Question: Does the network of connection between the great Kabbalists of the past also work on the souls that have not yet awakened spiritually?

Answer: No, these people don’t turn to them for help. You can study the Torah, read thousands of books, and this will not change anything in you. Moreover, even if you read the texts of Kabbalists with the intention to advance, the question is whether you are in the group, whether you desire to create together with others the same form of connection that exists between these Kabbalists.

Do we desire to create in the bond between us the same network of connection that exists between these Kabbalists? Do we want to move from the connection between the broken souls that think only about how to enjoy all sorts of earthly pleasures to the connection which unites our holy forefathers, the great Kabbalists of all generations? Do we wish to move from the broken system of connection between souls to the corrected one? We ask them to help us become similar to them so that they accept us in their assembly.
[43271]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
I Want To Be A Grownup!
Resting In The Hands Of The Great Kabbalists
A Net Enveloping The Universe

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →

A constant dialogue or requests to the Creator are good because it’s impossible to address Him artificially as in the words of prayers read from books. A person begins to understand that if he doesn’t feel these words, it’s not considered an address. The Creator will not hear it in this way; it’s necessary to turn to Him deciphering the words in relation to oneself, closer to one’s heart.

Then, instead of reading a prayer from a prayer book full of words that mean nothing to him: “for oneself,” “for bestowal,” “above reason,” “the Torah and precepts,” “good deeds,” “the Holy and Blessed One” (the same terms and quotes that Kabbalists use), a person starts to interpret them into a more sensory language. He does this even without words, in one’s inner sensations, and thereby really approaches the prayer, the request.

What help should one ask from the Creator? It’s to help us turn to Him with a request! This request will become a spiritual vessel, the “place” of the revelation of the Creator.

At each stage, one should check himself as to whether he addresses the Creator in his own words rather than repeating standard expressions from a book. Otherwise, it means that one doesn’t understand to whom he turns, how, for what, and that one is still detached from the address itself.

The ability to make a request is a great help that allows the person to change and correct himself. A request to the Creator should be viewed as a device which can change a person. The search for an answer to one’s request is not important; what counts is the requests themselves because they build a person.

Then, the person starts to understand that he is in front of the unchanging, constant upper Light. And his request is what is changing him all the time, creating his increasingly closer similarity to the simple, abstract upper Light. The person will be revealing his own image inside his requests. The image will correspond more and more to the upper Light, the level of the Creator. That is, a person attains the forms of the Creator inside of his request to Him and thereby advances.

Hence, it’s written: “God grant that he prayed all day long!” All the work is based upon the request and prayer.
[43285]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - 1 Comment →

Frankly, it doesn’t really matter what assistance a person is asking the Creator for. The key is to keep asking every instant. May one never forget that there is none else besides Him, the good who does good. May one tie every little thing that happens to him with the Creator.

In fact, a person usually thinks that it’s not the right time to be asking for help, that he is supposed to do something first, succeed in something on his own, carry out some act, and only after that turn to the Creator. But that is all wrong! No actions are necessary. The entire method is intended solely for revealing the Creator.

Hence, the more frequently you turn to Him, the more dependent you feel on Him, the more you bother Him, transferring to Him all the responsibility for everything that is happening to you, the less you need to worry.

According to His program, He will push you away, hide, and place all kinds of obstacles and concealments before you. Regardless, make it a habit to constantly seek and appeal to Him. It is the shortest and most reliable way.

It doesn’t require intelligence, only perseverance. If a person takes such a position and doesn’t lose track of it (with the help of the group’s reminding), then by constantly turning to the Creator, the upper force, nature, he definitely discovers how to appeal, why, and for what. One learns the Creator’s character, which prayers He answers and which He does not. Thanks to his firm desire to enter this communication, the dialogue with the Creator, a person can start clarifying who He is.

This is described as “Do anything that is in your power, but just don’t leave.” That is, we must ask for everything, even without thinking, just a like a child who grabs whatever he may and keeps nagging at his mother: “Give me, give me, give me!” These appeals will give way to the clarification of what really is worth asking for, where the “commandments” and the “transgressions” are in all this, where one is given free will, and what the responses are to his actions. That’s how a person learns.

