The Book of Zohar, “VaYikra,” Item 99: “How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together, as well”… For their love, the Creator calls them, “servants,” as it is written, “For unto Me the Children of Israel are servants; they are My servants.” Afterwards He calls them “sons,” as it is written, “You are the children of the Lord your God.” And after that He calls them “brothers,” as it is written, “My brothers and my friends.” And because He called them “brothers,” He wished to place His Divinity in them and He will not stray from them. Then it is written: “How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together, as well.”

A person’s sacrifices means that he begins his work against his basic nature in order to connect so that he can reveal the Creator inside him.

The gradual dwelling of the Creator in a person takes place according to the still, vegetative, animate, and the speaking levels of nature, which are called respectively called servants, sons, and brothers.

We go through all these levels in our attitude towards one another, and in our attitude towards the Creator until we reach complete total mutual connection between brothers and become brothers with the Creator. Only when we are together do we become brothers.
[131838]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 10/24/14

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 13: Indeed, I feel all of you together, that today has been replaced for you with tomorrow, and instead of “now,” you say “later.” There is no cure for that but to exert to understand that mistake and distortion—that one who is saved by the Creator is saved only if he needs the salvation today. One who can wait for tomorrow will obtain his salvation after his years, God forbid.

We only need to work on our deficiency. The entire problem is reaching it. And the deficiency that is directed correctly immediately becomes a place for the discovery and absorption of spiritual properties, the Upper Light.

All of our work must be only on deficiencies, on this desire. And the desire must be through equivalence and accommodation to the Light according to all the laws of physics: The vessel and the Light need to match each other according to their frequencies and location. It is impossible to use a sack to store water, or a jar to prepare cement. Everything has its own container, and that is how it is in spirituality; this is a very basic and important condition.

The problem is that we don’t feel that there is no need to work on the Light, which is available in abundance and is in absolute rest, and that we need to work on the vessel, on our deficiency. The deficiency can only be attained through mutual work among us. To the degree that we actively yearn to attain the corrected spiritual state, then to this degree the Surrounding Light will help us to prepare the right request, until it is revealed as Inner Light.

This happened to you due to negligence in my request to exert in love of friends, as I have explained to you in every possible way that this cure is enough to recompense for all your faults. And if you cannot rise to heaven, then I have given you a way to move on earth. So why haven’t you added anything in that work?

The vessel is the collective soul that existed before the shattering of Adam HaRishon. And to the degree that we gather the parts in order to return it to its right form in order to bestow, so we approach performing our correct function.

This is expressed in love of friends, in a mutual connection in order to resemble the Creator, so that the connection between us will be according to spiritual laws: love and mutual guarantee.

Certainly we discover ourselves having characteristics and directions that are opposite this, but then we have something to pray about, meaning to raise MAN. And in an answer, we discover help from Above and fulfillment, as it is written: “The Torah was not given except to those who eat manna (Man),” meaning to those who are nourished by their requests to the Creator.
[131730]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 13: You should know that there are many sparks of holiness in each one in the group. When you assemble all the sparks of holiness into one place, as brothers, with love and friendship, you will certainly have a very high level of holiness for a while, from the light of life….and the salvation of the Lord is as the blink of an eye.

The truth is that this is an effort that none of us is prepared to make. So we are negligent, lazy, and discouraged. But along with this, it is very easy! After all, this is the way everything is arranged.

Try to revive an organ that has been separated and cut off from the body. No matter how much effort you make, it will not work. But if we attach it to the body, then it immediately receives everything that it needs, all the nourishment; it renews the mutual exchange of materials with the body and begins to live.

The vessel is not found in any one of us but only in the connection between us. If we move the emphasis from ourselves to the connection between us, to a space that we must fill with a dense field of the power of love, then we discover that there is no empty place in the world, rather specifically what was concealed is revealed there.

The main thing is to clarify and to reveal where to focus attention, where to invest efforts, and where I need to expect and pressure for compensation.
[131722]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What does it mean that a student conceals himself from his teacher?

