To develop our spiritual sensation, we unite and connect. We have to attain the kind of unity that is called, “mutual guarantee.” Essentially, this is the vessel for feeling the spiritual, eternal and perfect life that is outside the body.

For that we have to do what Kabbalists, who are people that have already gone through this path, advise us to. They are our teachers and are therefore called “Rabbanim” in Hebrew, which is the plural of Rav, meaning a “great” person before whom I bend down my head like before an experienced instructor that is worthwhile to listen to.

He accomplished the transition from the sensation of just this world to the sensation of the upper world, and moreover, he went through many states and levels there. Therefore he can help me with advice throughout the whole path, until I complete my development in the true world. By virtue of Kabbalists, I reveal the gates to the world, enter it, and advance.

Kabbalits advise us to unite, and in that unity, by making great efforts in spite of our egoism and natural disregard, to look precisely for the feelings we disregard. I reject the neighbor and hate him, I am unable to even think about how we can be truly close to one another. But Kabbalists tell us that we have to be as one man with one heart, uniting in the mind and feeling to such an extent that no boundaries will remain between us in thoughts or desires.

This is all painfully opposite to our nature. We are being offered such conditions that we would be willing to trade them for anything else. We are nauseous from this and are thrown away from it at every moment in different directions—anything but unity. We just want to cover ourselves up with half-hearted advice and actions, lie to ourselves and others that everything is normal…But we can’t.

What can help us here are demands imposed by physical unity: We act all together and no one can evade his responsibilities. That is exactly why we are in this world of actions that are not defined by intention. In spirituality, the thought is the action, but in corporeality they are divided: I can think about one thing, desire another, and do a third.

This is the wonderful quality of our world: Here we can start the path to spirituality without even yet thinking about it for real or wishing for it sincerely. We are able to make actions that pride, passion, ambition, envy, and shame incite us to do—everything that is inherent to our egoism.

Therefore, being in the group, at the end of the day, I must carry out what it obligates each of its members to do. After that, by virtue of that, I advance involuntarily. I must only push myself into the group, take on obligations, and sign a “unified agreement” with the friends that under any circumstances, they have obliged me and I have obliged them to need one another. That is how we advance, using our egoism.

Thus, in our world we have the opportunity to start the spiritual path from zero, from pure ambition. We activate its negative qualities, connecting with one another by the unity of mutual help, and use all the negative qualities just to observe this unity. In this case, you obligate the friend and he obligates you, and you both advance, having no other choice.

This is exactly what we saw when we went to the convention in the Arava desert. We found ourselves together without external influences and discovered that the group can obligate every person to rise and come closer to the sensation outside the body, where a person begins to discern details hitherto unknown, a different existence “outside of the skin of his body.” It turns out that “outside of us” is really possible. That is how we advance.

Today we can unite with one another in this world by means of the right egoistic actions. However, now every one of us has to “jump out of his skin,” rise above his personal egoism, above his entire being, and unite with friends into a single whole. Stated differently, every person must rise above himself and go from the material group to the spiritual one.

Then the common vessel will form, the common soul, the holy Shechina where we will reveal the Creator on the first spiritual level. We made a big step toward this and acquired a common sensation, and now we must strengthen ourselves.

Thus, we build the vessel of mutual guarantee: We pledge not to forget one another and all together we take care of our spiritual life. After all, this is the purpose of our current existence in the material world, the goal of all people and this whole reality. Only by virtue of mutual care will we rise to the level of spiritual unity.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 11/20/11, “Mutual Guarantee”

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You don’t know the extent to which we are all governed from Above. The teacher here is like a loudspeaker, a part of the upper system, which passes knowledge to you, and not more than that. You don’t thank the speakers for telling you nice things, do you? That’s how you should relate to the teacher. You should respect the device through which you receive a broadcast from Above, but that’s it.

I want to caution you because that is the difference between blind worship and the truth. I feel more than others the extent to which I’m governed from Above, and nothing that I have is my own. I’m being absolutely sincere: I really only fulfill the commands from Above. Man’s sole work is to be governed. And the greater he is, the more he is governed. It is called to be the “slave of God,” which is the degree of Moses.

After all, do not forget that we should try to be sensitive to what the Creator is telling us, telling within us. And we should proceed accordingly. I feel it is drawing near. And then we will ascend to the degree of Bina; we will be able to hear what He is saying, which is already the degree of Bina. And later we will gain “vision.”

So let’s try not to be dependent on the teacher for he is limited and transient. Rather, let us all become a vessel (Kli), which, upon uniting, will be able to see and react to what the Creator says to it. That is most important. That hearing, that feeling, is called “life.”
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From the talk during the meal before the Convention at the Arava Desert, 11/18/2011

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No one before Baal HaSulam ever discovered the true meaning of love of others. This idea appears quite frequently in all the sources, many great novels and other masterpieces praise the love of others, brotherly love, love among friends, and the need to concede. Who hasn’t talked about it! Every politician who wants to be elected speaks about how much he loves everyone. Every thief thinks that he is fighting for justice.

