Question: We expect 7,500 people to attend the Convention and it will take a very large team of people to take care of them. However, not everyone is ready to participate in this work. How can we help others to understand how important this is?

Answer: You can learn from our friends from abroad. They are paying thousands of dollars to buy tickets to fly to the Convention in order to spend three days working in the kitchen. We do not understand how great they are.

Besides, the Convention begins with preparation. We have to provide food for all the participants, set up the necessary equipment and the pavilions, and take care of many more things. We have spent several months planning all of this.

We have been doing this work for many years and I don’t think we would accomplish it if we didn’t know how great is the spiritual benefit it brings us. It holds incredible benefit. Even when you assess it egoistically, it’s worth it for you to put in as many efforts as possible into this.

In general, anything that’s useful consists of efforts you expend, but here we are talking about spiritual benefit in a pure form. Friends from different countries are coming and participating in this work because they understand that this is precisely where unity is revealed. That is where the maximum benefit lies.

Let us hope that more and more people will start to participate in this. It’s not because we can’t manage without their physical help, but rather, if they come and desire to participate, we will be able to share the spiritual benefit with them.
[#23680]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, “What is the Day of the Lord and the Night of the Lord in the Work”

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Question: Are we building the Creator’s image within ourselves, or does the Creator Himself form His image in us?

Answer: We need to find the Creator’s image within ourselves every time. Baal HaSulam gives an example of a servant chosen as the head of the King’s ministers. To reach the desired, he had to fight his cruel opponents twice (even though they were faking), in order to first reach the property or degree of “bestowal for the sake of bestowal” and then the degree of “receiving for the sake of bestowal.”

Without a fight within, it is impossible to see and attain all the forces and properties, to absorb them into ourselves, and understand what it means to be a “minister,” that is, to be similar to the Creator.
[23289]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/12/10, “The Matter of Mercy”

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Question: Sages said, “We shall do, and we shall hear.” What do we need to do?

Answer: I need to make efforts to come together and take care of everyone because everyone takes care of me. Even egoistically, as much as possible, we must connect with each other. This has to be the major condition: “Are you willing to do everything you can?” We don’t know what we have the capacity for, but we will try to do it. After all, we are not being asked to do anything beyond our capacity.

However, this “shall do” that is expected of us is truly the most serious and difficult act that we are capable of performing. Although in reality, we are incapable of almost anything. Yet, these efforts are enough to start attracting upon us the Light hidden in the system within us. If we strive for this system as little children yearn to become adults, then it is enough to awaken the force residing in the corrected system, the force called “the Light.” As a result, it will act upon us and bring us closer to the state of the corrected system.

This is a very basic form of development which exists in our world as well, in everything. If a person aspires to something, he attracts to himself the state he is yearning for. It effects the person and approximates him to itself, and he suddenly becomes more intelligent, understands and feels more.

It is written, “There is none wiser than he who is experienced” since a person gains wisdom from experience. However, what is so special about experience? The person tried to do something: “We shall do.” Just like a child, he acted according to the same natural method of development.
[23225]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: If I walk in faith above reason, does it mean that I am moved by the mind of the group?

Answer: There is no group outside of me. The group is “painted” within me like all the other realities. The notion of the group should be understood as something given from Above. In this way, the Creator is letting me see the friends so that by arranging my relationships with them, I would be able to construct my relationship with Him.

First of all, I yearn for the Creator. But He seems to be placing a condition before me: “Do you want to find a connection with me? Then please be pleasant and close to those who are close to Me. These people, the group I brought you to, are my family. Do you want to do something nice for Me? I will accept nothing from you, but watch how you treat them, what presents you give them, and how kind you are to them. Demonstrate your love to My family, and then you will become close and dear to Me.”

From this, it becomes clear whether you truly desire unconditional closeness with the Creator or act based on egoistic calculations. If you treat the friends well regardless of how you view them and become close with them, then you wish to be close with the Creator indeed. However, if you are unable to be close with them, then it is an egoistic motive which pushes you toward the Creator, and since it is not good for the Creator, you remain outside.

This is how we should view the entire world. The Creator offers us reality as a means to assist our correction and bring us into total equivalence with Him.
[23056]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/10, “The Matter of Above Reason”

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Question: How do we use envy in the group correctly?

Answer: Envy and ambition are very powerful tools. Envy magnifies descent and ascent. The greater it is, the better or worse the friends look in my eyes. As a result, this “amplifier” helps me to advance since without envy, I won’t see anything good in the friends.

In that case, on what side does envy play? Is it for egoism or against it? It depends on how I use it. It is in my power to assign it a vector that will seek the needed qualities. If I exalt the friends in my eyes to the level of the final correction, then I envy them to the same degree. In this case, the envy drives me forth, after them.
[23061]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/10, “The Matter of Above Reason”

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Question: At the Kabbalah Convention 2009 we were able to reach a special sensation that you referred to as a “drop of unity.” What did we attain then and how can we complete it at the big, upcoming convention?

Answer: At the Convention last year we felt that there was a special point in the unity between us, which did not depend on us and was above everyone. And if we were to connect between us, we would be able to depend on it, strive toward it, unite around it, and be protected by it. This “drop of unity” is a high force created by the connection between us, which protects us from all ills.

But this is not enough. In this drop, we connect our spiritual sparks into one spark. If we were to connect our desires to bestow, the mutual guarantee, to this common spark, we would begin to reveal the connection between the sparks that are glued together; that is, we would start to discover the system of connection of our souls. Every connection between the sparks is a relationship of mutual hatred and love above it.

In the first case, we connect our sparks (the points in the heart) into one big spark, and then we attain what a high state this is, meaning a state that exists by itself, a certain reality outside of us. We have created something new that was produced through the connection between us.

However, if you were to add a little bit of desire to it, then not just all these points in the heart connect into this spark, but also all the egos between them become revealed, meaning the entire hatred, and love above it. In other words, a net of connections between us becomes revealed, and we can perceive spirituality, the Creator, in this connection.

This means that you sign the mutual guarantee on the basis of the revelation of your desires, meaning that besides the point in the heart, there is the revelation of evil in them and the consent to be above it. After all, this net is built with our desires which we renounce by connecting above them and replacing hatred with love.

How will I be able to connect with others otherwise? It is not enough to simply connect into one spark; this is not a real connection because we have left the entire ego below. Meanwhile, I must rise above it, above Mount Sinai (the mount of hatred).
[23594]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: How do we perceive the Creator: like other people outside of us or differently somehow?

Answer: The difference between perceiving the Creator and perceiving other people can be likened to perceiving the general and the particular. Due to truly beginning to feel people, I reach the perception of the general which includes everything and is called the Creator.

However, there is a difference between the particular and the general. After all, the general is the root, the initial cause of everything. It is not just a few people or many together, individuals or the entire totality. The general implies attainment of the root of creation. This is a qualitative addition.

The difference is not in drinking from a hundred separate glasses or from one big glass with all one hundred portions poured together. I attain the cause of creation, the process that includes everything and its goal. The root encompasses everything, and other people cannot provide such attainment, only the Creator can.

The goal of the Creator is to bring us precisely to this point! And prior to it, our state is still imperfect.
[23604]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: The purpose of creation is to feel the Creator in the same way that you feel a person near you. But is it really possible to feel the Creator this way?

Answer: We are building the spiritual senses (vessels) in us that would enable us to feel the Creator as clearly as we feel a friend. The ability to distinguish the difference, the dissimilarity between myself and someone else is the property that forms within me the ability to feel something outside of me, which is the Creator.

I am put in a state where I can learn what I am as well as what is outside of me. And all of these people are not given to me so I would use them egoistically and find myself a better place in this world. On the contrary, they are given to me so I would use them purposefully: I can bestow to them, thereby learning what bestowal is.

I begin to recognize that other people bear their own reality which is separate from me, and that their purpose is not only in serving me. I attain all these subtleties of perception (what I and another mean), and through this I become capable to feel the Creator.

This is how I justify creation which is created in such a way as to be able to begin attaining reality from the lowest, miserable point (this world), but on the other hand, it is absolutely independent and separate from the spiritual space. This allows me to receive my independence, and from this point I can start attaining reality.

I make restrictions on it by cutting “I” away from me and others, and in the end I establish myself as an independent entity, in the “middle third of Tifferet.” This is when everything is outside of me: good, evil, the Creator, and the created beings. Meanwhile, I lift myself above “me” and become a freely suspended point. After all, I was able to balance all the forces that influence me so they would remain in absolute balance while my “I” was in the middle, soaring in the air!

I remain in the middle absolutely independent and free because the forces that influence me from above and below balance each other. And I made this myself! So I can determine what I myself want while being in this free middle point, the so called “middle line,” the middle third of Tifferet, without tilting either way. I decide that I want the spiritual, the Creator, Who is outside of this entire system. He is the source of everything, and I desire Him.
[23607]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: What does it mean to feel the connection between us? How do I do that?

Answer: To feel the connection between us is to come to feel that we all exist in one system and are dependent on one another, so much so that I cannot make even a tiny movement independently. This is a rigid system created Above, which is gradually being revealed as an unbending law.  We have to feel the life that is contained within, where the connection between us will reveal itself and become more apparent. And the life that flows through this connection is called the “spiritual world.”
[23583]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/10, The Zohar

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Question: What intention will help me reach “the prayer of the many” at the upcoming convention?

Answer: Our convention is dedicated to the revelation of the connections of love between us, as it is said: “Israel are friends to one another.” Isra-El means “straight to the Creator.” Any person in the world is referred to as “Israel” when he intends to reveal the Creator.

It is clear that “the Israel prayer” is always “the prayer of the many,” and the intention is to attain the mutual guarantee, as it is written: “We shall do, and we shall hear.” In other words, we will establish a connection between us and reveal the Creator within it; we will reach adhesion and similarity of properties with the force of bestowal.

Just like all our work, the upcoming convention is designed to explain to the people the work that they need to do. The exile is over. We have returned to the Land of Israel, and we need to rise to the level of Israel, straight to the Creator.

This is why nature constantly pressures us so that we would discover the connection between us and then explain the purpose of creation to the nations of the world. This is what it means “to be the light for the nations,” meaning to help all of mankind reveal the universal connection and rise to the spiritual level.

The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us that the time of existence of our world is 6,000 years beginning with the first correction until the end of it. Today the year is 5,771, and we must complete all the corrections in the time period that remains until the year 6,000.
[23546]

From the  Kabbalah For Beginners, “Prayer Of The Many,” 10/11/10

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