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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Question: Why does the greatest advancement happen precisely while reading The Book of Zohar, without understanding anything, just by keeping intention?

Answer: The study of Kabbalah does not require any special mental abilities because it is not learned with the mind. On the contrary, people who consider themselves smart, who are good at studying, who grasp things quickly and have a keen mind, usually do not advance very well in Kabbalah. That’s because the mind and the sensation of their mental abilities stops them, carrying them away to the path of the rational study of this science instead of attaining it by being loyal to the group. This is a problem.

I would say that it’s precisely the regular, “average” people who are more successful in spiritual advancement. The brilliant smart-alecs who come to study the science of Kabbalah usually stumble right away. I see that its as if they jump head-first into the deep sea, and “resurface” from there many years later, once the water washes off all of their pride, feeling of superiority, and power.

Let us hope that we belong to those who are successful in attainment rather than those who have a brilliant mind.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/11, The Zohar

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A true prayer is “the prayer of eighteen blessings.” They are nine Sefirot of the Direct Light and nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light not in Malchut, the desire to receive pleasure, but in Yesod, which is above the egoistic desire. In other words, it implies the intention to employ Malchut to bestow. From here derive 18 types of our relationships with the Creator: nine from the Direct Light and nine from the Reflected one.

To use Yesod in the place of Malchut means to act on the side of “mercy” since we are seeking the property of bestowal, striving to become equivalent to the “first nine Sefirot” (Tet Rishonot), which descend from the Creator to the created being, Malchut, the 10^th Sefira. And our sole desire is to reveal these nine Sefirot, the properties of the Creator, meaning to take them in, absorb, and become similar to them in our nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light.

Thereby, a true prayer forms within us. After all, because of my desire to get equivalent to the first nine Sefirot, I engage my nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light and ask to utilize them in order for Malchut to become totally identical to the nine properties of the Creator who enters it. Thus, my nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light become the vessel (Kli) accepting the nine Sefirot of the Direct Light, and I receive the Light into my prayer right then and there.

If we know how to pray like this, then we engage the upper Light in the right way by seeking how to receive mercy and the force of bestowal from it, and afterwards, by dressing in our Reflected Light from below upwards. Thus, the prayer will be an act that contains absolutely everything within itself, revealing the first nine Sefirot in Malchut, perceiving them as the nine upper properties in it, and the ascension of the Reflected Light from Malchut downward upwards, which becomes “garments” for the Direct Light as it gets calculated and received in the Reflected Light. All of this is accomplished through the prayer of “eighteen blessings.” Hence, “the prayer of 18 Sefirot” is the key prayer in spiritual work.

If “ascension of the worlds” occurs during the spiritual work, such states as the “Sabbath” (Saturday), a special “holiday,” it results in the “prayer of 18 Sefirot” being altered because a more powerful Light descends from Above which makes the work below it, in the nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light, change in order to contain the entire Light coming to us during the holidays. This is the way we arrange our spiritual work.

This is why it is written that “Anything is done by the power of prayer” and “Contemplate Him day and night,” since prayer is an act that contains all stages of making the spiritual Partzuf: entering of the upper Light, followed by the calculation in the Partzuf’s head, its interaction-by-striking with the Light (Zivug de Hakaa Be Rosh), and the expansion of the Light downward. All of which implies the entire process undergone by the Partzuf in its development: conception, nurturing, maturity (Ibur, Yenika, Mochin). All of this is contained in the prayer of the 18: the nine Sefirot of the Direct Light, which dress in the nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light.

And this all occurs while I keep the intention to be transformed rather than trying to alter the upper Light, which is at absolute rest and always radiates at its fullest in the infinite measure in the head (Rosh) of each spiritual degree. A person who is only beginning his or her spiritual work must take time to examine their attitude to the upper force as unalterable, which fills the entire creation, meaning it isn’t subject to change.

After all, the upper one is totally open to us and radiates all its Light, while the changes occur solely in the one that receives. Therefore, my prayer is not a plea for the upper one to change, but rather a search for the right desires in me that will help me to connect with the upper force and gradually nurture myself in becoming identical to Him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/11, Shamati #113

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When reading The Book of Zohar, we have to see the Light in it that corrects us and returns us to the source. But what has to be returned to the source? I have to place something “beneath” the Light. The Light shines, but do we have the desire that we want to correct? This is what we have to be concerned with.

The desire has to be suitable for being corrected by the Light. If the desire does not correspond to it, then the Light still influences it, but in that case we feel bad to the extent of our desire’s difference from the Light. This remains so until we make our desire suitable for correction.

That’s why there is a rule, “Make your desire like His” and then “He will make your desire like His,” like the desire to bestow and love.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/11, The Zohar

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Question: What is “intention”?

Answer: Let’s say desire is in one state now and wishes to move to another. To do so, it needs to induce an action that will transfer it from the first state to the second. The plan implies the following: precise knowledge of where I am, where I wish to be, and what action and forces are required to move me from state to state. This whole program is what we call “intention” or the plan.

It is as though “the plan of creation” is the complete program defining how to start and what to finish with, what steps to take on the way, how to use the materials, forces, and instruments to carry out its initial thought. It is said: “The end result is in its initial thought.”

In intention, all of this exists in potential and then is actualized in practice. This means that intention appears in me only when I’m well aware of the present state and know exactly what I want to achieve. What do they usually ask: “What are your intentions? What do you want to gain? What results do you expect?”

Intention is an expression of the need for change that we already plan, understand, experience, implement, and bring to completion. The action itself is carried out by way of the force of Light and, hence, it doesn’t pertain to the created being. Only intentions have something to do with the creature: how well it has known itself, the Creator and how and in what form it makes the Creator act. A person needs to know as much as possible.

As I keep growing, ascending the ladder of the spiritual degrees, I demand more from the Creator, specifying all of the details of His actions. I already know how He acts and how it will affect me. I know, in every detail and peculiarity, how it will take place within me, in my “body” (desires). From my experience of Him and myself, I already know how it will all occur.

In the end, I obtain such details that I can manage His program for Him: I understand this entire program, every element of it, all of its mechanisms to the tiniest twists. When I come to the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun), I get to know His entire plan from the beginning to the end, all of the steps, from His side and mine. It means that I have acquired complete intention.

The Light is always in action. But how it acts and how I should demand from Him to transform me, all of this is the work of a person who needs to know the Creator, the relationship between the Light and desire.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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