Question: What can women do to help the men prepare for the congress in the desert and over the duration of the congress?

Answer: The women need to “pressure” the men without mercy. They need to evoke a very clear feeling inside that unless the men bring them what they desire, it’s simply a disaster. Suppose that a man has a job interview, and the outcome, whether or not he will be hired, is absolutely critical for the family. If he doesn’t get the job, the family won’t have the money to buy food or pay rent, and will immediately fall from a more or less modest living standard to being homeless. This is how a woman needs to feel: If the man doesn’t bring home the paycheck, we will have nothing to live on. It must be felt like a terrible crisis, like a breaking!

If the women decide to influence the men with this feeling, the men will have no other choice than to make it happen. It is therefore written that the exodus from Egypt is actualized on account of women. And the subsequent reception of the method of spiritual ascent into Mount Sinai is also done thanks to women. This pressure toward men must be gentle, rather than rough, lest it trigger strong resistance on their part. Everything must be done simply, in the way a wife can pressure her man without uttering a word. That is precisely what we need.
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From the talk “To Acquire a Desire to Give” 1/29/12

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Question: What is the connection between the four upcoming conventions? What can be the result of them? How can this build a world group when we will be preparing for them as one?

Answer: The main thing is to properly prepare for them.

It is not in organizing a convention. If you want the convention to really be spiritual, for spiritual advancement, you must completely exclude your egoistic demands: your desire to have the convention at a place convenient to you or any other reason.

There is just one very simple reason: for as many of our friends as possible to participate in the convention. And this is why it needs to be organized in a way that is most convenient for those people who are always with us.

A convention is by no means organized for newcomers or people waking in off the street, or for special guest personalities. By no means!

The convention is only for us! If there is an opportunity to invite someone from outside to attend an evening event, this is a whole different story; this is extra and absolutely unnecessary.

This is why the main thing is to make it convenient for everyone: the elderly, parents with children, the disabled, small children, people with health problems who need rest during the day because they cannot attend an entire day, and so on. All these things need to be foreseen and taken into consideration. After all this will be three whole days!

The convention will be a success if the organizers take this into consideration, because the very first condition is thinking about everyone, making things comfortable for them and not for you. You need to completely cancel your opinion and do what is best for everyone.

This is the approach that needs to exist anywhere in the world. I do not care where the convention is, in any village with any conditions, as long as it is convenient for everyone. And convenience means affordable and easily accessible. And that is it. This is the first condition of a convention.

And the second condition is for everyone to participate in the convention, for everyone to send their wishes, songs, and video clips. Do everything you can and be with us.

Believe me that I get more inspired sitting behind a screen than being at the location, because the distance that separates us gives me an additional desire and aspiration because I was there but here. I prepare myself for this and the screen for me becomes an absolutely ideal connection with those who are there at the actual convention.
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From the talk “To Acquire a Desire to Give” 1/29/12

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Question: Should the friends who are still undecided about coming to the convention in the Arava desert make an inner effort and make this decision?

Answer: I cannot advise! This is a person’s choice. Everything depends on you, not on me.

But, the last trip to the desert had a greater effect on people than all other conventions. How it works this time, depends on everyone.

This is a state where we can really advance forward and make a breakthrough; it’s like reconnaissance through an attack.
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From the talk “To Acquire a Desire to Give” 1/29/12

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Question: What do I have to do if I realize that when I am praying for my friends I am in fact praying for myself?

Answer: This is called “Lo Lishma.” You think of others because without them you can achieve nothing. It is an egoistic intention since you pray for everybody else only because you can’t manage without them. So, this means that you are really praying for yourself, “Lo Lishma.”

We pray to get closer to the Creator and to “bestowal.” But do we clearly realize what bestowal is? For us, bestowal is a pleasant sensation, some kind of positive acquisition, a present!

Does it have anything in common with actual bestowal? No, it doesn’t. It’s a lie, but with good intention. So far, we sense that concealment is given to us from Above to make us think of various spiritual concepts as if we were little children. A child looks at each garbage truck with delight thinking that it’s God’s chariot that descended from the skies; he regards its driver as an angel and envies him.

The deceit is organized by nature so that a child learns to respect anything that is higher than him and thus learns to strive and achieve an upper level, otherwise he won’t grow. The same scenario works with all of us: We have to worship the group because only with its help can we achieve the spiritual world and attain bestowal.

We regard bestowal as a process of giving to us, rather than our giving to others! This is how we view bestowal; if not for that, we would have run away a long time ago. However, the force Above overturns the deceit completely and presents it to us in a totally opposite way, thus making us wait for a present. Sweet treats stimulate our growth.