Baal HaSulam sets a criterion for the true test; he puts everything on the right scales and bases everything on an analysis by which one cannot be mistaken. When we read his compositions, we can be sure that we cannot keep our previous views. You can either close your eyes and try to forget everything he writes about and then somehow continue to exist like before, living your beastly life for your ego, or you must change!

He created the entire method of clarification so that it is impossible to stand up against its revelations. After reading all his articles, you begin to feel that you must clarify everything to the end. He writes in such a way that only if you know all of them and reread them again and again, examine them from every angle, read them thoroughly, only then do you finally begin to understand the whole picture.

You can’t just read some small part and then relax, feeling that you have understood everything. The understanding comes only by reading and rereading, from the beginning to the end and from the end to the beginning. Only after reviewing it several times, are you able to tie the concepts together and to analyze yourself. Then you won’t be able to escape anymore.

A person who doesn’t study Baal HaSulam usually thinks that he is a perfect righteous and believes that there is nothing to ask for, there is nothing to regret. Only when a person begins to study according to Baal HaSulam’s method, does he begin to understand how opposite he is from bestowal, how corrupt he is, and that the Torah was written for him because the Light in it reforms.

If we read Baal HaSulam’s writings in order to clarify our evil inclination by them and thus draw the Light that Reforms, they operate upon us and help us advance, according to the Creator’s plan: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” We fulfill all these stages thanks to our work with the compositions of Baal HaSulam.
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From a talk at the meal devoted to Baal HaSulam’s memorial day, 10/8/11

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So many people all over the world are truly anxious and totally helpless. They can’t find any justification for their suffering, and they don’t know what to do, how to make a living tomorrow or in the near future. Some are worried about what will happen to their billions, and others don’t know how they to survive when they run out of their last few pennies.

Each one suffers differently, but no one knows how to carry on. We, on the other hand, have suddenly received such a gift from Above that enables us to see the world differently. This is all thanks to the revelations of Baal HaSulam that came to us through his soul, as well as Rabash who was a transitional adaptor between us and Baal HaSulam.

Baal HaSulam has passed on to us Light from the world of Infinity through his perfect soul that attained its final correction. But he asked to be lowered because otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to come into contact with people. Only after he was lowered by many degrees, was he able to write The Study of Ten Sefirot and the Sulam commentary to The Book of Zohar. We don’t understand the level he was on before that, the enormous height from which he couldn’t even tell us anything in words.

This was the level of GAR of the world of Atzilut and above, where there is the Light not clothed in the vessels. From there he couldn’t approach people and be heard, so he asked to be lowered. In fact, he fulfilled the mission the Creator had appointed him for, knowing that he would ask for and perform it.

We are on the intermediate degree between Rabash and Baal HaSulam and humanity. On one hand, we have to rise in order to understand what Baal HaSulam said. On the other, we have to descend to people’s level and understand what they need from us and how they will be able to accept our message. We have to attain these two poles, both above and below.

Baal HaSulam and Rabash spoke from above. We are below, under the Parsa, so that we will have the opportunity to touch and to awaken the world and then together with all of humanity ascend through the Machsom (the barrier) and become included into the upper Malchut. This is our mission.

Let’s hope we will manage to realize what Baal HaSulam, Rabash, and all the Kabbalists that preceded them didn’t. They only prepared themselves for it. We draw their teaching, their Light and actually realize it in practice.

Let us hope that we will be worthy and will be able to fulfill what Baal HaSulam wrote about. There is no other group that is following his path and is ready to fulfill his method. This is why we call ourselves “Bnei Baruch” (the sons of Baruch Ashlag), and we can say that Baal HaSulam, this great soul, is living among us, and we are bringing it to realization.
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From a talk at the meal devoted to Baal HaSulam’s memorial day, 10/8/11

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Baal HaSulam, Letter #39: “… Know that since the times of the Ari and to this day there was no one who could understand the Ari’s method to its very roots. And behold, by the upper will I have merited the reincarnation of the Ari’s soul, and it wasn’t for my good deeds, but by the desire of the upper one.

“It is concealed even from myself why I was chosen for this wondrous soul, which not one man has merited since the time of the Ari’s death and to this day. But I cannot say any more about this because it is not my custom to talk about miraculous secrets….”