Answer: A person cannot completely open himself up, even to himself, and certainly not to others, including his teacher. But the students have to clarify states that occur between them. They must constantly ask about that and clarify, not what each one feels individually, but the relationship between them.

There is a period in the spiritual work when a student has a lot of questions, but for some reason he doesn’t ask them and keeps them to himself. Even if it tortures him and pressures him and makes him feel angry and upset, he cannot bring these questions out and ask them. It happens to everyone when he clarifies these questions by himself.

But these questions have to be clarified and asked between the friends. If it isn’t personal but general, as it is revealed in the vessels among us, it has to be clarified.

Whatever each one feels inside him doesn’t matter. What we feel among us is the vessel for the revelation of the Light and that’s what’s important! The work in the group is in order to change the focus from what I feel inside me to what I feel about others and what happens between us.

It is as if I look through binoculars and have to constantly change the focus from myself to everyone, to the whole group, to what happens between us and not in each of us.

Then I understand that my negative attitude towards someone hurts all the connections in the group. So it cannot be that you don’t love someone but you do love others. There is no such thing since by that you already corrupt all the relationships. And because you cannot tolerate this, it must be corrected.
[131715]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: If the greatest advancement occurs when you make the greatest efforts, should we specifically look for the most difficult places to disseminate?

Answer: When we disseminate, we should look for more inner connection with the people we disseminate to. Dissemination depends on how much we annul ourselves before them in our dissemination and, at the same time, bestow upon them.

It is like when parents relate to a small child. On one hand, the parents take care of him, guide him, and do everything for him, and on the other hand, they do everything according to his will, for his own good.

This should be our attitude towards people, just like a parent towards his child.
[131715]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/14, Q&A with Rav

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Question: Why did Baal HaSulam and Rabash observe the Pesach customs so carefully?

Answer: Pesach is the exit from the egoistic desire for myself to the desire to bestow. It is called the exodus from Egypt, where Egypt symbolizes the whole evil inclination, our ego. The ascent above it is the exodus from Egypt.

First we have to perceive it spiritually and not corporeally. But there are customs that we keep in this world because of the connection between the corporeal branch and the spiritual root.

The spiritual root is expressed in different forms of intention and actions of bestowal that we have to perform, which mean actions of giving with an altruistic intention. The acquisition of the ability to bestow is called the exodus from Egypt.

When we operate this way in the spiritual world, we feel which corporeal branches in our world match these spiritual roots. Thus, Kabbalists have determined corporeal customs, as it says in the Torah that during this time we should eat special bread, “bread of affliction,” Matza, unleavened bread.

The difference between Matza and bread is that Matza doesn’t contain yeast; it contains only flour and water. This dough has to be kneaded for a certain length of time: 18 minutes, according to the spiritual properties, 9 Sefirot of the Direct Light and 9 Sefirot of the Returning Light, excluding Malchut. After all, it is Malchut that makes the dough sour, and so we use only 9 Sefirot of the Direct Light and the Returning Light, without Malchut, a total of 18 Sefirot. In our world it is expressed by 18 minutes.

We are allowed to keep the flour and water together for 18 minutes until the dough reaches the oven, which stops the developing connection between them. We don’t add any spice to the Matza, just flour and water.

Matza is the same bread but without the Malchut. It was pulled out of it, so Kabbalists have determined this custom according to the corporeal branch of the spiritual root. All these symbols are reminders of the exit from the ego, of the ascent over it. All the Pesach customs stem from how we feel ourselves in the spiritual roots that are detached from our ego, from the desire to enjoy, and when we move on to the desire to bestow.

There is nothing holy about these corporeal actions, but they are important because of their relation to the spiritual root. In the spiritual world, everyone has to perform these actions, while in the corporeal world, we perform some of them and there are some that we don’t perform.
[131711]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/14, Q&A with Rav

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The Torah, “Exodus” (Pekudei), 40:33: He setup the courtyard all around the Mishkan and the altar, and he put up the screen at the entrance to the courtyard, and Moses completed the work.

