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.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, The Zohar

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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?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/11, “Peace in the World”

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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.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/2011, Writings of Rabash

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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.”
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From Lesson 8, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Question: What should we expect from the upcoming conventions? What intention should we build?

Answer: We are approaching very powerful changes due to our unification and I hope that the upcoming chain of conventions will help us to keep the intention together for a whole month without leaving it. Work, family, children, personal problems—despite all of this, unconsciously, in some corner of my mind, I leave a place for the most important thing and constantly worry about our unity, about how we advance from one convention to the next, from one day to the next, in our intentions and our inner solidarity—until there, inside, we will reveal the Creator.

We have been studying this theoretically for a long time already. So let’s truly wish for Him to be revealed. We have heard about this thousands of times—so let’s make the effort.

We cannot fall into doubts, “Again? How many times have we been through this?” We are at the threshold of a breakthrough. And the world is also demanding this. After all, it doesn’t have the slightest chance of finding any solution. In the Internet we see what kind of “solutions” are being offered in response to the modern crises, how people are trying to conceal and silence them because they don’t see any way out.

In a form that’s comfortable, clear, and close to the people, we must inform the world that there is a solution, and the faster we start realizing it, the less suffering this will cost us.

Therefore, our intention at the conventions is to start “permanently living” in the group that is bringing the whole world the solution to the crisis. There is nothing more important that we could possibly prepare or do for the world.

Right now we are at a very important point: There is a sick patient lying in front of us and his illness is almost fatal, but we can create a medicine and cure him. Then he won’t just be healthy, but will rise to the Creator’s level, to a new, eternal dimension.

Therefore, we must attribute the greatest possible importance to our efforts and our status—the ascent we are starting during these days. We have to hold ourselves accountable for what kind of task we are carrying out. Who are we to receive such a great mission—to actually participate in correcting not only the world, but all of reality?

We need to be a little bit prouder; that will help us to feel our responsibility.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/11, “Peace in the World”

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Question: Does a prayer for the society always mean that I pray to complement them to perfection?

Answer: Yes, but you have to complement them only in your eyes. Society does not lack anything. Except for you, everything else is corrected. Everyone judges according to their own flaws. A person sees the world through the prism of his defects. If you were corrected now, you would see that the entire world is corrected.

Hence, a prayer for the society is a prayer for your society which exists within you. This is the place of your Shechina, the “place” where you reveal the Creator. This is what your society is. After all, you never see anything outside; rather, within your desire, you see your broken vessel, desire.

“I pray for the society!” Except for you, nobody needs your prayer or all the beautiful words falling from your mouth: “I work for the sake of the society!” All of it only seems like work.

You don’t even know how much you are closed inside yourself. You have to correct only your inner desire. This is called “society,” “world.” It is all within you, as it is said: “A person is a small world.”
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/2011, The Zohar

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Question: If a prayer is a plea for correction, rather than elimination of suffering, why is it written that one should pray for the latter?

Answer: It is written that one should pray to reduce suffering because in the place where I am feeling it, the flaws of my egoistic desires are revealed to me. They are what I am praying about, meaning that I may discern what is wrong in me and how I can correct that area in order turn it to bestowal.

If we are speaking about a normal person, he prays to feel good, to get to an open faucet that pours abundance from Above into his hands. His pain is material, meaning within the desire to receive pleasure. This is what he is seeking fulfillment for. Therefore, his prayer is corporeal and naive.

He doesn’t view his pain as the means to come to the Creator. He simply wishes to calm it down, subdue it, fill the internal void. This is how most people usually pray, be they secular or religious folks. All of them strive to feel good, which makes them willing to pray for it. All they do is beg: “Give me, give me, give me” because their ego is suffering, and it has to be pacified.

A true prayer is when I say: “There is none else besides Him.” He created the egoistic desire in me, “the evil inclination,” and I have to find out what it is. If my desire to enjoy is hurting, I need to use prayer as a remedy. After all, the Creator created this desire. He is responsible for the pain I am feeling and nobody else. I feel the pain in the place where I haven’t become complete by unifying with the Creator, but I must.

Let’s say I am in the first grade. They gave me homework to do, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t prepare for the exam and failed it. Now, I have to take the consequences. I suffer, but this suffering is appropriate for my age, for the first grade.

In the same way, every person feels pain in the area where he didn’t pass the exam, didn’t correct himself, didn’t keep up with the Creator’s “curriculum” toward the goal, the state of correction. Therefore, he should thank the Creator, the upper Light, who instills in him this sensation of pain. It is a symptom of illness that is given to you so that you go to get the treatment for it, and then you will be well.

Hence, don’t look for ways to make the Creator ease your pain; rather, seek how to cure it. In fact, if you simply shut it down, then tomorrow, you will wake up with a much greater pain. Today, you took a painkiller, stopped feeling the pain, and are happy to be seemingly okay. But you are deceiving yourself. Tomorrow it will be worse!

