Rabash, Shlavei Hasulam (Steps of the Ladder), “Purpose of Society 2”: To be integrated in one another, each person should annul himself before the others. This is done by each seeing the friends’ merits and not their faults. But one who thinks that he is a little higher than the friends can no longer unite with them.

For us to be integrated into one another, I have to “annul” myself, lower my head (the black arrow), rather than consider myself equal to the other. Why? After all, we unite and thus have to be equal (the green arrow).

The truth of the matter is that I constantly play with my egoism, which wants to “put me on a pedestal” (the red arrow) all the time. If I withstand and “play down the ego,” I have a chance to reach interconnection.

Question: A very fine work is needed here: On one hand, I want to give my maximum to the group, but on the other, I have to annul myself. One seems to contradict the other.

Answer: This is because we work in confrontation to our egoism. If my attitude towards the friends was neutral, I would have no problems. However, I am “in the minus” from the beginning, and I have to cover it.

The spring of my egoism constantly pulls me upward, to self-importance (a). And thus, to counteract it, I have to apply an opposite force (b). Then out of these two forces the third will be formed (c). This is how we arrive at the formula of interconnection: a­­−b=c. I don’t have any other choice.

Queston: Does it apply to the Arava convention as well?

Answer: You have to lower your ego before the group all the time and to constantly ascend, awakening the group towards the goal. To raise the group, you need to “come from above,” while your individual work demands self-annulment.

[70264] 
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”  

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Question: The coming convention makes me feel fear and pressure that are way too strong. I don’t feel happiness and love, but only instructions and warnings. I don’t feel like going to the convention any more. Why have I reached this state?

Answer: It’s because you’ve never thought that a convention is not a picnic. You always came to our conventions like to a festival full of lectures, performances, dancing, and meals…. If a person awakens himself with the help of such activities, they are serious and beneficial for him. But if he doesn’t, he can simply enjoy life, without approaching what’s important.

In the past, too, people used to come to the Temple because there was always fresh meat and good wine there. While others used to come there with rather different thoughts.

Today we make people understand where they are. Everyone has to understand and agree to this; everyone should feel great fear. The Torah even describes the external signs of this state, such as ground shaking, thunders, and so on. It is really so.

At the same time, this very important situation should evoke happiness in us. You are in Gevurot (strength), but the upper level is revealed to you, if you deserve it, of course. If you don’t, here will be your burial place. So you should decide whether you should come or not.

The quality of the participants is more important than the quantity. Mass dissemination of the principle of mutual guarantee is one thing, while a spiritual ascent in the desert is something else.

If a person comes there as if to a picnic, he will cause himself great harm. He will diminish our power and will disturb us with his foreign thoughts and desires, and he will be punished for that in the future. Such a person shouldn’t come. There is room here only for those who are very serious.

I will understand if people decide to stay at home. It will actually be a serious attitude: A person is afraid, not sure of himself, understands that he is still weak internally.…

Well, so perhaps in another two thousand years you will have another chance ?
[70380]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Question: In what way should our intention in the Arava convention be different from what we had before? What should we prepare ourselves for?

Answer: Our intention during this convention is to add great fear, great anxiety: What if I don’t support the general effort correctly?

Just like in a poker game, I go all-in, wager all my resources, and put all the cards on the table. I am ready to give all of myself in order to attain the Light that Reforms. I am ready to give my share and to push everyone towards the goal. At the same time, in unification with all the friends, I want to receive through them the force that will connect me not with them, but to the One above them. We must do our utmost so that love will cover all sins. We must yearn for mutual guarantee and unity.

The difference is that this time we act on our own, without the external circles, in one thought, desire, and intention. We don’t leave it, we are constantly inside. We attack not only and not so much mentally as in desire and intention.

This is what we prepare, and everything else depends on the participants. They build this state.
[70369]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Question: Can the group forbid a friend to participate in the convention because of improper behavior?