It’s good that this won’t let you get confused, and you won’t think that everything depends on you or the environment. You will connect all these three “dots” together: yourself, the group, and the Creator, and direct it all in the right direction, to the upper force, to being dependent on Him.

Later on, you will start assessing how you are asking. Are you appealing for your own sake, for the benefit of the others, or for the Creator’s sake? This is how you learn about it on the way.
[43288]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - 1 Comment →

In order to receive the Light that reforms, the force that will make us similar to the upper force, the Creator, and that will return us to the source of goodness and abundance so we would become just as good, bestowing, and loving, we have to place ourselves in the right conditions.

How can I prove to myself and prepare myself to make the right request from the upper Light so it would influence me? Only through the environment. I don’t have any opportunity in our world to prove that I want to become bestowing and good unless I organize the right connection with the environment to the best of my ability.

That is why before and during the lesson, especially while reading The Book of Zohar, every one of us must constantly feel that he has an unceasing connection with others, that he is in a net of connection where he loses himself and only feels everyone together. He must try to feel with all his might that he does not have his own “I,” but there is only “WE.” This is called the assembly of the souls of Israel (Knesset Israel)—the unification of all those who aspire to reveal the Creator.

If they unite together in order to reveal Him, that means the broken souls desire to unite together and ascend through their request for unification to Malchut of the world of Atzilut. Malchut of the world of Atzilut takes these desires, which aspire to unite and make mutual efforts to unite, and raises this request to Zeir Anpin. He, in turn, works on this request, corrects them, and then all who participate in it acquire the force of mutual bestowal and begin to feel closer, more connected together. Thus, gradually, step by step, very slowly they reveal the net of connection between them. When this net attains its first realization, we begin to feel that we are on the first degree of the spiritual ladder.

Therefore, while reading The Book of Zohar we must constantly aspire only toward unity among us so inside of it we would reveal the form of our connection called “the Creator.” After all, the Creator is the form of connection among us.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/11, The Zohar

Filed under: Collective Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Israel, Kabbalah Study, Mutual Guarantee, Prayer and Intention, Unity, Zohar - No Comments →

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

The upper Light remains at absolute rest, and nothing prevents the created being from feeling that it is controlled by one unique and unified force that fills the entire creation. It’s only the properties of the creature itself that won’t allow it to experience that force due to their being opposite to the Creator, the Light.

In fact, according to the condition of the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph), the creature’s properties have to correspond to the properties of the Light, bestowal. This condition is laid down by the Creator who wishes to bring the created being to the most comfortable state, just the same as His own.

Thus, the desire of the created being which doesn’t possess the intention to bestow is the one that fences it off from the Creator, not letting it feel Him, the Light, fulfillment. The correction that we must undergo in order to feel ourselves being inside the upper Light is regarded as the “screen” (Masach) or the intention to bestow.

Therefore, there is a concealment system, the concealment of the worlds that screens the Light away from the created being (a “world” in Hebrew is Olam and “concealment” is Alama), behind which it cultivates its egoistic desire. Then, a spark of the screen and the Reflected Light awakens in it, and it is the “point in the heart.”

If the creature fosters it, it is in a process where it’s constantly shown a new depth of desire by the system of worlds, to a greater and greater degree, beginning at zero. The former responds by showing a willingness to acquire the intention to bestow for this very desire.

In that case, the concealment system will grant correction to it, an anti-egoistic screen, the intention to bestow. The created being demands that the entire thickness (Aviut) of desire that the system of the worlds reveals to it from the left side be corrected by the screen, the intention to bestow from the right side. By tying these two forces together, desire and intention, the creature assembles itself in likeness to the upper Light.

As it grows, the creature experiences different feelings under the impact of the upper Light. It may think it’s free to do as it pleases. Moreover, it may ponder or not about it. It may strive to be free to a greater or lesser extent, or it may be clueless about this issue altogether, meaning it may be closer or further away from the animate or human degrees.

