Question: The idea that negative desires arose in the spies who were sent to spy in the land of Israel is often mentioned in Midrash Raba.

Answer: The point is that there is an initial weakness in a person opposing the efforts that allow him to enter the land of Israel. After all, what is the difference between the desert and the land of Israel? In the desert, you can be only on the level of Bina, but, when you enter the land of Israel, you must ascend to the level of Hochma because you begin to work with the egoistic desires there. They appear before you, and you realize that it is a totally different paradigm now, a totally different attitude toward the ego. Now, you can begin to bring it out again.

You have acquired the ego in Egypt, and absorbed it. You were under its domination and eventually have made it even more egoistic than the Egyptians themselves. Besides that, you have taken out of Egypt what is called their vessels. You have denied your egoistic desires during the 40 years of wandering in the desert and have learned to rise above them until you actually succeeded in doing so. Then, there was a break, and you didn’t use them at all. Now, when you enter the land of Israel, you raise Egypt inside you again and gradually revive the ego and begin to use it again.

However, now you turn it into the land of Israel as the Egyptian desire is transformed totally and aimed at the Creator, at the attribute of love and bestowal. Thus, all the giants (which means all the obstacles) seem incredibly big to us because, after being in the desert where we have become used to eating MAN only in relation to the Creator and always have aspired to reach the level of bestowal, we need to reawaken Pharaoh inside us, to free this evil dog and begin working with him.

These are the most terrible egoistic desires that we need to learn to overcome.Therefore, it says that seven warrior nations are waiting for us in the land of Israel that we must fight and conquer.

This is how Egypt operates in us, and therefore, every day, a person must imagine that he has just come out of Egypt and thus build the land of Israel by making the interior ego external. Then, Mt. Sinai becomes a holy mountain on which the temple is built.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/2/15

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When the spies were picking fruit in the valley of Eshkol, three giants who were living around Hebron were paying attention to them. These were Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the three sons of Anak, the tallest of all the giants. They were all that remained of the ancient giants who were born after the generation of the flood. When the giants drew very close, all of the spies fainted except for Joshua and Caleb…when they saw that the spies who fainted were lying on the ground, they revived them. They spoke: “We see that you came here to cut down the trees that we worship and to shatter our statues!” the giants growled. “No,” answered the spies, whispering, “We just picked some of the fruit.” The giants answered firmly: “Go away from here! Your God will soon bring you to this land and then you will have plenty of time to cut down our trees.” (From the words of “Midrash Rabba,” Parshat Shelach).

The Midrash Rabba, just like the Torah, speaks about our inner characteristics. In particular, here it is talking about our need to rise from Malchut to Bina from the characteristic of reception to the characteristic of bestowal, and suddenly we come across strong opposition.

The giants are my gigantic personal desires that I must correct. This is because without them I will not be able to exist on the level of Bina. So the characteristics themselves were created like this, so that only through overcoming them will I rise to this level. A “giant” symbolizes something great, immense. I require a big ego, gigantic desires that seem like giants to me.

The characteristic of Bina is the characteristic of full bestowal, something that is very light and soft, that is poured out like water, which revives and calms everything. And suddenly, in order to attain it, I must somehow overcome the immense giants. But the giants are not coarse characteristics; rather, they are the characteristics of Bina. And if I use them correctly, receive them within me correctly, they will not bother me. But the moment I begin to object that I don’t want to correct them to their level, they will immediately rise up against me.

So the giants say to the spies that they will yet return to this land. In other words, these characteristics that are found in us know everything from the start because they are designed to protect this level and to make it possible for only those who are fit for the level of Bina to enter. In this way, in order to rise to the level of the land of Israel, we must overcome enormous egoistic desires, especially those states that are like “Hebron” or “Shechem.”
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/2/15

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Question: Does a person have a soul?

Answer: We must create the soul inside us. The soul is the mutual connection between us, which means the complementing of the hearts. If we attain at least a partial mutual connection, we will feel the next upper state inside of it. Therefore, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is the main law of the Torah.

Question: Does that mean that spiritual values and mental attributes are empty words?

Answer: These concepts are typical of the level of our world and serve only to establish some pleasant form of communication between us and nothing more than that.

In order to call myself a spiritual creature, which means a creature who has an upper mind and not just a creature who can create the next generation and hurt others, we need to make internal efforts in studying the wisdom of Kabbalah.

