. My overcoming is in turning to the Creator instead of fighting evil directly, so that He will fight my evil and clarify it. The Creator will fight for us and we only have to raise our hands to Him. This how the Creator’s war with Amalek takes place, and in general the whole struggle with the ego.

The Creator says: “Come to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart!” the Creator always goes to war Himself, “the Lord is a man of war,” and not a person. A person should be the opposite, and constantly clarify the right point to approach in order to stand between the good and the evil and to direct them correctly in this war, and not that he himself fights.

It is a very big mistake students make, and it is hard to convince them that being a hero is not in overcoming evil by themselves but in bringing the Light to fight and overcome evil. A lot of experience is needed here.
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/29/12, Writings of Rabash

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In order for us to become similar to the upper Light, we have our well known way: We need to study with the intent for the Light to influence us and to create that desire, that inner aspiration, that inner tendency within us. Nothing else is necessary.

It seems very simple. Indeed, everything is already before us. Even according to corporeal criteria, it’s obvious that if someone loves something or someone, aspires to something or someone, he wants to give. It fills him like a mother’s love for her child. Look at how happy she is holding a small creature in her arms. That captures her all. She needs nothing: Her love for him is enough to fill her.

If we have such examples in our world, why is it so difficult for us to maintain that condition regarding the spiritual world? It’s because the condition of bestowal and love is spiritual, it needs to be directed from myself outward and not toward myself, not for myself. That is the problem.

Thus, in order to form within ourselves the forward movement, from ourselves outward, we need special exercises, unique skills we can acquire only if we try to unite between us. However, the attempts to unite lead us to despair because we try to do it alone. We have tried to do that more than once, with no success, of course.

Eventually, after many independent attempts to unite: “Where is our mutual responsibility, mutual bestowal, mutual consideration? Where is our spiritual vessel?” and so forth, we begin to realize that nothing can help us here, and we give up. Only one hope remains: that the Light from Above will come and correct us.

But the Light doesn’t come since we don’t request It. We actually ask for fulfillment. We can only draw near the Light if we try to unite between us. When we carry out acts of unity (which we must do as equals since love and mutual bestowal can only be among equals) then in our unity, within our circle, we’ll feel that we lack help from Above. It really is what we lack.

Currently, we simply recall that there is something else that could help us. I can tell that during the lessons my students suddenly begin to remember: “Oh, yes! We also need the Creator! We can’t do anything on our own. We need to bestow and not to receive, not to wait until something approaches us, but rather to aspire to bestowal and invest certain efforts in that.…” So, the correct attempts to attain bestowal can only be within the group.

The group may be virtual or physical, it doesn’t matter, but everything has to be founded on the connection between the friends. We shouldn’t miss this point. Now, all our private movements are directed into ourselves. It seems to us that they are moving from us to others, but all that isn’t true and is completely unrealistic since it is realized egoistically.

Only when I, together with the friends, begin to aspire toward mutual consideration, our common center, common goal, and try to arrange for us all to hold a single desire, a single aspiration, a single prayer, then within us, we’ll reveal that the upper force, the Creator “is sitting” there. When we look at Him, we should act as if we have a unified demand toward Him, and all of us together, as one, focus on Him with a serious demand.

The Creator is waiting, He wants that demand. It is specifically what obligates Him to give us help in the form of a unique force of bestowal and love, meaning to dwell within us. He doesn’t give anything or remain anywhere. He fills everything, hence He simply needs to be revealed within us. That revelation of His within us is what’s called revealing the upper Light: the force of bestowal, love, upper degree.

We all need to demand it together, to constantly demand and demand, but together, regarding our center, meaning our united desire within which we’ll reveal the Creator’s necessity. And then we’ll see that everything we did previously was only to attain the state in which we’re all united together in a demand to reveal the Creator within us, that only the revelation of the attribute of love and bestowal will save us.
[69629]
From the Lecture on Unity Day “To Acquire a Desire to Give” 1/29/2012

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We must keep the intention towards unity. This is because the whole benefit is concealed in this precise intention. What we hear at the lessons is not that important. What is important is that during the lessons we can continuously work on the unity of all our friends in the whole world. To the extent of our efforts to unite, we move forward, and this is where all of our benefit lies.

However, if we do not work during the lesson, it can give us a sort of an understanding, move us forward a little bit, but this will not be spiritual development.

This week we are watching the recordings of the lessons from the congress in the Arava. A question arises: During this, can we reach even stronger unity than what we attained there? If not, it would be better to return to the usual routine of the lesson. The answer remains up to you.

The most important thing here is to constantly work on unity. It is not about how much I understand (this is completely unimportant), but it is about how much effort I apply toward unity. Since it is precisely in unity that I will be able to feel what is being talked about.
[71201]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/12, “Questions and Answers”

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We should be very happy that we have come to the most important work, the most important analysis that exists in all the worlds, even in the spiritual ones. Baal HaSulam writes that there is no happier moment in a person’s life than the moment when he discovers that he is unable to exit his ego and no effort of his own can help him. Then he comes to his first prayer, his first cry for the Creator.

This first cry is birth. An infant cries as soon as he is born into the world. And this means that a person was born.

Let us hope that we will attain this cry and become Human. This is why the effort we make towards it is called birth pangs. And we must be happy that we have come to this. After all, who do these birth pangs reach? We have to be happy and serious at the same time. But joy has to come from the status, the mission. This is where spiritual life begins.

When an infant is born, adults are happy even though he is crying and screaming. Likewise, the Man within us (the one who did all the work and all the analyses) rejoices, and the infant, now being born, is still suffering from the pressure, sadness, and the perception of disturbances. They both must be together.
[71174]
From Lesson 1, The Arava Convention 2/23/2012

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We see that in their explanations Kabbalists always return to the same principles. There aren’t many rules in spirituality. One and the same state of ascents and descents, as well as their reasons, comes back to us in different ways, but essentially, it’s the same principle all the time. We don’t receive a new force until we reach a true deficiency.

A servant of the Creator is a person who constantly looks for new ways to come closer to Him. This coming closer involves the acquisition of a new vessel, the desire to bestow, which goes against our desire.

A person who begins to study doesn’t really understand yet what “for” or “against” the desire means. It goes on until he begins to see that to acquire spirituality is actually both easy and difficult. A lot of time passes until he begins to hear what it is about.

It is a kind of latent, internal period that transpires secretly within, whereby a person participates in spiritual work rather passively. He still imagines spirituality as something pleasant to his egoism, an acquisition that will give him knowledge, greater power over others, and will fulfill his desires. This is actually what he comes for, having lost his hope to fill himself in this world. This is why he decides to receive spiritual fulfillment.

Everyone thinks that way. Otherwise, why study? This is how it is arranged from Above, by nature, so as to attract a person. And even if you tell a person something else, he doesn’t hear you. But this beneficial lie holds a person during this period in the feeling that he is about to acquire more and more in his desire to receive, in his ego. He doesn’t really hear what he is being told, and although he repeats the words “the desires of bestowal,” “faith above reason,” he does not truly realize what it is.

He ascribes to these notions his own internal interpretation, and he is unable to perceive otherwise. This goes on until eventually, thanks to the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah and some light blows here and there, he begins to somehow understand the true meaning of such concepts like the desire to bestow, love of the other, and rising above egoistic goals.

He begins to hear more and is ready to reach bestowal. First, it is a general, theoretical agreement, something abstract: bestowal upon the whole world, humanity, the Creator… These concepts are rather vague; they are distant from a person himself, his circle, and actual realization.

This is why he is ready “to bring contentment upon his Maker.” But when it comes to practical actions and him needing “to love the other,” the friends, he is not ready for that. Again, a lot of work is needed here.

And again the upper Light operates upon him, changing his vessels, until he actually begins to hear that bestowal is realized within the group. The Creator demands that we actually realize the love of others, as much as we can.

This is of course a lie, but it’s a start. By that a person becomes a servant of the Creator—if he actually performs actions that eventually lead to the desire to bestow. Of course, a person does not create this desire to bestow himself, it is not a direct consequence of his actions. He as if plants the seeds and sees that nothing sprouts. And then again he starts with no results, which brings him many disappointments.

At the same time he sometimes sees some partial success: a bit more understanding and feeling. Eventually, however, he comes to “those who sow in tears” and sees that his work doesn’t really lead to anything but the demand, a request, a prayer, to the Creator. When he comes to this state, it is called “a prayer of the many,” and it opens up the gate of Heaven. All the gates are closed except for the gate of tears, which opens up. This is what a person discovers.

“Gates” (“Shearim” in Hebrew, comes from the same root as the word “assumed” – “Meshuar”) and  indicates the way a person imagines the expected reward. He wants to receive something in all these gates, anything but bestowal, and about bestowal he cries only because it is clear to him that he cannot reach it by himself. He also doesn’t really want to attain it until he understands its importance.

So a person actually sheds a lot of tears until he builds the gate of tears, until he finally finishes building it by wanting bestowal and not being able to reach it. And this is why he is forced to turn to the Creator. Until this time he had no need for Him, but now he sees that the Creator is necessary.

So as a result, he wants bestowal and he can receive it only from the Creator. He comes to all this in the group because it’s impossible otherwise, and then he “reaps the fruit.” The Light that Reforms comes and connects him with the friends, and within them the Creator becomes revealed. Then a person “rejoices” in the fruit of his spiritual work. This is the path of the Creator’s servant.
[71099]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/2012, Writings of Rabash

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