Baal HaSulam did not reveal the upper secrets not because it was against his rules, but because we simply don’t have that possibility…. Nevertheless, from his compositions we see how special this person was, that he was sent to us from the heavens. This soul was destined to unite us within the upper system. I don’t even know what to call him. This is not a “person” and not a human force. It’s not the kind of soul that might be present among us and that we might be able to become similar to or come closer to.

I remember this from the time when I was next to my teacher Rabash during his life in this world. You are next to a physical body: You take it to the sauna, to the sea, take a walk next to it, take care of it in a hospital after surgery, but all of that is just a body. Yet the soul that is inside is something completely separate from you and you cannot touch it in any way no matter what you do. It is in a different dimension and there is no connection between it and the body.

If I felt this way next to Rabash, then it’s impossible to even imagine how he felt being next to his great father, the man who wrote Talmud Eser Sefirot, the Commentary to the Book of Zohar, and who was able to explain any word written in the holy books in the language of hints or legends through the language of spiritual attainment. This simply wasn’t a person!

We have been granted a great honor in that we can be at least slightly related to his revelations and to the extent of our limited understanding, uncorrected desires, and lack of spiritual attainment, to nevertheless start realizing his method. We have to be infinitely grateful for that and be aware that a special privilege has been given to us which we do not even understand yet—a connection with such a great soul.

It’s like a baby who is born a prince by inheritance and who does not seem to deserve such an honor by any measure. That is how we have now been born and have merited to belong to the special souls who were chosen out of all humanity, who at least know what is happening to them, who understand the cause and the effects, the entire process, and everything taking place in the world. And thanks to them, we do not remain miserable blind men.
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From a talk at the meal devoted to Baal HaSulam’s memorial day, 10/8/11

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After Baal HaSulam made his great discernments: what is the Creator’s desire, the goal of creation, and the ways to attain it, he descended to us and explained it, and all that remains for us is to tune into his method. We have to try to understand it with our mind and feel it with our heart so the Light would pass through us and fill us, allowing us to understand the inner essence of his words.

Let every word he wrote start to come alive in us like an inner mechanism, a means, a vessel that will start working in us in a way that we won’t have to think. We don’t have to plan anything. This teaching will just start to live in us and carry out actions through us, by virtue of us annulling ourselves. This is the work of Galgalta ve Eynaim, which annul themselves for the sake of AHP, absorb its desires, and on the other hand, they unite with the Light and it begins to act through us.

We are not aware of what we are doing and we do not know what we have to do. But the Light aims us and carries out everything. It is written, “I am the first and I am the last” and “There is none else beside Him.”

The whole world annuls itself in this way. But if we annul ourselves relative the Light’s actions with our own efforts instead of simply being governed by the hand that drives us from the inside, like a puppet into which a puppeteer’s hand is dressed, then this is a very big difference. By annulling ourselves out of our own free choice, we come to feel this hand, which controls the whole world through us. From this hand we learn all of its customs, the whole game, the whole program. We begin to recognize Him, the one who governs, the upper force.

The whole world annuls itself, having no other choice. But we have to annul ourselves by our own desire, and if we do so, we will be able to become similar to Baal HaSulam, who did the same, and to other Kabbalists. By virtue of that, he went from being a simple slave of the Creator to a loyal servant through whom the entire wisdom flows, allowing him to attain Malchut of the world of infinity and become included in it in order to feel the entire universe and the entire Light filling it.

We have to be grateful to the Creator for sending us such a great soul. Baal HaSulam writes that he could not stand to watch people’s suffering any longer. But this does not mean the small egoistic suffering. After all, we are not looking for a better fulfillment for our body, like a greener meadow for our cow, but we want to know the one who governs us and makes everything move.

We want to understand, meet, and reveal Him so His mind and feelings would dress in us, to unite with Him so our heart and mind would merge with Him. Then all of creation, its goal, all the worlds that the Kabbalists tell us about, and even what is even higher than them and what we don’t even have a name for—all of this will become our real sensation and fulfillment. This is the state that this person prepared for us.

In all of our history there is no one who is dearer and more significant for us. Obviously, we are unable to measure the true height of every Kabbalist. They are all holy for us. But Baal HaSulam did for us what no person has done throughout all of history. And therefore we are proud of having a spiritual father of this stature who cares about us. We have to feel how with each passing day, as we advance further, he follows us and rejoices at every step we take, one step after another.
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From a talk at the meal devoted to Baal HaSulam’s memorial day, 10/8/11

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Question: What is cancellation before the teacher?

Answer: It is cancellation relative to what the teacher explains, the message that he conveys. You may be able to discover this in a book, but he conveys this to you in a more lively manner. Theoretically, you can study without a teacher, but this is extremely difficult. You still have to awaken the soul that precedes you in the hierarchy, but if it is not next to you in some material embodiment, this is much more difficult.