There is no other method like it because all the other methods stem from human thinking, while the wisdom of Kabbalah stems from the revelation of the upper system, of the upper providence.

Question: Does this mean that you suggest that we throw off the ship of today all of the greatest philosophers in human history who made up ideas that stemmed from their own mind?

Answer: No, the wisdom of Kabbalah relates to science with great respect, but to real science. If you refer to philosophy, then as a doctor of philosophy, I believe that it is a science because philosophy doesn’t explore nature and cannot claim to bring the truth because it is only about speculations stemming from human imagination. On the whole, everyone relates to it today anyway.

Question: Can we say that if we listen to what Kabbalists say, we could prevent different natural disasters?

Answer: If people had listened to Kabbalists, everything would have been different a long time ago. However, the moment we begin to read about and fulfill the rule of “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” everyone immediately turns their back. When you use nice words and say things that we don’t understand, we feel that you are asking us to do things that are impossible to do.

People don’t understand that it is the general law of nature, the harmony nature will bring us to in any case, but through the path of suffering. We, on the other hand, must understand and realize that we can advance by positive actions and avoid different crises.
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From an Interview on RTN, New York, 7/21/15

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Congress in Guadalajara “One Heart for All”

Question: What do we have to correct first: ourselves or the environment?

Answer: It is a very complex question. I cannot correct myself without the environment, and I cannot correct the environment until I correct myself. And to the extent that I correct myself, I see that the environment is already corrected and I only need to be correcting myself, and this is what each of us feels.

In essence, we are in a perfect reality that has no flaws. Only inside of us there is a sensation that we feel bad, that we are flawed and divided. But when we reveal the true reality, environment, and world, then we discover an upper world instead of this one. And then we see that aside from our perception of reality, nothing else had to be corrected.

It turns out that I existed in a perfect reality all along, and it was only in my uncorrected perception that it appeared broken because I myself was broken. My properties were corrupted, and thus I judged everything according to my own flaws.

Therefore a person should understand that only he alone is corrupted and everyone else is corrected. But he can correct himself only if he connects to everyone else in the right way through teaching everyone how to unite correctly.

All other people outside him are broken parts of his own soul. Therefore, the work of our correction goes in two directions: from oneself outward and back.

And indeed, there is no vice in any person or in humanity as a whole. Only the connections between us are corrupted and only there should we focus our efforts: on the correction not of the human being himself, but of his relationship with others. If we achieve a good connection in some group, then we reveal an upper world in it and see everything in the correct form.

A person should correct his attitude to the friends and through it show them an example of how he loves them. There is no need for anything other than this example. If you succeed in this, then you will see how much you advance forward.
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From the Convention In Guadalajara “One Heart For All,” “Day One” 7/17/15, “Preparatory Lesson”

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Question: Sometimes it is absolutely clear to me that I am totally dependent on my good or bad feelings. In fact, this is the only thing that worries me, but I listen to the advice that I should ascend above that and try to justify the Creator despite everything I feel. What is my work if I see that I only care about what I feel? How should I exert myself?

Answer: You need to hate your reactions to what is going on.

Question: But I tell myself that it is my nature and therefore I have no control over it.

Answer: This is a true and simple excuse, but I must summon upon myself the influence of a different nature that exists in reality, the influence of the Creator, the influence of the Light that is in the group. Then I will feel to what extent my nature, which is to receive, is opposite from that nature of bestowal, and then I will begin to get to know it.

Question: How can I awaken the second nature?

Answer: It is through the group. I spur the powers that allow me to discover the nature of bestowal by the right attitude to the group, in the relationships between the friends who are connected in mutual love and who speak about a certain advancement that I don’t understand. I look at them and don’t understand what they engage in. I keep hearing everyone talking about the group, about connection, and about frameworks that we have to build.

I don’t understand what they need all that for. It is true that Kabbalists tell us about that, but not explicitly. It is enough. We have read about that and now we can go on to something else. I don’t distinguish the internal changes yet, and the information and the scientific interpretation of things is quite enough for me. But why do I need to change myself with regard to society?

Question: So, how can I sharpen my attitude toward the group in order to be more strongly influenced by it?

Answer: This is the reason we live in this world. It is because here we can perform actions in corporeality and not in our desire. We can feel corporeal and not spiritual shame.