Therefore, our current concepts are wrong; they are the reverse side of reality. That’s why our world is called “opposite” and deceitful. When we advance towards spirituality, we become opposite to it. But those who lead regular lives are not considered opposite to spirituality whatsoever; they are simply cut from it.

We are aware of our oppositeness to spirituality since we educate ourselves. We try to be in control of our divergence as much as possible by restricting ourselves. If we can understand where actual truth is and where deception is and if we manage to expand the boundaries of sanctity by giving up on something we like, then to the extent of our efforts we will advance.

Everything depends on the degree to which we are able to give correct sensory definitions to spiritual concepts in order to start sensing bestowal, in other words to start realizing that for us it is similar to death and that there is nothing worse than that.

It’s even worse than death, since death is a complete discontinuation after which there is nothing at all, whereas here our lives are taken away from us and we become the Creator’s slaves; we can only torture ourselves from morning till night by working hard against our own will; we can neither compliment our egoism nor die.

It is opposite to such an extent that one cannot even imagine it. Oppositeness unfolds only when we acquire the property of Bina, the readiness to suffer until that suffering turns into the opposite of its opposite state: into love.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/12, The Zohar

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Question: What conditions should we fulfill so our request is accepted by the upper one?

Answer: The request should match the abilities of the lower one. If a small child asks according to his conditions and makes efforts, then he grows by getting the answer, illumination. Besides that, we aren’t required to do anything else but to ask according to our degree, our internal state and external conditions, which are given to us.

We need to consider both the internal and external conditions. We think only about ourselves, but it is wrong; we should take into account the entire world, all the conditions. So it works in the material world, and in the spiritual one.

In the spiritual world, the soul is an internal component, and the worlds are the external one. If the souls do not bring themselves in balance with the external system, the worlds, then no action is possible. We still do not understand this in our world, and I am sometimes amazed when I hear from some students that they are not concerned about dissemination, the connection with the world.

But what is the world? It is our external vessels. You cannot address the upper one correctly without considering both the internality and externality.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can I use The Book of Zohar to wake up the group for the attack before the convention in the desert?

Answer: We need to ask for a desire. We are constantly falling asleep in our life. It is no coincidence that our heart becomes burdened by the constant growth of the receiving desire. It has to grow to infinity, and thus we should react to this correctly. The desire becomes more and more violent and egoistic, more demanding and burdensome.

It is good if we try to bring it to correction, that is, to unity. And if we do not try, we experience troubles and misfortunes, which will force us to think about life only not because of the goal, but because of pain. Thus, we advance.

As for The Book of Zohar, it is possible to ask for the Light, which you lack.

Suppose, you are sick. You have fever, chills, you do not feel well, and want nothing, but to lie down and close your eyes. What do doctors recommended in this case? Indeed, you should not tire the body with physical activity; you need rest. You lie in bed, good for nothing, and even cannot eat; you lose your appetite, any food seems disgusting. But what can you do? Then, do the following: Open a cookbook, read the recipes, look at the photos in color, and gradually your appetite returns.

It is the same here: You are sick, you are sleepy, so open your book. Not necessarily The Book of Zohar, any book that is close to you and to which you respond. Depending on conditions, I use different books: The Gates of Intentions, Gate of Reincarnations, the 16th part of TES, and Shamati. Everyone is awakened by something else. It could be Psalms. It is written: “A man learns where his heart is.” The main thing is that they are our materials.

If a person is completely confused, the sages advise that he should think about the day of death. He can go to a cemetery and reflect on graves. Of course, this is just an example, but the point is to throw the body some calculations and shake it. In fact, it is not about physical death, but the death of the egoistic desire.

However, the most obvious of all the means is the group, the impact of the environment. If a person works in a way that he should be included in the others, it is very effective. As a rule, it helps a lot to organize an event for the public because he receives people’s desire and power to move forward.

Dissemination is the most effective method and the best solution. When one participates in it, he feels how much strength it gives.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12, The Zohar

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In Kabbalah, as compared to other sciences, it isn’t enough for a person to simply study and understand the studied material, even if he feels it in a regular, commonly accepted manner. The uniqueness of the wisdom of Kabbalah is that a person feels internal changes in it. Actually, he changes the foundations of his desire, mind, and heart. A new desire is revealed to him, consisting of 613 desires and 613 connected and corresponding thoughts enabling the realization of the desired. In general, these desires and thoughts comprise the person’s soul. That is what the studies reveal to us.

Before that, a person only had a point, the smallest Reshimo (informational gene) existing in him from previous stages of development, which we’ll attain afterward. In all our work, the only thing that can facilitate our self-development is drawing and increasing the force of the Light influencing the point concealed within us to the maximum, developing it as quickly as possible.

That doesn’t mean we can just turn on the faucet so the Light will flow more quickly. In order to hasten our development, we need to be prepared to change.

We don’t hold a knob in our hands, which regulates the Light coming from the Creator to the Menorah. I can only turn that knob from within the point in my heart. Try to discern if the point in your heart is connected to the switch. You don’t control it, and the only option is to be included in a group. That is because in this system, comprehensive and abstract Light from Infinity flows. Thus, in order to regulate it, there must be a total (∑), integral (∫) of efforts, reaching infinity. Only by being included in all the friends further and further, will I be able to turn the switch and increase the Light in accordance with the law of equivalence of form.

What is that law? I’m not in equivalence of form with the switch, the absolute force of the Creator. However, at my degree, I can operate it to a certain extent. The difference (∆) between us remains, and some sort of adaptation or equivalence exists in all.

Question: Is this switch personal for each one or common to all?

Answer: Common. What operates is only the prayer of many, the common desire.

Question: How can we create a permanent connection between the point and the switch?

Answer: It’s impossible. Because being permanent symbolizes lack of motion, in such a case you won’t develop. You will always be driven away from the path by evil desires.

In the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 17, Baal HaSulam brings the words of the Talmud: “If thou cometh across this villain, pull him to the Beit Midrash (seminary),” to a place where we all demand the Creator, meaning a group, the collective force concealed amongst the friends.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How does the Creator arrange all the situations for the billions of people in the world in each and every moment?

Answer: It’s reasonable to assume that you have seen how birds or fish move in flocks and schools. In the sea there are millions of fish communities, and all of them are in synchronized and compatible movement. It looks like they all have one common mind; indeed, they are connected to each other. Also birds don’t fly following the first bird, but fly together at the same time. Watch the clip Birds by my student Vladek Zankovsky.

When tigers go hunting, they maintain constant connection between themselves and feel each other in the same common movement. What one tree in the forest feels, the others feel, and we are not talking about the connection through a system of roots, and in general, not a physical connection. And in nature a society produces a special mind, a special sensation of common order. And this mechanism operates equally in everyone, and it’s not limited in distance, time, or in any other way.

Billions of people in the world exist under the influence of this collective mind that rules them as His parts. They do not exist on their own. All of them are activated by their desires, which are in the care of the upper force, the Light. One command is enough from Above and everyone begins to move.

You see, the Creator is the thought of creation. When I think about building a house, I first of all organize all the specifications, draft a blueprint, and only after that do I approach the building according to the plan. It’s the same with the thought of creation and all in all, it’s this plan that operates everything. We are absolutely subordinate to it.

The movements and changes in our desires and feelings, the actions, the thoughts and imaginations, all of these are not us. At the end of it all, it is feeling, meaning that which is felt in the desire to receive, that’s my “I.” Disconnect me from the feeling and I will lose all consciousness, I will disappear.

Each one of us is a small desire to receive which feels his reality. There is no substance; the substance is the desire. Thus there is no problem in managing the billions. Indeed, all of it is one system, one whole. A small change, changes everyone, like a school of fish.

The collective mind exists in every group: at the level of animate, vegetative, and inanimate nature. It also exists at the speaking level, only here we want and must create this connection on our own above our desire, in spite of our desire. And only then will we create the connection with the collective mind, the upper one.

On a large scale, psychologists and experts are familiar with the phenomenon of the collective mind: Governments use it at the animate level to form public opinion. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to control the country. And this doesn’t happen only in the form of demonstrations and other mass events, but also on the daily level through the media, through rumors that are purposely spread as if by chance. There are many channels of influence, and every government is well familiar with them.

From here we need to understand that the group is one whole, one desire, one thought, and no one can escape it. We see how ants surrender to the collective mind, but actually people also act according to the same principle. Go out into the street, and then watch the news broadcasts and look at the things from afar, and then the next day you’ll be convinced of it. When a person goes out in the street and becomes part of the whole, he already loses the control of himself. He runs along with everyone else, shouts together with them, and surrenders to the collective mind.

From this we see what the connection is. If we connect, a common force is created, a common desire, a common thought. And each one who is found in this framework, under this influence, is not able to exit it. You can escape this only on condition that you break the boundary of the group. In order to do that you need to receive such a great strength that it’s able to break the mutual connection of the group, similar to the way the particle accelerator breaks the connection between the particles. You must receive such an acceleration that allows you to break the borders of the defensive covering, and that’s not simple at all.

On the basis of this principle, groups are created that assist the person to become rehabilitated from addiction to alcohol and drugs: We try to erect this force of connection, the potential of the collective mind, against the potential of the force of destruction. Actually, it isn’t even a common brain. It isn’t composed from the connection between the various minds of the friends of the group. The common mind of the million fish isn’t the total of the minds of each and every one times a million.