The teacher is a whole system, rather than a “person.” This is a system that transmits the method, teaching, the Light to you, produces difficulties and problems in you, and works on you and your friends. This is the job of a guide who cares about the group and awakens in them desires and spiritual needs, who confuses and thus stimulates them to come to the solution sooner. But he should not rob them of the freedom of choice and turn them into blind admirers or hasidim; this is the most important.

The teacher should reveal himself before you and present himself in a way that you would not obey him fully and disappear before him. He should leave you room for your own efforts, keeping you in constant doubts about him, in the feeling of rejection, disregard, and darkness. Otherwise, it would be just worship, and you will not have a request to the Creator.

The teacher opens you to knowledge, but does not reveal himself. He shows you just the opposite to give you the opportunity to ask the Creator.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/2011, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Today marks 20 years since the day of my Teacher’s passing. Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag was the last great Kabbalist in the lineage of sages from Adam until our days: Adam – Abraham – Moses – Rashbi – Ari – Baal HaSulam – Rabash, and many thousands between them.

Rabash showed great bravery by transmitting the Kabbalistic method to us so that in this generation we would be able to bring it to the whole world. Without his work we would not have this opportunity. I saw how firmly he abided by this principle: The revelation of the science of Kabbalah to the world is above all other calculations.

During the predawn hours we ascended into Jerusalem and visited his burial place. Of course, this place for us is no more than a symbol or custom because our connection with our Teacher is alive and constant. We all hope to become his worthy sons, which is why we named our group “Bnei Baruch”—the sons of Baruch Ashlag.
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From the TV Program “Conversations,” The Day of Rabash’s Memory

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In the past, Kabbalists who wished to reveal the spiritual world had to start in our world and work through it, through various sciences, with enormous efforts and suffering, meaning they had to pull themselves directly from matter itself to the revelation of the spiritual world and reveal the correct system of connections between people.

But then the compositions of the Ari were revealed, in which he explains about the inner connections that unite us through various special systems of relationships: ZON, YESHSUT, Aba ve Ima, Arich Anpin, and so on. By that he explains to us what forms of connection we can be in, how their different connections influence us, and how we can influence them ourselves and awaken these forms of connection. What happens there is the same thing as in our world, but in the quality of bestowal.

Just like in our world where we are able to activate certain types of connections so they would in turn begin influencing us, the same net of relationships connects us in the spiritual world as well, except that it is more internal. Thus, we go from materialistic psychology to the spiritual one, and then we reveal the true connection between the souls, the people living now and the people who lived before. It does not matter whether a person exists in this world right now or not. What’s important is to tune into this net. Then it’s as if our world evaporates, loses its importance because it is just an external imprint through which we have to enter inside.

The Ari described all of this, and the Baal Shem Tov taught how to work with all of the soul’s loyalty (Mesirut Nefesh), saying, “The Creator is your shadow.” And now, after all of this, by working in the group (which was restored by Baal Shem Tov anew, after Rashbi) we can draw the Light that reforms from this net. We do not simply attain it with our desires and forces, but attract an illumination called the Light that reforms, the Light of the Torah, the Surrounding Light, to ourselves from above, from this net.

After all, if we study the structure of this system and aspire to it all together, wishing to organize the same forms of connection among us, then it doesn’t even matter whether we understand it or not—our effort will awaken the influence of this force upon us.

It’s just like in our world: If we want to attain any system, then we become part of it, study it in various forms, and gradually begin to feel it. Suddenly, a picture of this system comes together inside of us and we understand what this is and how it is possible to connect and work with it. The same thing happens in the spiritual world: Only a person’s intention changes. When he becomes included in the upper system, he does it for the sake of bestowing himself to this system. The more he becomes included in it, the further he advances toward revealing it.

This requires great work with the teacher, the friends, the whole world, and the studies. All of this connects together.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/11, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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It so happened that Baal HaSulam conveyed his entire method to his oldest son, Rabash (Rav Baruch Ashlag) by virtue of the son annulling himself before his father. But it wasn’t easy to carry out this self-nullification because the father did not make any concessions to his son.

Otherwise, Rabash would not have been able to make enough efforts, or to express firmness and decisiveness in attaining the goal. Baal HaSulam carried himself very harshly, but his son was nevertheless able to give up everything and annul himself. However, this was not easy, and that was precisely for the reason that he was Baal HaSulam’s son.

That is why Rabash was able to realize the hopes his father put upon him. There were only singular and outstanding examples of this in history: Abraham, Rashbi, and Baal HaSulam.

Today we are celebrating Rabash’s memorial day—the anniversary of his death, and let us hope that we will merit fulfilling the same conditions and cleaving to his teaching. It’s not an accident that our organization calls itself “Bnei Baruch,” which means the sons of Baruch.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/11, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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