I enter the group, and want to be incorporated in it and to remain there. Then I am told that in order to remain in the group, I must take part in different duties, to come to the morning lesson every day, and so forth. If you don’t want to, you must leave. There are rules, and you must participate in the group together with everyone else. This obliges me to be incorporated, to be among the friends.

Then, whether I like to or not, I find myself in a workshop where everyone talks about the fact that I must see myself as small and all the others as great. This is what is accepted in our group, and I follow the others and speak in the same vein, “Guys, you know that everyone must lower his head before the friends because this is wonderful,” and they also tell me that it is wonderful!

No one does anything yet, but the Light that Reforms operates on us in the meantime and changes us. Gradually I begin to have a new insight that if I really see myself as small, I will benefit greatly. It is actually by annulling myself that I will attain the Creator. This is why it is worthwhile.

This is an incentive to advance spiritually. Perhaps it is a private egoistic incentive, but it is an effective one. Then the environment, the teacher, the study, and the workshops begin to affect me anew. The Creator sends me increasingly more advanced, finer, and more internal new states and situations, and I must sort them out time after time in order to use them correctly for my advancement. So, it turns out that the egoistic nature is not an obstacle. We all start from it.

Question: Do these changes take place in me automatically?

Answer: These changes take place according to my exertion. If I don’t exert myself, I don’t feel the changes. In fact, the changes take place all the time, but I perceive only a small part of them (one millionth) and respond to one millionth of what I perceive. When we advance in our world, we become more sensitive, sensitive to changes.

The whole spiritual world is in very high spiritual frequencies that cannot be perceived. When we ascend toward the Light, we transcend to very high frequencies that are above the attributes of our world. This is the reason that we must be prepared for rapid changes of qualitative states.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 67: When a person from Israel enhances and dignifies one’s internality, which is the Israel in that person, over the externality, which are the nations of the world in him, that is, when one dedicates the majority of one’s efforts to enhance and exalt one’s internality, to benefit one’s soul, and gives minor efforts, the mere necessity, to sustain the nations of the world in him, meaning the bodily needs, as it is written (Avot, 1), “Make your Torah permanent and your labor temporary,” by so doing, one makes the children of Israel soar upwards in the internality and externality of the world as well, and the nations of the world, which are the externality, to recognize and acknowledge the value of the Children of Israel.

If we attribute ourselves to the upper part, to GE, to the part of Israel in the nation of Israel, we have no obligation to turn to the public and to disseminate among those who belong to AHP until we ascend as high as we can by our connection and unity, until we reach actual mutual guarantee, until we receive the Light that Reforms by this unity, which will really connect us.

Then the illumination will flow from us to the AHP, since there will be a contrast in the general vessel: there will be more Light in its GE part while in its AHP part it will be the exact opposite. On the whole, the nations of the world will acknowledge the importance of the vessels of bestowal called Israel. Those who are the external part will be able to recognize the internal part and this will be the direct outcome of our internal correction.

Therefore, if we connect and unite, even those who are against, who have nothing to do with this work, also receive an illumination from it by which it becomes clear to them that we have the Light while they are in the dark.

“And if, God forbid, it is to the contrary, and an individual from Israel enhances and appreciates one’s externality, which is the nations of the world in him, more than the inner Israel in him, as it is written (Deuteronomy 28:43), ‘The stranger that is in the midst of thee shall mount up above thee higher and higher; and thou shalt come down lower and lower,’ meaning the externality in that person rises and soars, and you yourself, the internality, the Israel in you, plunges down? With these actions, one causes the externality of the world in general, the nations of the world, to soar ever higher and overcome Israel, degrading them to the ground, and the children of Israel, the internality in the world, to plunge deep down.”

The nations of the world grow stronger when the part of Israel doesn’t function properly in the vessel. Then the darkness becomes thick, the children of Israel fall from their level, and the externality in them overcomes the internality until the destructive forces totally smash and humiliate them…
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The Torah, “Numbers” 13:17 – 13:22: And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them: “Get you up here into the South, and go up into the mountains; and see the land, what it is; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they are strong or weak, whether they are few or many; and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it is good or bad; and what cities they are that they dwell in, whether in camps, or in strongholds; and what the land is, whether it is fat or lean, whether there is wood therein, or not. And be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the time of the first-ripe grapes. So they went up, and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, at the entrance to Hamath. And they went up into the South, and came unto Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.