Answer: We must check every case separately. On the whole, these are the criteria:

• participating in the lessons every morning;
• paying Maaser (tithing);
• participating in the gatherings of friends,
• participating in dissemination as much as one can.

These four conditions are mandatory. If a person fulfills them, he has a place in the convention.

But we made some mitigations and we don’t check the participants according to these criteria. Many of them don’t pay tithe, do not participate in the morning lessons, and so on. Surely, these people don’t quite understand what we have in mind and what we do. However, it doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to succeed in the convention and that it will only be a “practice.”

Besides, different people come from different parts of the collective soul of Adam HaRishon, and for some of them it takes twice or three times longer to master the system. They can advance in some particular aspect, but it is more difficult for them to change internally. There are those who even become worse: coarse, careless, and so on. Don’t judge your friend until you step in his shoes.

On the whole, we don’t judge the friends according to their external behavior unless it is related to dissemination work. The main thing is that a person doesn’t show disregard.

Question: Does this mean that in the meantime these criteria are a recommendation and not a demand?

Answer: This time we don’t impose them, but a person should know that not fulfilling them keeps him behind. He can participate in our activities, but he won’t advance. He won’t disturb us in the convention, and he will feel an ascent, but not as a “man” who comes out of Egypt.

We give these people a chance to be with us, at a lower level that limits the feeling and the advancement. There is nothing we can do about it.
[70373]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Question: How is it possible to enter happiness while reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: We have the greatest means that promises us success. If you are near it, it only remains for you to use it.

It is like you had been searching for treasure for many years, you crossed continents and oceans, and then in a remote cave you found it, and now the chest with the gold is in your hands! All that treasure is yours! You only need to use it.

We have found the treasure: The Book of Zohar, and now we only need to use it correctly, it is already in our hands.

Also to use it correctly isn’t simple. You need to invest these “gold coins” making sure that you are doing so in a good way.

We are near the force that can also transform into a great destructive force, the “angel of death” instead of a “holy angel.” That is why The Book of The Zohar wasn’t revealed to people during hundreds of years, only during our times when man is really capable of using this power for good and when all of humanity arrives at a hopeless state and must change.

Therefore, we should rejoice that this force is in our hands. And now, with great caution, we need to learn how to use it correctly.
[70357]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/12, The Zohar

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Question: In the last convention in Israel I felt an unprecedented sense of connection. But afterward, for a week I felt such a descent, which, too, I had never felt before. Now I am afraid of conventions. What can I do?

Answer: It is very good. It is excellent. We should really be afraid. We also see that before the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt.

Just imagine that you are being thrown out of the place you are used to, and that you escape in the middle of the night, not knowing where to. Pharaoh’s cavalry is chasing you. You are confused, you jump into the Red Sea, and suddenly a miracle takes place. Actually it isn’t so delightful. Then the people praise the Creator: “The horse and rider drowned at sea.” But we should understand that a person goes through very extreme states that resemble birth; he feels great pressure like an embryo during labor pains.

Then after the journey in the desert almost a thousand laws are “imposed” on you: what you should do and what you must not do, and what punishments you will receive if you don’t follow these laws. In other words, you get the plan of your future correction, even before you are at the foot of Mt. Sinai: “This is what is expected, whether you want to or not. It makes no difference. Take it and start doing it.”

Only now do you discover what the work of the Creator is. Up until now you thought that you are a hero among zeros and now you see a list that reaches the sky before you. In every line it says: “if you don’t perform—you will get problems, catastrophes, death….”

Furthermore, you are also told: “On the whole, if you don’t connect—this will be your burial place.”

Then the point of Moses gladly comes out of every heart, the point that pulls us toward the Creator. We connect these points and discover to some extent the connection with the upper force. It is done gradually: At first only the point of Moses discovers Him, while the other points—the sages, the elderly, the priests, the Levites, Israel, the women, the slaves and the children are standing at the foot of the mountain. They say, “We shall do and we shall hear.” In other words, all our desires that are ready to surrender receive the force.

It is happening today, and the next day we immediately build the golden calf.