When the point in the heart, the spark of the broken screen and the Reflected Light, starts unfolding in a person, he or she gets an opportunity to expand it and demand the Light that Reforms for it. Previously, this spark, the broken screen, compelled him to want spirituality egoistically and to enjoy the Creator and the spiritual world selfishly. Whereas now he wants to turn it all into bestowal.

Thus, a person enters a Kabbalistic group and starts practicing bestowal in it. Whether it is successful or not, these are all necessary components of reaching a prayer, a plea. If the right type of need ripens in a person, the upper Light, which today brings him a feeling of being distant, will give him a feeling of being close.
[43195]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/2011, Shamati #8

Related Material:
Shine Always, Shine Everywhere
Prayer And Gratitude
The Evil And The Holy Shadows

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

Question: At the beginning of the lesson on The Book of Zohar, I understand and get inspired by your words about intention. But the moment we start reading The Zohar, I’m beset by a multitude of foreign thoughts, and I fail to re-establish the right intention. What should I do?

Answer: Regret it! A person gradually develops a need to sense the material. Indeed, we are talking about an opportunity to perceive spirituality. Our desires (vessels) are our sensations, yearnings.

If a person doesn’t yet have a desire to discover the upper one, the force of bestowal, on the basis of the lower one, the force of reception, by way of the lower one becoming similar to the upper one in its properties, he or she doesn’t yet get inspired by a constant spiritual quest.

You can’t help it, just regret it as much as you can. And the group has to stimulate the unwavering, right intention during the study.

Only those moments during which a person remembers about the intention are regarded as the study of the Torah (Kabbalah), the Light of which reforms. If one sums up all these moments, he can count how many minutes during his life he studied the Torah…. But whatever reason doesn’t do, time will. Gradually, it will come.
[43265]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, The Zohar

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: Even if my intention is egoistic, if I start thinking about the benefit of others and the well-being of the world, can this already be considered an action?

Answer: Of course. Do you really think that giving out bread to the poor is a real action? This will only cause more poor people to exist in the world.

Your action is to attract Light. It, and nothing else, returns you to the Source. So what else is there to think about? Especially at a time when the whole world is in trouble and in danger. We only need the Light. The lack of Light is the reason for all the wars, crises, catastrophes, and other problems.

Precisely the lack of good actions by the Light evokes troubles at the four phases of development—still, vegetative, animate, and human. The evil we encounter is a projection of the lack of Light.

Punishment does not come from above. If I have to reach a specific reward, the revelation of the Creator, similarity and adhesion with Him, and I don’t do that, then I experience the gap that this creates as punishment or lack of goodness. And vice versa, by attaining this, I will feel a reward.

Thus, I feel reward and punishment in the same desires. If I have corrected and filled my desire, this is the reward, but if I cannot correct and fulfill it, this is punishment. There are no penalties from above. I do not receive a speck beyond what I inflict upon myself. I create my own punishment.

Therefore, we have just one task—to attract the Light. Especially today, considering everything that is happening and accumulating in the world. There are no other means.

I am constantly in touch with people who are “in the know,” and I read all kinds of articles, visit websites, and follow the newspapers, but I don’t see a solution offered anywhere. They cannot offer anything and they don’t even want to think about this because they don’t have the slightest connection with correction.

Just yesterday I was talking about this with a famous writer and he did not say anything—he avoided answering. This indicates a lack of sensitivity, a lack of understanding the corrections.

“The world is round and we have to unite,” I say to people. “That’s right, we’re also acting in that direction,” they respond. People don’t even realize that in reality they are going in the opposite direction. After all, in the end every person is just strengthening his own party or movement. There is no one to talk to.

Therefore, we have to create conditions in our midst for a positive force to emerge. Only then will its waves ripple through the whole world. Nothing else will help. We do not depend on others, but we have to help them so that later on people will quickly catch these waves, understand their message, and feel that they are coming from us.