This is talking about very strong forces acting against the children of Israel. It is also the place itself, Hebron, and the time of the first fruit of the grapes, which symbolize the fruit of Hochma and also Anak and his three children.

In general, everything is working against the possibility of the person overcoming the obstacles; he has no forces for this. Here this requires a new force, the characteristic of bestowal, which they didn’t succeed in attaining in the wilderness. So how could they get it now on the border? This is not understood. So they go back and tell everything that they saw. From their side there were no sins; the only thing they say is: “With what we have, we cannot control the ego that stands in front of us. We don’t know what to do. There is no answer.”

In principle, they carried out their mission absolutely correctly; they discovered everything that there is correctly. And further, this was not even any of their business. The problem is just that they drew the wrong conclusion in that they decide that it is forbidden for them to go forward. We don’t need to stop. We need to search for another way, to search for the power of faith above reason, do something, but not give up on the next level of ascent.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/30/15

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Question: What do you mean by the term “group”? Are these the people who are around us all the time: family and friends?

Answer: A group is an association of people who have one goal, one purpose. They eliminate all kinds of misunderstandings between them and act like a single fist, all of whose fingers are different but connected together into a single unified force.

In addition to this, our group must possess a particular characteristic. If they have a common goal, then they gather together to create a force for attaining this goal. This force can only give Light, and we can only get the Light needed for advancement with the help of Arvut (mutual guarantee).

This means that when I take the desires of someone else and want to correct and fulfill them, then I am like the Light, it shines within me and I am included in a group as a source of Light even though I am getting it from a higher power station because I want to give fulfillment to others.

If all of us act like this, then we become connected through mutual Arvut and advance towards a common goal. On every level of our growing spiritual advancement we get more Light, which connects us more tightly and we advance forward. This is what is called a group.

I think that we have already begun this action and have truly begun to feel that the foundation for our success is inherent in this. It used to be that some of the people understand this and some of them not as much. Now we “comb” everyone with a single comb, a single size, a single style. Now all of us have straightened the line, we know and understand the same thing. This is very important because everyone will now have an identical understanding of the material and the goal of the movement.

This was the biggest problem for everyone because there are many groups among us that are far from each other, and on the one hand, this created a great potential opportunity for advancement, but on the other hand, all the groups were on different levels and didn’t understand each other.

But now we are doing this for one single whole and have truly become one big group.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/14, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What does an earthly family with a corrected spiritual relationship look like?

Answer: It is difficult to say since we have not yet seen such examples in our lives. For now, we are still in a state of breakage, in exile.

Therefore, since the time of Rabbi Akiva, after the destruction of the Temple, we know nothing about such families who would correspond to the corrected spiritual relationship with the Creator.

Moreover, it is written about how Kabbalists of the past suffered because of their wives who often had very difficult personalities and presented many grievances and demands. Kabbalists accepted it as inevitable and a consequence of the breakage and exile in which we exist.

A spiritual couple should feel as if it exists in one body, in common agreement and understanding, completing each other in a fusion of minds, hearts, and mutual intentions. Everything that exists in the body of the other, in their mind and heart, I accept as my own thoughts and feelings.

And these are not just nice words but are truly felt even on the most earthly, physiological level. If something is hurting in your partner, then you feel this pain in your body, even if they do not tell you about it. This is a complete union of bodies in accordance with the union of souls.

We will come to this state as soon as we begin to correct ourselves in relation to our general love for one another.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/30/15

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The Torah, “Numbers” 13:17 – 13:18: Moses sent them to scout the land of Canaan, and he said to them, “Go up this way in the south and climb up the mountain. You shall see what [kind of] land it is, and the people who inhabit it; are they strong or weak? Are there few or many?”

Climbing the mountain and looking at the land from above means to summon the Upper Light, which temporarily raises you just because you ask for it. This however, doesn’t happen in practice, you only see it, because you cannot do anything but see.

Seeing can both raise or lower you, but it is essential in order to understand with what you have to work, which means to work in faith above reason. In order to do so, you need to have great knowledge because  you shouldn’t just follow blindly but should clearly understand all the instructions, guidelines, the whole system, and how to work with the Upper Light. This is the reason that the upper mind is activated before every level.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/30/15

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