The building of the general vessel in which the Creator can be revealed has ended. A person’s preparation for the attainment of the Creator has ended.

Now, we are required to perform special, inner work for the creation of such conditions in which the upper force will be revealed in a person’s seemingly corporeal attributes.

The Torah, “Exodus” (Pekudei), 40:34-40:38: And the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the Mishkan. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the Mishkan. When the cloud rose up over the Mishkan, the children of Israel went out in all their journeys. But if the cloud did not rise up, they did not set out until the day that it rose. For the cloud of the Lord was upon the Mishkan by day, and there was fire within it at night, before the eyes of the entire house of Israel in all their journeys.

If we examine what the Torah says through images in our world, we can cross the Sinai desert in two weeks. However, the Israeli nation wandered in the desert and actually camped there for 40 years. So, this is how the preparation of the place for the revelation of the Creator is described allegorically. If we have a desire to reveal the Creator, He is revealed but not in a clear, external manner.

The point is that there are different levels and grades on the part of our desires, of coming closer to the state of love and bestowal in the connection between us. Although some of our desires have attained the level of Moses, the other desires do not adhere to this state. Therefore, the revelation of the Creator is vague at the moment.

The cloud and the smoke are signs of the right and the left lines. Fire is revelation and a cloud is concealment.

This refers to the initial states of our spiritual development, leading to a complete connection. There is already a vessel (a corrected desire) formed in a person, and he knows that when he continues to work, he will discover the upper force in this vessel. It is a very serious stage in our spiritual formation.
[131601]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 10/16/13

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As a result of our work in a group, in studying and in dissemination, we need to reach such a state in which we feel that we are under the control of two authorities, two forces. One control is the control of our ego, the evil inclination, the king of Egypt Pharaoh who holds us in slavery.

But sometimes, more or less, depending upon the advancement of the person, another control is also discovered: the good inclination, the power to bestow, the yearning to go outside of oneself towards the other, towards the friends, towards unity, connection, and so forth.

A person is in the midst of such dual power, under the control of two angels: the good inclination and the evil inclination, which hold him by the hands on both sides and guide him forward towards the goal of creation. Certainly the evil inclination also acts according to the program of the Creator and helps a person to advance independently, exercising his freedom of choice.

If he didn’t have free choice, he would be like a beast and not an Adam (man). Through clarifying for himself how to use the evil inclination and the good inclination, the power of reception and the power of bestowal, and choosing how to advance with the right mixture between them, he builds himself as an Adam in the likeness of the Creator.

The connection between the evil inclination and the good inclination begins from the first approach to Pharaoh together with the Creator. The person begins to establish these two forces one against the other. The two forces are under his authority. He decides himself according to his inner state, which of them manages him now and can even pass from one control to another control in that he chooses who has control over him and why, if he is able to do it or if he requires the help of the higher force.

Pharaoh wants to control, and if the person agrees to the evil inclination separating him from the Creator, then he truly is in the Egyptian exile. That is, he attributes some kind of independent control to his evil inclination and says that he is not ready to resist it and is in complete servitude to it.

Of course, if a person thinks this way, it is a sign that he is a slave. But everything depends upon the person himself. He decides and determines in which form Pharaoh will use him or if he will use Pharaoh.

And all of this work was to reveal that there is no other force involved, as it is written “I, myself, and not a messenger.” A person clarifies that the Creator is above the two forces, beyond both the good inclination and the evil inclination. These two forces come from Above. Through the two forces, the good inclination and the evil inclination, that are revealed to him alternately, a person reaches the final conclusion and decision that there is a force beyond them that plays with him through these two angels: the good inclination and the evil inclination.