The materials have to be disseminated ahead of time, but in essence the source of these waves is us. And therefore, the most important thing is to unite, to merge with one another more and more.

I place great hopes on the upcoming conventions. They are the means by which we have to bring to life unity, consolidation, and mutual care for the world and for our correction, which will help the world.

The time has come for the Creator to become revealed in the creatures. The means is simple and it is in our hands. All we have to do is use it. We ask the world to wake up, but are we awakening ourselves?
[43306]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/11, “Peace in the World”

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Kabbalah Dissemination, News, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Suffering, Unity, World - No Comments →

Writings of Rabash, Letter 25: One should always walk along two paths that negate one another, feeling deficiency and perfection, that is, prayer and gratitude.

The key is to gain a correct desire. We start with a small spark, without any idea of what we really want. We are brought to a place where they study Kabbalah without any understanding of what is being studied and why we should try to belong.

However, gradually, while doing all the sorts of things that we do and do not comprehend, we eventually start getting an idea, a feeling, and knowledge. We clarify our attitude to all this and realize who we are, what we are expected to do, where we are, and what process we are going through.

Thus, from a state of total ignorance, lack of knowledge and understanding, from an unconscious, instinctive yearning, we make a gradual transition to a state where we gain more clarity and see more details, what caused them, and why they are necessary.

At this point, we begin sorting out what is more and less important for us and while reading the books, search for what we’ve read within ourselves. We assess whether we have the notions of bestowal, reception, and the desire to bestow to the Creator, which seems totally artificial and unreal to us. We don’t comprehend the notions of love and connection to the friends that are being discussed.

The only thing we can still hope for is the Light that Reforms. All transformations on the spiritual path, from the state zero, the point in the heart, and further on, occur solely by virtue of the Light. If a person thinks that he can do something else and advance in some other manner, he is making a big mistake that could halt him on the path or even sway from it completely.

Therefore, he must do his best to learn about his connection with the group: to what extent he is unable to maintain it or doesn’t feel the need for and remember it since he doesn’t like thinking about and is appalled by it in the first place. One must assess all these negative things for himself without sinking in them.

Rather, every time something like this is revealed to you, keep rising above it. Even if you are unable yet to overcome this resentment naturally and employ it to do the work, that is alright. The key is to feel it for a mere instant and, without holding yourself back, keep moving forth.

In these efforts toward advancement that you make despite your feeling disdain, resentment, and rejection, there is now a certain plea, a prayer that draws to you the Surrounding Light. Under the impact of the Light, your hatred shows as more concrete and defined, and you begin to better understand what and why you resent and loathe so much. In other words, you come to know your true nature.

Essentially, we always study only ourselves relative to a certain force regarded as the upper Light. It isn’t the Light itself that we study, but ourselves against it as the background. It’s not the Light that we feel, but our being opposite to it. In doing so, we become ready to pray, to beg. After all, we must get these internal flaws corrected, rise above them, and move forward despite them. This way, our plea for the Light becomes more concise and precisely aimed.

Thus, the Light carries out its task and reveals the egoistic desire in us, the “evil inclination.” All of this is illuminated in us by the Light that cultivates our desire both quantitatively and qualitatively, thereby advancing us toward the goal.
[43071]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/2011, Writings of Rabash

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

Question: What forces prevent my prayer from being raised to the Gate of Tears?

Answer: First of all, we have no place to turn to except for the collective force of the group since that is where the Creator is. The “Gate of Tears” means that we break our egoism and unify as one.

This state is regarded as the “Gate of Tears” because when we come to it, we feel neither desire, nor strength, nor ability to unite. And that is when (if we really achieved such a state) we receive the power to plea and cry since we are unified as one vessel with one desire. Our weakness and hopelessness lead to a cry called “tears,” and then the “Gate” finally opens.

This occurs only when unity is achieved, and unification begins at the center of the group. Hence, it doesn’t matter where you are, in Detroit or any other place. The state when you wish to bond together in order to come to love but cannot is regarded as the “Gate of Tears.”
[43036]
From Lesson 8, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →