Question: In our group, we read the article “There is None Else Besides Him” every day, but it never is felt as deeply as I have felt it here. It is like cooking some dish without spices. Here, I felt this spice, this taste. What kind of spice can you give us so that we will feel it all the time, everywhere?

Answer: You will not believe me, but I always am watching to relate to a group not like my little pupils but like those who are higher than me. Outside, they don’t see this because I can yell at them too, but, internally, I always am careful with myself.

This is my barometer (pressure gauge), how much I feel them higher than me; I can rise only this way and it makes no difference how they behave. The Creator chose, brought, and gathered them, and it is enough for me to think that there is no one before me higher than they are.

There are Kabbalists who are no longer with us in this world. But I almost don’t feel anything besides my friends. If I could, I would use the opportunity to feel them and to be in contact with them, bringing my excitement, my relationship with them about the greatness of the Creator so that, together with them, I will reach discovery of the Creator, because all of this is found within them.

There is nothing else besides this holding on, this group we were given. Only through dissolving into it, magnifying it, can I approach the Creator who is found within it. We don’t need anything else besides a constant concern to relate to a group like this.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Lesson 1

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Section 8: Therefore, come and see how grateful we should be to our teachers, who impart us their sacred Lights and dedicate their souls to do good to our souls. They stand in the middle between the path of harsh torments and the path of repentance.

They save us from the netherworld, which is harder than death, and accustom us to reach the heavenly pleasures, the sublime gentleness and the pleasantness that is our share, ready and waiting for us from the very beginning, as we have said above. Each of them operates in his generation, according to the power of the Light of his Torah and sanctity.

It is difficult to describe what would have been if the Kabbalists had not prepared and given us the wisdom of Kabbalah with all of the preparations and corrections that they made in the higher system, whose essence we wouldn’t even know yet if they had not written all the books for us. It is like a baby born in today’s world in a hospital with all the latest medical equipment.

A multitude of instruments monitor his health and the health of his mother, so the birth process is much easier than it was a hundred years ago. What wonderful food and treatment has been created for him, everything possible. And after that, he goes to kindergarten, elementary school, and university, and is educated. The world took the trouble for thousands of years to give a person born today all of the best for his development.

But the infant who is born doesn’t understand and is not aware of this. That is also how we seem to the Kabbalists who prepared the correction of the systems of worlds for us and who through their correction raised Lights in it from below to above to the highest level. It is just like a newborn baby gets all of the services in a safe, secure world that is ready to accept him and to give him the best of everything.

It is yet to be revealed to us what great and powerful systems the Kabbalists prepared for us to help us be born in the spiritual world. And they also wrote books for us through which we can study and awaken ourselves. Everything has been done thanks to these great Tzadikim (righteous). Without them we would not be able to go out to the spiritual world.

Adam HaRishon and Abraham could do this themselves since they were very refined souls. Therefore they could discover the Creator without preliminary work in a group and suffering, but only thanks to the refined souls that worked within them. But in our state, with our dense ego, at the end of six thousand years, we cannot approach spirituality without their help.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, #25, “Things That Come From The Heart”: Regarding things that come from the heart, enter the heart. Hence, why do we see that even if things have already entered the heart, one still falls from his degree? Why do we see that even if things do enter a person’s heart he still falls from his spiritual level? We see that even if a person is impressed by what the teacher conveys to him, he still falls from the level on which he received the Torah, the intention and the thoughts of the teacher.

The thing is that when one hears the words of Torah from his teacher, i.e., the wisdom of his teacher, he immediately agrees with his teacher, and resolves to observe the words of his teacher with his heart and soul, because he really wants it to be fulfilled. But afterwards, when he comes out to the world, he sees, covets, and is infected by the multitude of desires roaming the world, that is, to other people’s desires, thoughts, and plans dealing with all sorts of nonsense and not spiritual development in this case, and he and his mind, his heart, and his will are annulled before the majority, that is, those conditions the environment is in.

As long as he has no power to judge the world to a scale of merit, they subdue him. He mingles with their desires…. What does that mean? If I am in a foreign environment, it is the Creator Who plays with me and Who places me there in different external conditions so that I will grow stronger with regard to the inner decisions that I have already made, despite the external influences that appear.

Suppose I am on my way home from the convention now and when I get on the plane I am already under the domination of a foreign environment. Can I remain in the same inner condition that I felt during the three conventions—concentrated, focused on the goal, feeling elated and feeling my friends—when I am under external conditions that pressure me? If I can, it is a state in which I control the outside world; if I can’t, it means that the outside world controls me.

But afterwards, when he comes out to the world, he sees, covets, and is infected by the multitude of desires i.e., society at large, dealing with nonsense, then if he cannot overcome himself, his thoughts, desires, and heart obey the majority.

Overcoming the multitude consists of two parts.

First, when I realize that I am detached from the support of the friends, I myself internally alienate them and keep away from them.

Secondly, I don’t see that everything is managed by the Creator anymore and that the thoughts of the multitude are sent to me on purpose so that I will tighten the connection with the group, with the sources even more than before, and will regard the external effect as the Creator’s game. After all, He sends me “helpers,” guards who want to throw me down the mountain I have been climbing on my way to the Creator, but I keep moving forward, holding on with my teeth in order to stay above the water and in the right direction. No matter what the influence of the environment is, I don’t go along with the current, but rather row towards my goal.

As long as he has no power to judge the world to a scale of merit…

After all, the Creator works for a person through the whole world! If I justify the world because it actually operates in order to help me advance, it means “to judge the world to the scale of merit.”

But if I cannot judge the whole world to the scale of merit, which means to draw it in my direction, realizing that the Creator sends me these obstacles on purpose so that I will advance more strongly; if I cannot connect to my friends and to the goal more strongly, then the world becomes external and the Creator disappears from it. If I forget that He is the one who has arranged everything and think that the world influences me by itself, the Creator disappears from it and I am left under the dominion of this world. … they subdue him. He mingles with their desires, i.e., a person diverts from the goal.

Then, when a person subdues to the desires of the world that surrounds him, he is led like sheep to the slaughter. He has no choice; he is compelled to think, want, crave, and demand everything that the majority demands; that is, he is under the domination of the external society. This is also under the authority of the Creator. He shouldn’t think that anything other than Him operates here. But this is a completely different control, not I shall hasten it (Achishena), but in its time (Beito). He then chooses their alien thoughts and their loathsome lusts and desires, which are alien to the spirit of the Torah. In that state he has no strength to subdue the majority, and goes along with the current, like the rest of the world.

Instead, there is only one counsel then, to cling to his teacher and to the books. This is called “From the mouth of books and from the mouth of authors.” He has to hold on with his teeth to the lessons and to the sources and to choose what is closer to him and what impresses him most strongly. It may be a certain article or a passage from TES, a song, anything. What’s important is that it should strengthen his connection with our society. Only by cleaving to them can he change his mind and will for the better. However, witty arguments will not help him change his mind, but only the remedy of Dvekut (adhesion), for this is a wondrous cure, as the Dvekut reforms him.

Only while one is inside Kedusha (Sanctity) can one argue with oneself and indulge in clever polemics that the mind necessitates that he should always walk on the path of the Creator. But this is all nonsense. However, one should know that even when he is wise and certain that he can already use this wit to defeat the Sitra Achra (other side), one must bear in mind, that all his wit and nice conclusions, the studying and the agreement with the friends, that all this is worthless. This is not an armament that can defeat the war on desire, for all these concepts are but a consequence he has attained after the aforementioned Dvekut.

Everything depends on how strongly a person ties himself to the group. After all, he has to speak to his friends on the phone, to contact them on the Internet, to prepare some material for them, to participate in the daily work. If he doesn’t do that, nothing will help. We are the ones who need the dissemination and not those to whom we disseminate. It compels us to be in constant movement and to improve. This is the only way we can advance!

What I say is based on my personal experience. Unfortunately I can think of 30-40 people who I once brought to Rabash who also engage in Kabbalah to a certain extent now, but you can feel what it means to study Kabbalah without advancement when you speak to them.

In other words, all the concepts upon which he builds his building, saying one must always follow in the path of the Creator, is founded in the Dvekut with his teacher. Thus, if he loses the foundation, then all the concepts are powerless, since they will now be lacking the foundation. Hence, one must not rely on one’s own mind, but cleave once more to books and authors, for only that can help him, and no wit and intellect, as they are lifeless.

In principle, this article says that everything that is sent to us in life is sent to us intentionally by the Creator, and we mustn’t forget it. We have to take advantage of all the obstacles in order to advance and to grow stronger in our advancement.

In fact there are no interferences. All these obstacles and barriers are a springboard. If we overcome them we will advance; if not, it means that we will have to overcome them indirectly. Everything depends on our participation.

The point is that we are not given any obstacles from Above that cannot be overcome. The Upper Light operates in a manner that is adapted to each of us according to our personal circumstances. All the obstacles that we encounter are always adapted to our abilities. It’s the ego that we have to correct on the next level. If a person remembers that, he adheres even more strongly to the advancement towards the Creator, to the teacher, the books, and the group.

Thus, he is not controlled by the external environment, although he is in good relations with it, but internally he is loyal to himself and to the environment. Moreover, gradually and without words, he begins to influence the environment so that it suddenly begins to change.

Let’s keep the connection between us so that the impression of the week we spent united, feeling wholeness between us, and in a wonderful state will only grow stronger! After all, we will each go our own way and each one will receive his own interferences and we have to keep the spirit of mutual guarantee and be committed that nothing will detach us from the group and that we will overcome all the obstacles and feel that we are together as if we have never gone our own ways.

If the interferences don’t pull us in different directions, we will feel the connection between us even more strongly, and this is actually what we need. If we can do that, then there are no words that can describe the level to which we will immediately ascend. We can fulfill our dream within the coming week! If we all, regardless of the distance between us, think about the fact that our friends should remain connected just as they are now, we can be sure that the Messiah will come. The word Messiah stems from the Hebrew word “Moshech,” “to pull,” and the Upper Light is revealed that completes all the corrections, pulling a person out of his ego to full adhesion with the Creator.
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From a lesson in Russian, 2/07/14

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”, Item 48: It is discerned that its 613 organs are 613 Partzufim (plural for Partzuf), unique in their Light, each in its own way.

Question: How can parts of a whole be different in radiance? What does “each in its own way” mean?

Answer: Each cell, molecule, atom, and their parts have a purpose and a job of its own. We are supposed to reveal the nature and purpose of each tiny detail of the creation to the very latest “trivia.” Ultimately, we have to get to the original point “something out of nothing”, to the origin of the desire, and then correct it in the point of its origin.

By doing so, we revoke “something out of nothing.”

All desires are unique and interconnected. However, we get to know their structure not by going deep into their peculiarities as we are used to in our deterministic society, which is fragmented into individual pieces. No, in spirituality, we grasp things through a dynamic integration of all their parts. There desires are not alienated from each other. Each of them is at all times intertwined with the rest of the whole (613 minus one).

Question: According to your description, we should be real geniuses to…

Answer: It is said: “It is not the wise who learns.” We get to know the world through “tastes, flavors” (Ta’amim). A chemical formula that precisely describes the properties of a substance doesn’t tell us anything about its properties; whereas, if we sense the substance, we immediately understand everything about it.

That’s why knowledge in spirituality is tasting. You can write a long novel about some flavor, but I still cannot imagine it. However, if I taste it, I will immediately resolve the problem and know what exactly it is. Just knowing the taste is sufficient because a flavor includes and reveals the origin of the substance, its properties and nuances. Then, when reading an appropriate name of a thing I have already tried, I will already know what it is about.

Spiritual attainment doesn’t need anything but nullification before the group, humility of the will to receive over the will to bestow.

Question: Then, who are the ones who collect the data and how do they do it?

Answer: A completely new form of HaVaYaH emerges in a desire, the four discernments of the direct Light. There is nothing but them. That’s what we actually attain. All worlds, actions, partitions, and corrections are built into the original, non-variable structure of HaVaYaH.

The key to attainment is the unity of friends reinforced by the Light. Only unanimity provides us with knowledge and wisdom. After we leave a state of detachment and re-assemble broken parts, we penetrate into their nature, thus reaching attainment.

This is the only reason why the shattering took place: detached fragments formed a shattered picture that is totally opposite to their own nature. By collecting them back together, we get to know reverse forms of unity, thus we “re-assemble” the Creator. However, we don’t re-assemble Him in the sense of the internal fulfillment of the vessel; rather, we do it externally. Nevertheless, because of this process we attain Him.

Question: Consequently, it means that unification influences everything at the atomic level of this material world. Can it really be so?

Answer: The world that we see currently is a picture of our own flaw,  as if we are X-rayed and see the outcome on the screen. We see our own corruptness, the belly of our egoism that continuously strives for more self-fulfillment.

That’s why when we change, the entire world changes with us too. It is said: “And I saw an upside-down world.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Sometimes we feel bored, fall asleep during the lesson, or are carried away by foreign thoughts. Why does the Creator prepare things this way? What does He want to show us? How is it possible to keep the same level of intention all the time?

Answer: When you listen to my lessons you should try to feel every word I say to its full depth. Everything is built on your identification with me.

I don’t say anything before I create some images inside me that I then convey verbally to others, hoping that they can hear them and accordingly build that same image inside them. When our images correlate, we start a dialog of inner clarifications of that image: what attributes, merits, and movements are in it.

If you don’t form an inner sensory image inside yourself from what you hear from me, you probably are sitting without your incorporation in me and my incorporation in you. This is the problem. So, after a while, you surely fall asleep, lose contact, and the meaning and feeling of the necessity of this lesson.

There are people who cannot operate this way because they think they know a lot. What’s important for them is to hear me in order to dispute me. I am not offended by them since this attitude is naturally imprinted in them and it is very hard for them to perceive the material correctly. I identify with them, but they should overcome these states because if a student doesn’t form the image that the teacher conveys inside him, he doesn’t learn.

On the other hand, when you have a dialog with your friends, it is certainly easier, simpler, and better for you. Everything between you is built especially on sympathy and empathy. It is much easier for you to communicate with the friends because their language is much simpler than mine.

We try to convey the lessons in the form of workshops. This method helps people feel and connect to the text and the one who wrote it much more deeply.
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Question: One student may think that he is close to the teacher but may not be close and it can also be the other way around; one may think that he is far from the teacher but in fact is close to him. How can we measure that?

Answer: We don’t measure this according to what a student thinks but according to the opportunities that he had to subdue himself against his will and to the efforts he made in doing so. Closeness, just like other things, is measured according to the effort that is made above our ego.

We can only measure things by our ego. Measure is determined by how much do I have: how I can take my desires and weigh them like weights on a scale.

Everything depends on self-annulment. Don’t expect to reach some tough static system that has been stabilized once and already exists. The work we have to do is continuous, constant, according to three states: submission, differentiation, and sweetening, which is the constant work of the lower with regard to the upper, of a person with regard to the group, of a group with regard to the teacher.

Question: Is it true that if a person fails to connect to his teacher when the teacher is alive, it will be very difficult for him to do so afterward?

Answer: I don’t think it’s even possible to do so afterward. Try to connect to Baal HaSulam now or to any other great Kabbalist! This world was created in order to enable us to reach a corporeal connection, so that we will be able to perceive the upper in some way. If we have no corporeal contact with the upper, how can you hold on to Him? Now there is the seemingly corporeal form of the teacher before you, some corporeal representation with which you can come in contact. You can already connect to this image, bestow upon him, and serve him. Thus, you acquire a place by him according to your efforts. It says that if the groom is a great man and he receives a ring as a present from his bride, it’s as if he has given it to her. If you really want to serve and to bestow, you feel that you receive. The same relations should be among the friends, and each one should feel this way with regards to the others.

Question: When do I connect to the teacher, is it before transcending the Machsom (barrier) or afterward?

Answer: You will not transcend the Machsom if you don’t annul yourself before the teacher. We are here in order to establish a system that will take on a form above the Machsom. If this system isn’t made of the relations that are necessary above the Machsom, how can you transcend it? You don’t transcend the border to the spiritual world by marching along, but by the connections between us, by overcoming the Machsom that separates us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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The foundation of the group is the daily morning lesson. Someone who doesn’t join it, at least during the hours that are convenient for him, simply cannot connect to me. And also the lesson itself must become a running operation of “mixing” all of us together in order to see ourselves as one whole and to expect the Light that will open between us.

The lesson must be very difficult, as if in a cement mixer where you must turn this whole mass through which the sand, cement, and water are mixed until it’s completely connected. That is how we must feel the lesson developing, with great difficulty and with much effort. If a person doesn’t feel this difficulty and oppose it, then he doesn’t build the Kli, he doesn’t attract the Light. This effort must be felt inside all the time, with tension and pressure.

To adhere to the Rav, to the Elyon (Upper), doesn’t indicate adherence to some particular person. The Elyon is not a person; rather, it’s a concept because within this person the connection is attracted towards what is higher. Therefore I must clarify:

• Why was he chosen to be the Elyon with regard to me?
• What exactly does this term “Elyon” to which I must adhere mean?
• And how, through this external form of adherence, by which I adhere to the Elyon, will I attain internal adherence with Him?

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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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Question: We know that to be connected to the Rav (teacher) is possible only through attainment of equivalence of form, the same desire. But often when the Rav turns to us with some task, suddenly it’s clear that the person is not ready to carry it out because this is against his understanding and inner convictions. It turns out that that he has a million things that are more important, and with this he misses this opportunity to connect with his teacher. How can the group give a person the power to grasp this opportunity immediately and transform it into a link, making his desire similar to the desire of the Rav?

Answer: In fact, the desire of the Rav is the desire of the group. It’s that desire that must be in the group but cannot yet has not be reached; this becomes the desire of the Rav.

The Rav doesn’t have his own desire. Where could he take a desire from with which to approach the group, the students, the lesson, everything? He takes the general desire of the group and according to this, he acts and behaves. This is not the desire that is in the group at the moment; rather it’s that desire which must be in the group. And therefore he is their guide.

The group is in a state of “-1,” and the Rav directs it towards a state of “+1” so they will know what direction they should proceed. This is the role of the guide on the spiritual path. His role is not to show the students where he himself is or where the Creator is; rather, he must show them their future state, the next step. Therefore a Rav must feel the corrected state the group must attain and show the students how it should be. And also, he must show them what should be done in order to reach that state. This is the role of the guide.

The Rav demonstrates your best future state for you and nothing more. Therefore you must agree with him, surrender yourself, work for him, and help him because he is showing you your future form: If want it, accept it; if don’t want it, then there is no reason to study in vain, so leave.

The students will never see or know the desires of the Rav himself. Rather all of his behavior in regard to the students and the group is determined by their future level, their next closest step, like hands extended to an infant that teach him to walk step after step. This concept, this principle, is called a Rav, a spiritual teacher, who is a little higher than the students. If he were to turn to them from a height of two levels, then there would no longer be a connection among them and this would not bring them benefit.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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Question: If a Kabbalist lives in two worlds, in the physical world and in the spiritual world, then how are the physical and spiritual divided within him? Does the physical influence the decisions and behavior of a Kabbalist?

Answer: According to my experience I can say that it’s impossible to understand this from the outside. A person doesn’t see anyone outside of himself. He always sees everything through his eyes, through his brain, through his desire to receive, through his heart. And therefore he never sees another person as he is, rather only through his filter.

All the more so when he looks at his Rav, he cannot decipher where the spirituality and the physicality are here. He doesn’t know the percentage that the physical enters into the spiritual with his Rav . The lower cannot make these calculations regarding the higher.

Understanding is possible only if you have an internal “judicial” system within you identical to that which is in the higher. But if you don’t have that system, then how can you judge someone? So this is impossible.

It’s even impossible to achieve this with yourself, all the more so someone else; this is something completely unknown. We see only the images that are portrayed within us. Therefore we need to go with faith above reason with regard to every person, and certainly with regard to the Rav. WITH regard to the Rav there is a relationship on a much higher level because in this case our ego portrays for us all kinds of decisions, actions, and thoughts that always transform everything in our favor and make life easier for us.

Therefore, I don’t see any other possibility beside following the Rav with eyes shut and doing everything possible, as it is said, (Ecclesiastes 9:10) “Whatever your hand attains to do [as long as you are] with your strength, do.” And it’s also the same thing regarding a friend, for in this way we hold the friend as higher, like a Rav.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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Question: How must the group work on its connection in order to adhere to the teacher and not allow external viruses to pull the entire society somewhere to the side?

Answer: The group must learn the method of correction on the spiritual path from the teacher, but realize it in itself. The connection between the friends has to provide everyone with such a power, with such a foundation, that they will also be ready to hold themselves in their place without the teacher. They need the teacher only to be able to advance constantly in the right direction.

But on the level that has already been attained, the group has to be already be in such mutual connection that it creates a stable base so that they don’t need anyone. In the connection between them, they discover the Creator, and in this way they advance.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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