Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 51: …One concealment relates only to the concealment of the face, while the posterior is revealed to them…. Item 52: Concealment within concealment means that even the posterior of the Creator is hidden from them, as they do not believe in reward and punishment….

Am I on one of these levels? No, in the meantime the Creator is absent from my picture. I don’t feel that He exists and I don’t feel that He doesn’t exist. I simply don’t feel anything. This means that it isn’t the level of concealment yet.

In the time of concealment, I don’t feel that there is someone and that he is concealed from me. This allows me to inquire: Why and for what reason is he concealed? What is this concealment in itself? How can I remove it? Could it be that it is better if I conceal myself from Him so that He will start to reveal Himself? But I won’t conceal all of me from Him, only my desire to receive, my ego. If I conceal the part of the heart, which is controlled by self love, then perhaps I will be able to reveal the Creator and to connect to Him.

So the concealment is already the beginning of the work and the test: I find out under what conditions I can remove the concealment. It is about the preparation period for the action that will reveal the Creator to me. Now, however, we are preparing for the preparation.

Question: What is the benefit of this stage?

Answer: Advancing towards the state in which we feel that He is concealed.

So what should I do in order to discover His concealment? I have to understand who I want to reveal, who the Creator is. The Creator is the attribute of bestowal. That is, I have to discover that the attribute of bestowal is concealed from me. When I really want it, I will feel that it isn’t in me, and to achieve it I have to work with the friends in the group.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What is the meaning of “revealing the design of nature”: Does a person see, hear, or feel something?

Answer: As man becomes similar to the surrounding nature, he begins to treat it in a positive manner and to understand its design, feelings, and thought. He begins to see that nature, which created everyone including him, man who possesses a higher mind and feeling.

By the way, many speak about this, people who are close to nature, who grew up and developed in it, for example the Bedouins in Israel who live in the desert. They perceive nature, its breath.

I have spoken with many people, who have spent many years in the desert, the tundra, and the jungle with apes. They told me of amazing sensations, when the perception of nature, its design, and its mind suddenly begin to communicate with the person, and he begins to perceive that he exists inside mother nature, inside an enormous wise system. He suddenly begins to speak, communicate with it, reveal its matrix, its plan, and identify with it, and a certain union between man and nature appears which raises him to the next level of development.

The understanding of the common design of nature and the ascent to its next level, the level of controlling our own lives, is the purpose of the modern stage of development.

Question: In other words, we see certain new relationships and they become more obvious, more natural. But nature itself remains the same? Or does it also change?

Answer: I am not speaking about the still, vegetative, and animate nature. I am speaking about nature, which bares itself before man, reveals itself, and he discovers a certain enormous common universal feeling, mind, and design. Man reveals this.

When he connects to this, he begins to feel that he is on the next level of development. In other words he gains the understanding of all processes, the view of the world from beginning to end, its design: Why our Universe developed, where it came from, what there was before the Big Bang, what happened after (since our Universe has obviously existed for a certain amount of time), and the perception of the Universe, how we perceive it outside of our five physical senses, through a universal mind, a higher heart and mind. As man attains this, he begins to understand that his entire lengthy historic process of development was in order to reach this level.

Many sciences speak of this. Terminal problems, which appear in every science come from the fact that further development of sciences is directed specifically in this area. Consequently, scientists will not be able to reveal anything without upbringing, without being transformed through an integrated relationship with nature. This is why all our sciences are in a crisis.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #7, 12/14/11

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Question: Should we get rid of all our corporeal desires in order to reach the level of the “poor man?”

Answer: We shouldn’t get rid of any desire. We should only ask for correction, and nothing more. The upper Light knows what to do better than we do. I don’t have to get rid of anything. Even if I see my worst attributes, I mustn’t get rid of them because it’s as if I would be cutting off my arms and legs. I don’t correct myself; it’s the Light that should correct me.

If I come to you, and attack you, shout at you, and insult you, I mustn’t “shut myself up.” I have to pray for the upper Light to perform this correction because that will be a real correction and not something that is done under pressure. This is a huge difference.

Baal HaSulam says that if you suppress something by that you are destroying this part in the world, and due to that the world will never be corrected. It will require much more effort to bring it back to the way it was and to correct it.

Similarly, we sometimes use medicines in order to suppress an illness and to conceal it inside, and this is even worse than if an illness is seen clearly and thus can be cured. This is how a snake operates: It hides inside and you don’t see it, but then it crawls out.

Therefore our attitude to transgressions, to quarrels between people and to different conflicts is totally different: Let them be as they are, yet above them we should build the correction because now is the best time to correct them.

If a person wants to cover up the negative revelations and to hide them, it’s the worst thing. There are people who are afraid of quarrels and conflicts, they are afraid of such revelations, and it’s bad because that isn’t aimed at correction.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, The Zohar

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Complete Transcript of the Introductory Lecture: “The Arvut – Mutual Guarantee”

We are going through some very rough times in the life of our country. The problem is that today people around the world, not just people in our country, do not know how to solve the problems that have risen. But the solution suddenly comes in the form of the people; this happens in different countries, and now we can observe this in Israel.

We do not yet know whether this is an epidemic of some sort or on the contrary, a certain good wave, which will bring the world to order. But people, living in different places around the globe, feel the urge to go outside and express their wishes and hopes.

This happens because for a very long time now, almost sixty years, there has been a tendency around the world, which points to the supposed end of our entire history: The world is becoming submerged in crises, which manifests in every area of people’s lives.

People are no longer able to create a normal family; this leads to the multitude of divorces, children not able to live with their parents, leave their parents’ homes early, and use drugs and alcohol. But the crisis does not only manifest in the family unit, it encompasses society, industry, economy, the education system, culture, and even science. Scientists themselves are stating that science has come to a dead end and cannot develop further. We really seem to have hit a wall.

Over the course of thousands of years, we developed from one generation to another with the assumption that our children will have a better life. We suffered, as it were, for our children in hope they would be happy. Our love for them forced us to develop and work hard sacrificing ourselves. But now none of this exists; today we are no longer convinced that they will have a better life than we did. This is why people no longer want to have and raise children: Who needs it and why? What will this unfortunate child be born for, to see this complicated and meaningless life?

And the understanding of the fact that there is no meaning or purpose to it literally penetrates our brain. We do not see a solution; we cannot find an answer. It is as if mankind were suffocating in their inability to somehow move. And the entire world feels this.

But the main thing is the financial and economic crisis because the common crisis manifests in it. After all, economy connects the entire world into a single net. Industrial, commercial, and interbank relations: These are the imprints of our desires and aspirations. In other words, our relationships are essentially measured with money. What can you do? Such is the world. This is why a crisis in economy is a special sign.

At the same time we reveal that our world has become small. Literally within 24 hours, a person can find himself in the most remote place without feeling much of a difference besides for the mentality of the people, which he can gradually become accustomed to. Things are approximately the same everywhere, everyone is connected with one another; people seem to lose their individuality. Besides the fact that the world has become small, all of its parts ended up being tightly connected with one another. And that led to special results: We saw that we depend on one another. For example, when something happens somewhere in Japan, the entire world suffers. And the same is true of the US, Europe, and any other place.

Everyone mutually affects one another. We cannot even imagine what would happen if the US were to declare fiscal default. And in general, can we even wrap our minds around it? The Common Market could fall apart in Europe, and this would naturally affect the entire world. Briefly speaking, we live in an unpredictable world, and on one hand, this causes pressure in society, but on the other hand, people are becoming indifferent towards whatever is happening, since they are not able to change anything anyway.

This indifference comes from the same connection that exists between all of us, because we all depend a lot on one another. But we did not build these connections; simply, the world has suddenly closed in on us. It was separated into a multitude of pieces, and suddenly it became closed in, suddenly we have become like a unified mankind on the globe, one family, and we depend on one another. This is a very big problem.

Today scientists, who study human nature, political and social scientists, already clearly see that we really exist in mutual total dependence to such an extent that no one can escape it. Scientists already started coming to these conclusions in their studies 50-60 years ago. But only recently every one of us started to actually experience it.

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Question: If I read the text while listening to The Zohar, I cannot concentrate on prayer. What is better: to read or to pray?

Answer: It is better if you do both, but you cannot accomplish it at once. It takes a long time. It is similar to working with some novel device or entering a new society. Initially, we don’t know anything about them. We start exploring their behavioral patterns and reactions to the environment and eventually analyze the initial data and our impressions; we figure out what impacts this mechanism and what doesn’t.

Gradually, we begin to sense the nuances of the system; we learn how it reacts to external factors. It doesn’t matter whether it is a human society, a family, a person, or a machine. All systems react to external influences.

When we study the upper system: Aba ve Ima, ZON, worlds of BYA, and Atzilut, we gradually start assigning our own properties to them under the influence of the surrounding Light. We can tell the difference between Aba ve Ima (Father and Mother) and ZON, which occupies a position that is lower than Aba ve Ima or the worlds of BYA; we distinguish between right and left lines, and recognize Arich Anpin with its “brain partitions” and “hidden intelligence.”

We begin sensing definitions. It’s as if we know people that belong to a certain group or as if we connect a familiar person with a concrete sensation:  pleasant or unpleasant, intimidating or not.

When we get to know The Zohar and other Kabbalistic books, we link Kabbalistic notions of internal and external nature with our own sensations. Thus, we begin to assemble all images into one picture, no matter what we read:  a weekly chapter of the Torah, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” or The Book of Zohar, which is written in an allegorical language. We start collecting all images into one picture.

It’s about the upper system to which we belong and its influence upon us. It doesn’t matter what time and place we are talking about: Egyptian slavery, wandering in the desert (as described in the Torah), shattering of the worlds, or correction described in the “Study of the Ten Sefirot.”

Not only do we start to understand that all sources talk about parallel events, only using different languages; we also begin to connect them to ourselves. First, we thought that everything was outside of us and that some upper system was somewhere else, whereas we are here in this world.  But later, our self-vision starts to differ and we recognize that everything is within us and about us. The whole Torah is instruction (Orah) that helps us enter the authentic system in order to avoid the state of unconsciousness and keep us away from the condition of living without any clue of where we really are. This is how a person gradually advances.

When we open The Zohar or any other Kabbalistic book (The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Tanakh, Midrash, or Psalms), it depends only on the person and his in-depth sensation that all these sources speak about him, the Creator, and the buffer that connects them together, that is, the world, humankind, the group, and our teachers, the great Kabbalists, the authors of the books that connect us with spirituality.

Then, it doesn’t matter what “language” we are using and what style we cling to; all that matters is whether we have enough time and a suitable place for authentic actions. We feel that we stand across from the system that facilitates revelation of the Creator to us. This system is both external and internal and the Creator stays inside of it until “Israel” (the people), the Torah, and the Creator connect into one whole as all of us always strove to attain.

It will come gradually.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/12, The Zohar

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Question: How can we protect ourselves at the time of the Creator’s revelation if our Reshimot (informational genes) and desires change and are being renewed at every given level?

Answer: This is true, but we shouldn’t overlook the initial principle that states that the only thing we have to do is work on our desires and demands; the result will come from Above. It doesn’t make a difference if we face even a thousand confusing situations. All we do is prepare a desire for each state.

There is total confusion around us; we cannot trace internal connections and don’t understand a thing. We don’t have to understand: All we have to do is to want. We are not obligated to comprehend the situation and assemble fragments of the whole picture into one. Our task is to want to connect them together with the help of the Light that reforms. The more confusion there is, the better.

If we regard our work incorrectly, it seems that we don’t advance at all. We get more and more confused and frustrated; looking back, we are frightened by events in recent years, and looking forward, we don’t see even a glimmer of hope. Rabash once told me: “If at the time you leave a lesson you don’t feel more empty than the day before, it means that the lesson was unsuccessful.”

The lesson should end with a sensation that we don’t have anything. “What do I do?!”—I cry out. My cry has to resound.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/12, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What is a good indicator that we are on our way?

Answer: A good indicator is one’s discovery of the deficiency from which the spiritual Kli (vessel) is constructed. As it is written, “God will complete for my sake.” This means that, in response to this deficiency, the attribute of bestowal will truly arrive. Through it, our spiritual Kli will be filled.

We were given the initial Kli, HaVaYaH, about which it is said, “I the Lord do not change (Ani HaVaYaH lo Shiniti),” “Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey,” or the four stages of the direct Light. We can broaden it only by attaining the root through the tip of the “Yod” through which all of the HaVaYaH is filled to the same extent to which we open to Her the place of fulfillment, our deficiency.

The fulfillment is measured by the extent of bestowal that is acquired by this HaVaYaH (Yesod of Neshama – foundation of the soul). The soul (Neshama) is filled with the letters: “Yod-Vav-Dalet” (the complete spelling of the letter “Yod”), “Vav-Yod-Vav” (the complete spelling of the letter “Vav”), “Hey-Yod” (the spelling of the letter ”Hey”), and so on.

How can the Kli of HaVaYaH, the “skeleton” of the soul, be filled with letters? After all, the letters are also Kelim. Does that mean that I seemingly fill a pail with empty cups? Is that called filling? I wanted to be filled by the Light! The bestowal that the Kli acquires is specifically called the Light. It fills it, and it doesn’t need anything else.

Therefore, the acquiring of deficiency for the desire to bestow is the essential preparation of the person himself. When the desire to bestow arrives, it will fill the Kli with longing for bestowal, for love. There is no other filling: only this!

When a person is filled with the attribute of bestowal, he studies the Creator, the upper force, and becomes like Him. It is especially in this that he feels the fulfillment, that is to say, the filling is the Masach (screen) and the returning Light.

This is what we need to long for, to prepare for. All the work is just for this purpose. The main problem is not to become confused and not to replace the real fulfillment from bestowal, from the desire to bestow, the desire to love, with other fillings. No other fulfillment is able to give us more from this corporeal life than the very “small candle” and the awakening to spiritual life, meaning a kind of weak luminescence that stimulates the desire to receive and forces it to search for real fulfillment.

Therefore, all of our work is to search for the correct deficiency, and thanks to it, we become familiar with the Creator. That is what we can add to His work.

The Creator created the desire to receive, and we add to this desire our new correct form. We take this raw material and sculpt from it what seems to us as good and correct. Thus, we complete the creation.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Many people in Israel support our message, so why doesn’t the whole country hear us?

Answer: The message cannot be heard in a vacuum. There must be “air,” the attention of the hearts, through which the sound waves are transmitted. Otherwise, you’re just silently opening your mouth and no sound comes out. The desire that can pick up your words and carry them to a distance isn’t ready yet. This is the whole problem.

So what can we do so that this desire will appear? We can distribute our materials in the streets and at the events we hold, which is what we do, but this is not enough. It isn’t by chance that Kabbalists kept quiet until our time, until the egoistic desire started taking on the form of the general crisis. It wasn’t even a prohibition, but simply an inability to communicate something to the people.

Even if the wisdom of Kabbalah were opened before them, they wouldn’t have seen anything. Using the example of current events, we have been talking about the problem of unemployment for a long time, but only now it is beginning to emerge. Everything is delayed; we are always ahead of things.

We can only make efforts to do our best in dissemination, making sure that it doesn’t turn into “unripe fruit.” Everything must happen all in its time, so that people will understand our ideas correctly. Otherwise they will have the impression that it is just empty talk.

Therefore we should wait a while. We don’t want them to suffer, of course, but still the serious problems must reach the headlines, so that we can come out with our ideas. People need to hear from us what they are ready to hear.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: When we start talking about current global problems during the lesson, many of our friends take it negatively feeling that we are “missing” part of the lesson. I feel that this attitude should be changed. Without current affairs we have no right to exist. If we are not relevant people won’t hear us out.

Answer: This is also true. Baal HaSulam wrote about the Jerusalem Kabbalists who studied Kabbalah like mathematics and didn’t realize that it’s about the connection among us, about how to correct the broken vessel. Today we discover the shattering of the common soul of Adam HaRishon (First Man), and so the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed to us in order to correct the shattering.

If we don’t examine the current events from this perspective, then why should we study the wisdom of Kabbalah? Clearly we study only for this reason. Missing the lesson means that I come out of the lesson and throughout the whole day I have nothing to hang on to so that my life won’t go by aimlessly. If my wisdom isn’t connected to real “substance,” it disappears. Even if I feel important, that I have acquired something, and that I understand something, it’s only an egoistic filling, nothing more.

Therefore, if someone thinks that we are talking about current problems just to pass the time, then he shouldn’t come here. After all, he is here thanks to the relevance of these current affairs. Only because of this was each of us brought here so that he would contribute to the correction of the world. But if a person sets himself another goal, he can leave. We don’t need him.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Suppose the program to educate the unemployed is accepted. How long will it take until we begin to see changes in our country?

Answer: A couple of weeks. Of course, it depends upon the number of people who will study, but the changes will be rapid. Imagine how many hours a day a person will take part in the integral education course. This in itself will evoke great changes in him. At the same time he will be under the strong influence of the environment: millions of people who study daily from their homes, in community centers, in schools in the afternoon…this will be their main occupation, apart from the necessary part time job.

It would be enough if this lasts for several days in order for a great force to be revealed. If you hold such a day all over the country, you will immediately see the changes, and you will see how the people cut themselves off from the old life style and connect to the new one.

The changes will take place at once and in every area of our life: in crime, drugs, litter in the streets, etc. Think of how much can be saved just on municipal services alone. Even the number of sick people will diminish. We will undoubtedly feel this in everything.

Moreover, the entire economy will change too. Will we, the people, keep on buying goods in such monstrous quantities? Will we continue to subsidize the producers and the middlemen that inflate the prices? Will we pay five dollars for cottage cheese that hardly costs one dollar? We will sift out all the redundant things and leave only the necessary ones.

So you may ask: “And what about the taxes? Where will we get the money for social security and for defense?” You will see that there are the means for that. It’s wrong to build an economy on an endless cycle of enormous sums of money, from which the government takes a percentage of for itself. Just look at this ridiculous structure that produces not only goods but papers too.

The economy will be different. You need to provide security? Please, take the people and act. Everyone gets exactly as much as they need to lead a normal life. And all the rest goes to supply the needs of different systems, not financially but rather in the framework of sensible necessities.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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