Sometimes one of them comes to a person and sometimes the other one, which is why one feels he is thrown from one extreme to the other, in two directions. But thus it forms a relationship both with this force and that force, and ultimately with the one higher power, the Creator.
[131546]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/02/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What is wrong with our actions of bestowal that they turn out to be for ourselves?

Answer: There is nothing wrong on the part of a person but only on the part of the Creator. The Creator arranges the state for us in which we can seemingly bestow: We perform actions and think that we bestow, but then we discover that it was an egoistic action in order to receive.

But I wanted to bestow with all my heart and at the same time didn’t understand that I acted egoistically, in order to receive, so why isn’t my action considered according to my intentions? It’s done purposefully so that a person will grow. I have to be shown that my ego keeps on growing.

If I see that I did something for myself, it means that I have already ascended to an upper lever and from there I look at my previous action and determine that it was in order to receive. Determining this fact is already a sign of advancement.

The Creator keeps on raising Pharaoh in me and gives me the power to deal with him. It’s a kind of a game that ends when I make the right decision and am ready for the change that instead of Pharaoh fulfilling me, the Creator should totally fill me, leaving me no way to return to my old self.

This means that I go through 49 gates of impurity, discover that I am totally submerged in my ego, and I want its control to be replaced by the Creator’s control. We are enslaved; we are merely a desire to receive that knows only one thing: that it is being operated.

This is what we need to understand. Today, humanity must understand through suffering that we are under the domination of nature and not above nature; that is, we are operated by it. We can only choose what domination we want to be under. First, we love our desire to receive and want to be in it. We do everything for it and don’t differentiate it from us. It’s the most precious thing for us.

The problem is that I don’t differentiate it from myself. I try to separate it from me and to see myself from the side, as operated by an alien force; I climb the stairs of comprehending impurity, pass through the 49 gates of impurity. That’s the most important thing.

The Light of AB-SAG that comes from Above performs the differentiation by showing me that I am not a desire to receive. Although this desire is in me and controls my mind and heart, I want to cut myself off from it, to separate from it. Thus, I clarify that I go through 49 gates of impurity until I feel the need to replace one domination with another.

I want to be ruled but not by the egoistic domination that I was given by the Creator from birth, by the “old foolish king.” If I want to be ruled by the Creator, I have to draw Him towards me by force, to bring Him into me so that He will dominate me. Then I expect another struggle regarding the acquisition of the attributes of receiving in order to bestow.
[131529]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/1/14, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Why do we constantly receive blows after we work well and carry out your advice? Will this process ever come to an end?

Answer: Your complaint is identical to the complaint of the Jews in Egypt who blame Moses: “As soon as you went to Pharaoh, he began to beat us! Don’t go to him anymore; don’t harden his heart; let sleeping dogs lie!”

This is the process, hardening the our evil inclination, as it is written: “A person should always provoke the good inclination over the evil inclination.”

Question: When will it come to an end? Where are we headed?

Answer: I don’t understand why you ask such a question. We are headed towards the state in which we will not ask about the outcome of our actions because we want to reach bestowal. After you overcome this psychological barrier (Machsom), the spiritual world opens up before you.

You will cease to ask about your future, but simply will bestow as if into a void. This will be your pleasure. This inclination will open up a new space, a new dimension, for you. You cannot perceive the spiritual world with your egoistic vessels of “when, where, and how?” It’s right here, but it can be revealed to you only with an opposite inclination. You don’t have the right vessels for it.

Question: So when will the Light finally cut me off my ego?

Answer: When the work becomes the reward for you. There is a psychological barrier here, which doesn’t let you ascend above this demand and to see, to know, to acquire, to be filled with, and to perform actions without expecting any response in return but only in order to bestow. Only this inclination will open up the entrance to the spiritual world for you. But don’t try to perform actions of bestowal in order to open it.

I think that successful dissemination can be helpful. We don’t have any powers and will not have any in the future. We need another very large, broad, and strong belt of people around us who will support us.
[131526]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/01/14, Writings of Rabash

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