It is important that we understand: It is all within our reach. We escape the ego, and we really need to feel this escape. You come to the convention, fully ready, fearing that you might not fulfill the mission and reach the desired goal. You are afraid of being restricted and obliged, just like the escape from Egypt.

On the other hand, you feel obliged to all the friends. You look at them and you desperately look for our collective point of connection.

Eventually, we should bring all our powers to one moment. But for that moment we should be taut during the whole convention, like a taut string. We should be connected in time, movement, and place, in the connection among us. It is said: “Israel the Torah and the Creator are one.” This is like the situation of the great priest in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur….We should reach that one single unique moment and then it will happen.

Then the path will continue, but it will be with the connection to the Reforming Light.

These are the conditions: You are actually running away; it isn’t in your power to go back to your previous life; you must achieve the desired goal; and at the same time you must pull together all your powers for that single moment. This aims you very sharply at the target. Let’s see how all this will happen.

In The Book of Zohar, (Nasso [Take] Items 98-99) it says: “…and they shall gather at the foot of the mountain. At the foot of the mountain they were told: ‘If you receive the Torah, good, and if not, there shall be your burial place.'”

This means that we with our egoistic desire will see the beastly life as “wonderful.” We will feel that we are in this “beastly burial,” and some won’t even feel that. Then instead of internal mental, goal-oriented, human disturbances, we should expect beastly problems from which the whole world suffers.

Therefore, we must prepare for the convention very seriously. If we’ve taken it upon ourselves, we mustn’t withdraw. It is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is not to be afraid.
[70249]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Question: What do the “black letters on the white background” signify in spiritual work? Are the letters the deficiencies (desires) that are revealed on the background of the white light?

Answer: It is impossible to discover one without the other. We are the creatures, and the Creator is the force of bestowal. We don’t understand His feelings and attainments since we are built completely differently. The only thing that we are able to attain is the preference of light within the darkness. So we comprehend reality only on the contrast between light and darkness, between bestowal and reception.

A letter is a symbol. It is possible to look at it as black lines on a white background, and it is possible to see the white light that has something missing. In both ways it will be the same letter, but from different points of view: from the side of the Light or from the side of the Kli, the desire.

It all depends on how you understand deficiency. It could be that your deficiency is perceived within the Kli and you are waiting for a more pleasant feeling in order to receive fulfillment for yourself? Or it could be that your deficiency is felt in relation to the Light: When will I be able to bestow and be included within the Light? This means that I am waiting for the Kli to be included within the Light and not that the Light will enter the Kli.

The work is always possible from two directions. Everything depends on how you consider adhesion to the Creator: Is the Creator included in the creature or is the creature included in the Creator?

The Creator joins the creature in concealment since after all, He is always within him, directs him, and loves him. But He gives us an opening, a small deficiency, so that we will move towards Him and yearn to adhere to Him.

The measure of adhesion is the “letter,” the black lines on a white background that show the extent to which I am adhered to the Creator. On one hand, the letter, so to speak, is missing the white light. But on the other hand, I cover the white light myself.

I am now in the white light, but I am detached from it; however, I add to it my letter. And because it is black, I succeed in writing something from myself on the white. Thus, even if the letter is black, in any case, it expresses the extent of my adhesion to white.

The letters clarify how much the creature is similar to the Creator. And despite that the white light, as it were, appears to have some kind of deficiency—that is my addition to it.
[69505]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/12, The Zohar

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Question: What is the importance of the conventions that are intended not only for us, but mainly for the world?

Answer: The point is that we need to take advantage of each convention in two ways: to advance upward toward the Creator, to the attribute of bestowal and love, and simultaneously to move downward, towards the remaining 99%. Essentially, we need to separate the two and afterward to connect it all into a single whole. This is what we have to do.

Thus, at each convention we will talk about our advancement forward, upward, and also about our movement downward to all of humanity since one cannot exist without the other.

We received the disclosure of the wisdom of Kabbalah, the disclosure of the condition of unification, the attainment of the spiritual quality, because we need to call for the unification of and connection with all the others, to rescue humanity from the state it is in. This is why we are like this; otherwise, we wouldn’t have been given this.

