Question: Could you briefly formulate the purpose of the convention at the Arava desert?

Answer: We have one goal: having united, to reveal adhesion with the Creator. We have to reveal a close interconnection, a strong bond in reaching the goal, in ascending above our corporeal desires, above everything that appears to us in this world.

In our mind and feelings, we have to rise above the reality that we feel here and unite all our hearts and thoughts. Our goal is not to simply assemble the common “We” out of individual “I’s,” but to rise to an even higher degree and become one whole. It’s similar to drops of water merging into one big drop without leaving any boundaries between them.

The influence of the upper Light helps us achieve this state. We can’t imagine this state, but the Light can lead us to it. This ascent to the first degree of unity will be the crossing of the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality). Further, we’ll find ourselves on steps of the spiritual ladder, and we’ll be able to climb to the very end of correction.

In addition to it, in our first spiritual state we want to reveal forces to correct the world and to help it on its path toward the purpose of creation where we all unite in order to merge with the Creator. We want the world to reach it peacefully rather than through sufferings, which also can push us forward.

Thus, all our work is in finding the spiritual world, that is, in degrees of merging with the Creator. Then, we will help humanity to reach a predestined state of perfection in a good way where we’ll all give pleasure to the Creator together.

Question: What kind of thought should each friend arrive at the convention with?

Answer: I want to lose my personal self-awareness. I want to rise in my mind and thoughts above the body and unite with the mind and feelings of all the friends who will form the collective head and the collective heart, as it is said: “Like one man with one heart.”

We should imagine this picture at the time of the convention by trying to live it, to live inside of it. I’m no longer an owner of myself; I “sold” myself to the group; I’m loyal to it, and it takes care of me like the upper Partzuf takes care of the lower one, like the whole takes care of the individual, like the mind takes care of the body. From now on, I’m driven and governed by the group.
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From the 4th pat of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: During the lessons, we attract the Light together. In dissemination, we work within the framework of managers  and subordinate relationships. How do I lower my head before the friends throughout the day?

Answer: I lower my head not before an external image of a friend, his name, qualities, or character. I lower my head before the concept of the group, which consists of the whole reality: worlds, vessels, and the Lights. I want to be there, included, in self-denial, without any feeling of myself.

It is not just a friend in his physical appearance. I only look for a spiritual form, I want to rise above my thoughts and desires. If I renounce myself, then my body, my origins, everything that I have is directed toward fulfilling the desires of the common heart and thoughts of the common head. That’s what self-denial is.

For example, before the convention I’m prepared to do anything in order for it to be successful. I reject any criticism; I don’t have any calculations regardless of where I’m asked to go or how much time and effort it will take. As soon as I see, hear, or feel that I can help, I immediately do that. If I linger even for a moment, that’s not right; that means I didn’t lower my head before my friends.
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From Lesson 3, Israel Arvut Convention, 11/11/2011

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Question: While reading The Book of Zohar, I constantly get distracted in my thoughts. I understand that it’s good because “from Zion (exit) will go forth the Torah.” But still, how do I hold on to the internal concentration?

Answer: We have to try. Let’s assume that I’m called in for a trial to investigate how much I care about the group. According to the outcome, I will receive either reward or punishment. Then, while reading the text, I will worry about attracting various good forces and alienating or sweetening the evil ones. I read The Zohar for that purpose.

First of all, the trial is evaluating me only in one direction: connection to or disconnection from the group, how much I’m bonded with or separated from it. Thus I have to awaken the influence of good forces that help me to connect to the group, and conversely, remove the obstructing forces.

Besides that, I have to see that all the actions that pass through me are meant to show me clarifications that I have to perform and various factors that strengthen my connection with the group in a direct or indirect way. It’s because in the end, both good and evil are meant to force me to strengthen my connection with the environment. Only on that principle is the trial being held.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/2011, The Zohar

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Question: I receive the same question from many places in the world when our friends who disseminate our material about the new forms of the future society, they are being asked whether they are actually ready to build such small model settlements themselves?

Answer: No, because we are a scientific, educational organization. Our goal is to teach and educate the public through materials about mutual guarantee, unification, and a society of mutual balance. We only want one thing: to create a virtual, international basis for education and upbringing, a university that prepares educators and lecturers.
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Question: Do you think that the current crisis is economic or financial?

Answer: In general, I think there is a big difference between economists and financiers who only think where to invest the capital in order to profit the most.

Economics studies the interaction between the producers, distributors, and consumers of different economic sectors, the connection between consumers and manufacturers, and describes the supply and demand. Because it’s a reflection of the egoistic connections between us, economics (as a result of its development and understanding of the new integral interaction between all producers and consumers) has to describe the new structure of their mutual relationships.

It has to characterize this new system in the form of a balanced system of relationships, the middle line, a society of reasonable consumption that produces all that’s necessary for a comfortable existence of every individual, according to their specific needs, but not more than that, and that reaches and maintains the balance between each person’s bestowal to society and his or her consumption (reception).
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Question: A convention in the Arava desert will be held this weekend, which will be attended by several hundred men from Israel to unite, to crystallize the inner force of mutual guarantee between us, and to become the nucleus for unification at the December convention. How can we do this?

Answer: Indeed, there has to be a special inner nucleus in which all the points will gather into one. This point is surrounded by a more passive part—the women of Bnei Baruch, and the widest circle is the external world.

On the inside, all of our friends from the whole world merge together. Why men? Because that’s the nature of creation: They are the ones who need correction to attain love and unity, whereas women reach this differently. Then, when we attain the desired state, we will be able to pass it on to others.

Question: How should women support men at this convention?

Answer: They have to think about our success. We need this support as without it we will have a very hard time. It’s exactly the same as how “the sons of Israel came out of Egypt by virtue of the righteous women.”

Women are a very powerful part of the common system and their support is simply indispensable. When a woman worries about a man, this gives him great forces, a great impetus to realize her yearnings. Without women’s support, we will not succeed.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/11, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: How should we prepare for the convention in the Arava desert, in order to arrive there with the right demand?

Answer: We know that the correction of the world happens in stages. The men have to perform the correction first, those who feel the true desire to connect and understand that mutual guarantee can only be in the connection between us. The women join this more passively.

So we are going to a place where we will have no disturbances from foreign thoughts and desires. There we will try to lead an attack aimed at the connection between us. I recommend that only the men will assemble in all our centers because if all the men in the world try to connect now, it will be the right preparation for the December convention.

Then we will move on to the next stage of preparation. By December, we will acquire more forces in order to add the men who can’t participate in the spiritual work with us now, and the women too.

Now we are consolidating the nucleus, and in December we will unite the external circles. The purpose of the December convention is for the part of humanity that takes part in the convention together with us to become an internal force that awakens the others towards connection and mutual guarantee.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)“

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Question (from the Hebrew blog): Last year, while studying Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, I was granted the revelation of the Creator in my heart. His teachings continue to illuminate my path and fill my heart. I turned to faith, began to put on tefillin (phylacteries), and try to fulfill the commandments, as I understand them.

Once, I came to your class in Haifa before Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) and was very surprised by the fact that before such an important day as the Day of Atonement, you completed the lesson without saying a single word about keeping the commandments.

I was hoping that at least at the end of the lesson they would read a prayer. But even this did not happen. Don’t your lessons and the method of transmitting our holy Torah include prayers and performing the commandments? It is important to note that I really enjoyed the lesson. I would like to know whether it is possible to talk about such exalted matters without including the direct interpretation of the Torah and the fulfillment of commandments.

Answer: I address all the citizens of the country and the world, and that is why I do not present my explanations in the framework of customs so as not to scare people away, but to attract them towards the main commandment: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
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Question: What’s the use of the group’s seclusion at the Convention in the Arava desert?

Answer: We have gathered here to lay the foundation for a new society, whose purpose is to attain adhesion with the Creator. In order to attain adhesion with Him, we have to attain adhesion among us. And in order to attain adhesion among us, we have to unite, disconnecting from the disturbances of the outside world. After all, we’re small and we have to strengthen one another, so let the world not interfere with our doing so. That is why we are going to the desert.

In the past, groups of Kabbalists took much more extraordinary measures to isolate themselves from the external environment. A person has to allow himself a bit more freedom from this confused and senseless world, to collect himself inside a bit more and understand what his predestination is.

In the whirlwind of life, under the roar of the radio and television, you can’t make out the fine voice of your soul or attain the fragile inner inspiration. You simply don’t have the energy for it. Even Kabbalists living hundreds and thousands of years ago in a completely different world, which did not know the “wonders” of mass media, still secluded themselves, barring themselves from their habitual environment, and even “going into exile,” leaving home without taking anything with them and going off to wander for years, getting by with occasional earnings and food.

You don’t even know what you are losing in the modern world, which is stuffing and miring you with its filth. Do you want to attain something exalted? If you do, then what efforts are you making to break away from the lowlands?

It’s worthwhile for us to find time for this kind of seclusion where we will feel only our own forces, without the disturbances of the outside world. Let’s separate a day in life to feel who we are instead of who they are.

Obviously, we don’t force anyone to participate and we don’t make lists of participants or deserters. We don’t put check-marks for the future. Whoever doesn’t want to or can’t come just doesn’t come. In this sense, everything is very liberal and open. But on the other hand, if a person comes there, he has to participate in the actions that the group has assigned to help us detach from everything and feel only ourselves.

Don’t you sometimes wish to be alone with yourself? That is how the group wants to be alone with itself, to feel itself. You enter a room, close the door, and remain with your own thoughts. That is how we want to remain with our thoughts. In reality, this is clear and commonly accepted. But for us it’s not just a minute of rest, but a detachment from “the degree of women and children” and an ascent to the “men’s level.”

In the article, “The importance of the group,” Rabash writes, “When a person works on the true path, he needs to seclude himself from other people. After all, the path of truth requires fortification because it contradicts common notions. The world’s opinions are built upon knowledge and reception, whereas the Torah’s opinions are built upon faith and bestowal. And if a person is distracted, then he immediately forgets about all work on the path of the truth and falls into the world of self-love. Only in the group do the friends help one another, and therefore every person receives forces from it to fight the commonly accepted notions.”

The upper world is our inner world. We have to shift our gaze from externality to internality. Therefore, with the help of the friends, I try to go inside, to look inward, to acquire a deep wisdom, to attain the inner meaning of the Torah. There is no other choice—I need this.

A person must constantly immerse himself inward, penetrate into his depths—and precisely there he reveals the true world. The external world deliberately confuses us so through the conflict with it, upon the resistance, we would build our direction inward. Our struggle is to penetrate deeper and deeper on the background of this world’s reality, which pulls us outward.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/11, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: If you ask people what the soul is, the majority will say that it is something like a cloud or some kind of energy, characteristic of this person (his or her reaction to what happens around them). During my studies I understood that the soul is the quality of a character, which we do not know, and that we discover it only when we unite with each other.

But a woman cannot unite. Does this mean that she has no soul? A woman does not draw the Light and, and hence she does not have to study The Study of the Ten Sefirot or The Zohar. Once, there were women prophets. What is the difference between them and those who predict the future?

Answer: By participating, a woman receives everything through a man even if she does not study Kabbalah, although today it is not forbidden to anyone.

Question: When I feel good and easy about my life, what can I do to quickly discover the next part about myself that is lacking? This morning I felt the need to connect and study with others, but the lesson does not start until later tonight! I feel like I am wasting time. What should I do?

Answer: Read Shamati, the Psalms, and any of our sources.
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