Question: In the light of the upcoming Moscow convention, you said that it’s time we got used to virtual congresses and felt an even greater connection sitting behind computer screens. What does it mean?

Answer: Conventions are a leap forth. But in addition to them, we must maintain the connection between us daily and constantly enhance it. Thanks to the conventions, we create impulses to unification, and during the intervals in between it is vital to sustain a permanent connection and strengthen it day by day.

There isn’t another choice; we must reach a “round,” global, integral world. It isn’t mere words. We can’t break the connection after the three days of convention; the connection must underlie the world’s daily agenda. This is what’s required of us.

Hence, we have to cultivate such relations between us that will let us maintain the connection even virtually, without our seeing and hearing one another. That’s why the Internet emerged in the first place: It is meant to help the entire world link in a wholesome interconnection and move on from the corporeal, virtual unity to the spiritual one. And we are to employ this medium.

Therefore, I suggest that our future conventions should be small, for about a thousand or two thousand friends who gather in the same region. And the rest will participate in them virtually, which won’t spoil anything for them at all. On the contrary, everybody lives in one collective state, and the “virtual” participants don’t feel any slightest weakness in uniting with the participants at the physical site.

It will allow us to have many conventions a year; besides, we will be able to maintain an unbreakable link every day of the year. Let’s stop spending much money on two huge conventions a year, after which we still experience a downfall and descend into the previous state. I wish to transfer emphasis from the physical to internal convention, and from the latter to the daily inner interconnection. It is extremely important. Otherwise, we won’t be able to build the place of the Creator’s revelation between us.

[40975]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 10

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Question: On the night of Passover we read the Passover Haggadah instead of reading excerpts from the Tanakh like we do on all other holidays. What is the reason for this?

Answer: For each holiday Kabbalists of the past have established a certain order. If a person wants to realize a certain spiritual state or a spiritual level within, even if it’s just an impression of spirituality, then these instructions from Kabbalists tell him what to do in each state.

The spiritual root touched the corporeal branch within a group of Kabbalists that came out of ancient Babylon, and through the connection between them, they were able to realize all of the corporeal traditions within the spiritual actions except for the final redemption, which was realized in the corporeal world along with the spiritual actions.

A person would kill an animal and at the same time he would be “killing” the desire to receive pleasure. He would roast the animal on the altar and simultaneously correct his egoistic desire. Then he would eat the animal and receive pleasure for the sake of bestowal on the third level of his Aviut (thickness of desire). They carried out all the customs in the corporeal and simultaneously carried out actions (commandments) along with the Surrounding and the Inner Lights and the spiritual desires.

The holiday of exiting Egypt is an exit from the desire to receive to the desire to bestow. Here we carry out specific external actions as a sign of exiting from egoism to love, from hatred and separation to connection and unity between us.

This is why when we read the Haggadah we go through all the actions that reflect the spiritual actions which help us exit Egypt: “Kiddush” (blessing), “Urchatz” (washing of the hands), “Karpas” (dipping the greens into salt water), “Yachats” (breaking of the middle Matza), “Maggid” (the story of the exodus), and so on. If we carry out this order of actions on the night of Pesach (from the word “Pasach,” to pass over, leap over), we leap over our current state and enter the new level, which is the first spiritual level.

But this order doesn’t correspond to the standard order of stages of development (“conception,” “feeding,” and “maturing”), which we study in Part 12 of The Study of the Ten Sefirot: three days of the attachment of the sperm, 40 days of the fetal formation, nine months of fetal development, the fetus turning head down, contractions and birth, blood that rises from the womb to the breasts and creates milk, two years of infant feeding, and the following stages until the grown-up stage (Gadlut): 3 years, 6, 9, 12, 13, 20, and 70.

The exit out of Egypt isn’t standard in its order of development. The Light of the big state (Gadlut) comes first before the Light of the small state (Katnut). First you enter a new world with the help of the great Lights, and then you begin to develop in it.

We don’t understand the essence of “birth” even in our world. We are simply used to perceiving it as a natural process: The fetus develops inside an animal organism, and then continues to grow outside of it. We don’t even question why these three kilograms of flesh that were inside the mother is now coming out? Why does the fetus come out whole?

After all, on the next stage of development it should have started of as some sort of a drop and then start to grow from it. The previous stage of development is over at three kilograms, and now on the next stage these three kilograms should have turned into a drop…. Where have you seen that all that was acquired at the previous level, the desire (Kli) with its entire fulfillment advanced whole to the next level, as is? How is it possible?

If I finished the development on the level of NRNHY de Nefesh, I reach the level of Nefesh de Ruach. But here I don’t attain the level of Nefesh de Ruach, and instead I exit with my three kilograms of flesh out of the mother’s womb and continue to grow. In theory, I should have started my development on the outside as a single cell, from a drop of semen, just like I began inside the mother but only on the next degree.

All of this underlines the unique order of Passover, the exit from Egypt, which becomes possible only because the Lights of the great state come before the Lights of the small state, and thereby we make a leap.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/2011, “This Is for Judah”

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Question: Should I force myself to unite with the friends if I don’t feel the desire for it?

Answer: Of course, you need to force yourself. How else will we reveal Pharaoh if we don’t express our desire to free ourselves of him?

If I don’t pressure myself to unite with others, I don’t show my desire to exit egoism. It follows that I’m doing just fine in Egypt, meaning that I advance via the path of suffering (Beito) instead of “hastening time,” the path of Light (Achishena).

To “hasten time” means to exert efforts above desire, that is, against desire. I have absolutely no desire to unite with others, no desire to annul myself, no need for the Creator. All I want is a good life for myself and to discover the spiritual world, the way I envision it to be. That, too, is quite tempting, to rise above this world and soar alongside angels.

However, quite obviously, I don’t yet realize that the spiritual world means self-annulment and unification with others. If I remain in my regular “human” desire where I come to study and work in dissemination, but don’t pressure myself to unite with others and to annul myself with respect to the friends, then I’m not involved in the spiritual work. That is not advancement by way of “hastening time.” I can do a thousand things in the group, come to the lesson every day, disseminate, and speak beautifully, but none of that means that I advance spiritually, study Kabbalah, and follow the path of Light (Achishena).

Only if I pressure myself against my desire, forcing myself to connect to the group, in at least some form unite with everyone in one heart, even artificially, to be together with everyone in some measure of thought and desire, these efforts of mine are called Achishena or group work. Everything else is not.

That is why we have people who have studied in the group for years, but are yet to take even a single step forward. But if a person begins to take these steps forward, exerting inner efforts to unite with others in their inner desires, he achieves the exodus from Egypt very quickly. The key here is to grab on to this point and to influence it.

A few solid blows in this point, and we will make it.
[40705]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/2011, Shamati No. 90

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Question: What is the nature of the work of a man and a woman in terms of the annulment of the desire to receive pleasure in the spiritual world?

Answer: There is no difference whatsoever in the work of a man and a woman because they both are desires to receive pleasure; they both are egoists. Each of them has to elevate the importance of the goal, meaning the revelation of the upper force and its connection with all people, in order to reveal the spiritual world.

Feeling the importance of the goal, I annul my ego and reject various things that appear as obstacles to reaching it. I do not stop to receive pleasure from food or from life, I do not reject anything in this world, but I work only on the importance of the goal.

We say that our world is important for us and is full of big pleasures, but the spiritual world is even more important and more attractive for me. It turns out that according to the degree of this importance, I seemingly do not notice all that prevents me from reaching spirituality. This is the way I advance.
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From the Introductory Lecture Series 3/8/2011, “Reaching a Balance”

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Question: Why does a woman always have disagreements with her mother-in-law?

Answer: Both of these women have a big desire to have power over the same man. It is known from the Torah that in the past everything was the opposite way. Before his marriage, a man would bring his bride-to-be to his parent’s house, to his mother, where she would “simmer” in his familiar environment. This way, the woman understood the personality of her future husband and received all the information about him from his mother in order to connect to him correctly.

A man does exist between two women, his mother and his wife (the upper, Bina, and the lower, Malchut). This is why a man naturally tends to treat his wife as a mother to some extent, and often times he sees his mother in his wife.

All of these really descend to our world from the spiritual world. Therefore, women should forgive their husbands for this.
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From the Introductory Lecture Series 3/8/2011, "Reaching a Balance"

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Question: Do we, your non-Jewish students of Kabbalah, have to celebrate Passover and other holidays? Many of us are saying that we should hurry up to buy Matza and do the Passover Seder.

Answer: My dear students, I will try to explain it one more time, simply and once and for all, since I answered this question many times already.

You must study all Jewish original sources because they are written by Kabbalists. We study them in their authentic Kabbalistic interpretation, and not as the Jewish people have been studying them starting from 1st century CE, in the earthly manner, as if these books talk about our world.

It obviously includes the study of “Haggadah shel Pesach” (Passover Haggadah) about the exodus from Egypt because it does not talk about the exit from the land of Egypt, but of our ascent above egoism. You can observe the tradition together with us, you can sit by a festive table, you can virtually, together with us, eat Matza and fish patties or bread with pork, whatever you like.

Baal HaSulam writes in The Writings of the Last Generation that even at the final correction, each nation, if it wishes so, will preserve its religion and customs. Only relationships between people change from hatred to love, which is the exodus from Egypt. I wish all of you such a holiday!
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Question: I understand that I have to pray about fulfilling my friend’s desires. However, how can I know his desires?

Answer: It is necessary to see your friends as the greatest of the generation who are connected with one another in one corrected, flawless network. I am the only one who still exists outside of this wonderful connection and has to unite with them, to support their connection as much as possible.

Therefore, you have to see your friend’s desire as the desire to connect with you and with everyone else. This is called to enter the network of connection between them, like a cell that joins a unified organism. The other parts of the organism are already connected among themselves in unity and harmony.

[40789]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesosn 4/15/2011, The Book of Zohar

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