We connect all of humanity: the 99% and the Creator. Under no circumstances can we forget either of them.

Between ourselves, we must go forward, to the attribute of bestowal and love in order to become one whole. For this we need the connection with the Creator. And all of this is in order to bring humanity to the same state.

It is precisely because the ego and the crisis have manifested in the world enough that we were given the opportunity to bond between us, to work with the book, to understand the system, to discover the world, and in this way to advance it forward. This is the only reason we exist.

We represent Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), and all of humanity is the AHP. If we advance forward, we will be able to attain only a small illumination. Our advancement needs to be as follows: We need to advance toward the Creator, and the Creator will lower us down toward humanity. Afterward we will advance a little more toward the Creator and then back to humanity.

And thus it alternates. Otherwise GE won’t have the Kelim (vessels), desires, since GE do not have enough Aviut (coarsenss or thickness of the desire).

All of the Aviut comes from the AHP, from humanity. Thus we must, like from Egypt, take from there all the Kelim and “drag” them with us. When we bond with them and begin to transfer their Aviut, we will begin to advance forward with the help of descents and ascents. Thus we will move all the time, in a circle, until we bring the entire humanity to connection with the Creator.
[69626]
From the Lecture on Unity Day “To Acquire a Desire to Give” 1/29/2012

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Question: How can we plead with the Creator correctly? I encounter my egoism everywhere….

Answer: You have to realize one thing: Everything is ready for your birth, but if you don’t start acting and fighting, Pharaoh will keep you in prison and won’t let you free. On one hand, your egoism gives you an opportunity to develop, but on the other, it doesn’t let you exit.

There is a need for external pressure, greater suffering, wars, and misfortunes—just so you will desire to be born. A spiritual birth is not a mechanical process; it is impossible without your consent. You reveal your desire from within and then you feel a new life. Without it, you can’t transition to a new stage.

And hence, two possibilities exist: Either the developmental factors will pressure you or you yourself arrange the pressure of the group. Then Pharaoh, who doesn’t let you breathe, becomes a good environment. Moreover, this environment also pressures and obliges you. What’s more, you yourself demand this from the friends, until you begin to scream: “I want to be born!”

So, everything is ready for your birth, and everything depends on you. Clearly, we are now numb, dormant. How can we awaken? For this we need to spur everybody to action. We need to apply effort, which doesn’t pass in vain, but accumulates into a critical mass.

The path to your birth, if you accelerate it, is not a gradual ascent to the summit whereby you rise higher and higher. Rather, you experience a sequence of ascents and descents, until their sum (∑) brings you to the point of birth. It happens all of a sudden, you are not aware of it until the last moment—suddenly you are born into the world in the escape from the Egyptian exile.

This way you don’t need to grow by experiencing the intensifying misfortunes and birthing pains. A few pangs that you arouse yourself are enough. After all, you do it consciously and sensibly; you see what is happening with you and hence don’t have to rise by the degrees of suffering. The understanding of the process covers and compensates your misfortunes, and torment turns into a yearning for the Light.

Instead of suffering from wars and other corporeal disasters, you are burning with impatience: “Why haven’t I been born yet?” A small pain at the human degree replaces huge misfortunes at the still, vegetative, and animate levels.

A tiny effort in conscious progress is a billion times more effective than forced efforts on the long path without acceleration.
[70136]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/2012, “The Peace”

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Question: We are saying that the Arava Convention requires one to be serious. What does it mean to be serious during the convention?

Answer: This means that I do not allow myself to deviate to any thought or desire outside of the goal. I must be united with others and reveal the Creator in this unity.

Along the way I see that I lack desire. Sometimes I want it, and sometimes I do not. And then I come to prayers and questions, I analyze my state, and this, essentially, is our preparation. As we arrive in Arava, we need to feel a constant need for the Reforming Light, so it would give us unity.
[70267]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20,  “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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