Entries in the 'Spiritual Teacher' Category

For The Sake Of Spiritual Advancement

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal 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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To Know Is To Taste

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal 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 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Adaptation Of Inner Images

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 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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How Can I Measure How Close I Am To The Teacher?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 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 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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A Cement Mixer

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe 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 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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The Rav Teaches The Group To Walk

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 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 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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Desperate Attempts To Decipher The Rav

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 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 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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A Stable Base For The Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 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 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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A Closed Tap Due To Incompatible Attributes

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If a student is connected his teacher, can a student do something against the teacher’s will, consciously or by mistake, and thus turn off his spiritual tap? How does this system work?

Answer: The tap will be turned off in any case because the law of the lack of equivalence of form operates. In that case there cannot be a connection between us and there is a breach. Now this connection has to be renewed and it depends on what caused the breach, on how I caused it. Do I have to go through the four stages of correction, do I have to feel the depth of the upper’s greatness, the recognition of exile, which means the absolute disconnection?

I may have been wrong by mistake and I may have done it on purpose. The way the sin was committed makes the whole difference. There are cases in which after committing a murder a person escapes to a city of refuge or is sentenced to death, and there are cases when nothing is done to a person when it occurred during a military conflict or if defending oneself from an attack by someone armed with a knife. There are different cases, but this is related to correction, to the reconstruction of the connection.

If I don’t have the same desire as my teacher and I don’t delight him in any way, I am simply not connected to him in any way. If I want to delight my teacher in order to receive something in return, I am in contact with him but this connection is according to the Surrounding Light. I establish it, but in the meantime, in an alternative manner, not directly. I cannot relate to my teacher directly and delight him. I delight him only so that I will benefit from him, which means in order to receive, but in fact I want to delight him and through him to delight the Creator.

I plan this chain, but in the meantime I don’t know how to do it. It’s as if I have already chosen the right direction according to my capability, according to my attributes. This is called working indirectly, between GE and AHP, but in the meantime, I have no such connection. I don’t annul myself before the upper, but am connected to Him through the Surrounding Light. It is only if I cannot be in direct contact with Him according to my nature, which means that I am compelled.

But if it isn’t clear that I work against his will, there is no hope that I will receive anything from him. This is how we begin to feel that we have a different, new mind. It’s as if I stop making any accounts on the level of this world, according to my common sense, with my thoughts and my solutions, since this account is totally incompatible with our system.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson “Teacher”

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Practical Work Is More Important Than Learning

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”: Now you can understand what our sages said (Berachot 7): “Serving in the Torah is greater than studying it, as it is said, ‘Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.’ It did not say studied, but poured.” This is perplexing; how can simple acts be greater than studying the wisdom and the knowledge?

But according to the above, we thoroughly understand that serving one’s Rav with one’s body and soul in order to bring contentment to one’s Rav bring one to Dvekut with one’s Rav, that is, to equivalence of form. Thus, one receives the thoughts and knowledge of the Rav by way of “mouth-to-mouth,” which is Dvekut of spirit with spirit. By that, one is rewarded with obtaining His greatness sufficiently to turn bestowal into reception, to become sufficient fuel for devotion, until one is rewarded with Dvekut with the Creator.

If there is a corrected intention, then certainly the study will be more important than everything. However, since the intention is not corrected, then necessarily the study will be for oneself. Therefore, the student must do everything possible to give contentment to the Elyon (upper) to the degree that he cannot make him happy by studying with the intention of giving contentment to the Creator. So, the maximum that remains for him is material actions.

Even though the action is also with an intention to receive, but the doing itself remains and therefore attracts the Light to it. In spite of this, in some way, the lower transmits to the higher what is in his power to transmit. As it is written, “Whatever your hand attains to do [as long as you are] with your strength, do” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). So, a connection is created between them in which each gives to the other. Therefore, Elisha did the right thing by pouring water on the hands of Elijah.

Serving the teacher in body and soul means acting according to the teacher’s desire. In particular, this relates to dissemination because this is the main thing that the Kabbalists recommended for us since they are our spiritual ancestors. Therefore, by involvement with dissemination, it is as if we are giving to them, are serving them, and to this degree, we attract the Light that Reforms to us through them. There is no greater bestowal to the higher than the continuation of his activities, his Torah, and his teaching, and bringing a greater and greater amount of souls to him in order to unite them and bring them to the Creator who will fill them; it is specifically with this that we give Him contentment.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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