In other words, there are those who treat all their pains and daily problems with any drug, any painkiller there is, just to get rid of suffering. They pray to be granted neither suffering nor a reward for it. Others pray to let there be suffering if it points out to them where they need to correct themselves in order to gradually reach the Creator’s degree. For that, they are willing to accept it and thank the Creator equally for what is bad and what is good. After all, these sensations are there to wake us up and guide us on the path.

These are two very different methods. There are those who cry: “Save me, give me my peace!” This is the way of the masses. However, those who say “No, we will use all this pain in the most efficient way” are the Creator’s workers. After all, we wish to do His work since we desire to be His partners. If He is awakening us, we are willing to wake up.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/2011, Shamati No. 113

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Today humanity is trying to unite. People instinctively understand that together is better than alone. Different countries are trying to make agreements over and over again, to enter a union that will make them stronger and more successful. But do they succeed in doing this? In the end we see that this leads to conflicts and even wars. The problem remains: We do not know how to unite.

However, the urge to consolidate has naturally permeated humanity for many years already. This is the partnership that is inherent to nations and people: I guard myself and yet I still see that it’s worth it for me to unite with others. Together we will create a monopoly and become stronger than everyone else.

This drive that has not grown any weaker will eventually bring us to such enormous troubles that nature itself will show us the need to unite. It is revealing to us that we have to merge into a single, global, integral whole, to totally complete one another, to become perfect, whole, and accept the “round world” where all the parts are interconnected.

If nature puts the challenge this way, then how should we now build human society? After all, the problem of egoism is concentrated only in human society. This is the only place where egoism works against unity. As a result, we discover that we are incapable of uniting.

Why did the Creator put a stumbling block in front of us, making us different and unlike one another? If we were the same, everything would be clear: Every person gives a certain amount and receives a certain amount, and the matter is settled.

Yet we are different, and therefore we have to ascend above egoism and activate the intention for the sake of bestowal, without any connection to personal benefit. Only on this condition will man be completely able to unite with others. Then he will reach bestowal for the sake of bestowal, and then—reception for the sake of bestowal. Only if every person takes this path will perfect unity emerge among us.

This is why we were not created the same: because otherwise we would solve the problem on the material, animate level and would become tantamount to ants in an anthill.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/11, “The Peace”

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A prayer is a person’s connection with the upper force that reflects only his or her perception of it. There are people who pray asking for a better life in this world, there are folks who pray for the future world, and there are those who don’t pray and don’t believe in the upper force.

Still, they do think about their future, and every such thought is regarded as a prayer. But whom I am asking, however, is a whole other matter. Is it nature, fate, something unknown, my future state, or an upper force that can be bad today and good tomorrow depending on my request?

A prayer is the action I take in regard to the subsequent moment in hopes to achieve a specific state, meaning that this notion includes various states, but all of them divide into two parts depending on to whom I pray: Is it someone that changes and whom I can force to change?

That is when people start looking for hidden ways to gain control of the upper force so that it would become more kind and change present reality and the world. This hope to bribe the upper one is the basis for all mystical and religious quests. A person of this world who lives in his or her egoism thinks it’s possible.

However, there is another, very rare approach that says that the upper force can’t be changed; rather, you need to know how to alter yourself by using the forces nature programmed within you. It is the method of Kabbalah which opposes all other methods.

It doesn’t matter whether a person thinks there is one God or many, imagines himself facing nature or any other upper force. What matters is his attitude toward it.

Does he seek to employ the forces of nature and transform himself in order to reach the chosen destination, meaning that everything depends solely on him and his connection with this force? Or, does he look outside himself, seeking to alter the upper force, meaning does he approach the upper force, trying to use it for personal benefit so that it rewards him, which relates to his desire to change the whole world and take advantage of everything there is?
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/2011, Shamati No. 113

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Question: What does the mourner’s prayer (Kaddish) symbolize?

Answer: When someone dies, we thank the Creator. Seemingly, for what, for the death of a loved one?

However, we send gratitude at the spiritual level. We look from the height of the spirit, down to the desire to receive which shed its egoistic form by virtue of the Light, the Creator. Finally, He has made it happen. That part has died, and now I can realize the “revival of the dead” with it, meaning to take the desire that remains without an egoistic intention and begin to work with it for the sake of bestowal.

After the death of egoism, meaning the intention to receive, only the “body” of desire remains. It is decomposing, and I can start working with it. Thus, I received a great deal of help from Above and thank the Creator for that. These are not simply words, but the feeling that bursts out of a person when his egoistic desire dies at last.

The Kaddish appears contradictory in our present egoistic understanding. In fact, all our prayers, precepts, and rituals don’t correspond to the laws of our life. All of them are absolutely illogical, irrational in our eyes because they are the projection of spiritual laws.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/2011, About the Israeli Nation

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