No, what’s created here is a mind, which exceeds the every term by a million times greater. From where does it come? It comes from the connection between them. After they connect, they add to their connection the force of the Creator, and now He accompanies them in each movement.

Thus, the mind that is discovered above everyone is not our common mind meaning that everyone thinks the same thing. This mind governs us from Above. It isn’t resulting from us. But we, in our connection, invite onto ourselves the upper providence. And this happens at each level of nature.

In a similar way, revolutions occur. Suddenly everything bursts into this fire that the government is not able to stand up to it. Seemingly that isn’t clear: It isn’t difficult to oppose the commotion with force. But no, the leaders suddenly feel helpless, “impotent.” We are speaking more of the feeling of the upper force that is above the nation which they constantly degraded. Something higher is revealed here, not something lower. And it isn’t important how many people go out into the streets, their inner potential suddenly rises to the sky, and the leaders surrender.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can I ask for help if I don’t feel where it can be requested?

Answer: That’s true. But does the baby who has just been born and cries feel whom he’s calling? He just screams.

That’s called concealment. I am situated in the upper Light. This upper Light doesn’t depict any image of reality to me, as yet. Imagine a baby who has just now emerged from his mother’s womb: He is simply content or not. Besides that, he doesn’t feel anything. He doesn’t feel the reality surrounding him.

That’s how we are: We’re content or not. From where and why, that we don’t feel. Afterward, we begin to recognize this world, become familiar with it, and respond to it; hence, we begin to develop.

In spirituality, we develop in the same manner in our relationship with the Creator. Now, I don’t feel it, understand it, or know anything about it, whether it exists or not. Yet, the Kabbalists tell me: Pay attention to what’s taking place behind the scene of this world before you. Indeed, this world is situated before you in order to begin to develop the connection with the Creator through it. The Creator created you in such a way so you’d cling less to this imaginary reality. It is imaginary, because instead of the Creator, instead of the upper force, you depict something inside you in the meantime. Different waves of liquids paint the image of reality for you, like in a dream. That’s why it has been said about this world: “We were as dreamers.” Indeed, a dream also seems true to you. It’s the same thing now, as well.

Hence, in order to awaken and emerge from this dream, this bubble, we need the reforming Light, the spiritual force. Does it exist or not altogether? I don’t know, I don’t feel it. I’m told: “Would you like to try? Be my guest, you have the opportunity; you have been given this world along with the means through which you’ll be able to begin to feel something above this world. Would you like to use this means? Go ahead! You don’t? Try to turn down receiving it. Just like you reached this means against your will, with no choice, out of pressure of all sorts of physical or emotional misery, that is how you can also attempt to escape.”

However, we see how all of humanity is gradually advancing and can’t escape. Why? What is this crisis? It’s being revealed to humanity that there is no choice other than revealing the comprehensive system, the force governing and activating all, the upper force.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/12, The Zohar

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Question: Right now, before the congress in the desert and the beginning of a worldwide dissemination effort, what should our plea to the Creator be in order for it to be heard?

Answer: At the congress in the desert, we must feel the first degree of our connection and within it reveal our aspiration to bestow to the Creator so that this bestowal to Him would clarify the fact that only through our connection can we have a greater influence on Him.

Today we view the necessity to connect with friends and the opportunity to obtain a connection with the Creator through our connection with friends as two separate things. We perceive the connection with friends as book-learned, as though it’s a teaching for good children, where as connecting with the Creator is something everyone will agree too.

However, we don’t connect the two terms: One is a vessel and the other is the Light that fills it. The connection between us is the vessel and the Light that’s revealed in it is the Creator. Let’s hope that during this congress we’ll realize how inseparable these two conditions are.

This realization will leave an imprint that will allow us to advance correctly. After all, our work is left unfinished. We apply efforts, but each time they’re limited to a half or a quarter of the whole. But applying efforts to the full measure, even in relation to one gram, is greater than applying a partial effort measurable in kilograms or even tons.

After all, if there is not the full 10 Sefirot then you work and you scream, but it’s all in the wrong place! It is like it is said about the rainfall that goes to waste because it rains in an uninhabited desert. What difference does rain make if it falls into the sand? If at least 10% of that rain fell on your field, it would provide your livelihood!

The same thing happens with us. We cry out to the Creator, but we don’t do it through our connection, therefore these cries go unheard. We would already be in the world of Infinity with all of our work and screaming; however, we don’t cry out in the right way. We must fine-tune ourselves and then our cries will be heard.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12,  “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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