Question: In our movement there are two ways: the good way and the way of suffering. My ego doesn’t want to submit to others. How is it possible to oblige it to go in the good way? I understand that suffering is not good.

Answer: You cannot oblige it as long as the group doesn’t convince you of it. You are stubbornly opposed like a donkey, holding on to the ego with all your strength, and you cannot change your mind for the better by yourself.

In the beginning stage we nullify our opinion under the influence of all kinds of blows. And after that we can nullify it, soften it, and change it only under the influence of the group. The group must teach you how to relate to your problem.

Question: But the group is made up of people like me.

Answer: This is what you think: “Who are they after all? What do they understand or know? They, know nothing!” That’s why you sit within your problems.

You must elevate and magnify every friend as the greatest of the generation. And then you will see how it’s possible to hear them. Another ear will appear to you, not beastly, rather spiritual. You will begin to comprehend and understand their words and thoughts in a completely differently; you will feel them differently within yourself if you begin to elevate and magnify them as great. This is the whole problem.

I keep getting answers from my students to questions that I myself cannot answer. I am not ashamed to admit it. It’s said: “I have learned much from my teachers, more from my friends, and from my students most of all.” You must lower yourself before them, and then you will be able to hear them.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

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Baal HaSulam, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 9, Item 1: Although this return is annulled during the shattering of the vessels, as we know, it turns out that the vessels of AHP fell once more to the level of the lower like their initial state of smallness. Malchut wanted to use all the ten Sefirot in order to bestow and discovered that it cannot, and so all the AHP were annulled. Now, we must correct them, and only then will we be able to use them, when this is the end of all the correction to the end—which means only to return all the AHP that returned and were corrupted as a result of the shattering of the vessels and fell to the level of the lower of each one, to their places, like they were in the state of the greatness of Nekudim, which means after the new Light that came out of the MAN of NHY of AK already corrected all the fallen AHP and raised them again, which means the time of the seventh Malchut Malchin Kdmain that spread until the point of this world.

We correct the real vessels of receiving, the AHP and then we reach the end of correction. The world of Atzilut spreads until the point of this world, the central point of all the worlds, as it is written, “His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives.”

Thus, we can use all the vessels and every person will attain all 125 levels. This may seem strange because this world is built like a pyramid and we all stand one on top of the other, as one is part of the hands and another of the feet of the general spiritual Partzuf. Yet, it doesn’t matter which organ each one belongs to since we all reach the end of correction and connect into one system, and so every individual, even the smallest one, attains everything, just like the greatest individual. All the differences are eliminated.

This means that everyone’s feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, and their heads will reach Malchut of the world of Infinity, as it says that at the end of all the correction when the Messiah comes, “He will gather everyone in Jerusalem.” This means that everyone will spread form Malchut of the world of Infinity to Malchut of this world, because everyone is incorporated in everyone, and there will be no differences between us.

Everyone will perform his specific individual work with regard to the system, but throughout the whole system, from one end to the other. Thus, we will complement one another and reach the same level. We all will drown in the great sea of Light and will celebrate by “eating the Leviathan,” which means that we will receive all the Light of Hochma in order to bestow.

I am incorporated in all of reality and I operate in it in order to bestow upon the Creator, and you are incorporated on the other side and operate in it for the same goal. It turns out that we attain an equal level because each of us uses the whole system, but I am different from you according to the root of my soul, and so our work is also different. Therefore, each one is envious of his friends’ achievements, and everyone will have a different Masach (screen). I am impressed by how much everyone does, to what extent each one is greater, and the height he reaches being initially more corrupt than me.

It seems that we don’t need all these impressions if we complete the work and reach the end of correction. However, they are essential in order to advance. In the meantime, we don’t understand what will happen after the end of correction. It says that when we complete the correction the Creator makes us wings.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/14, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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A question in spirituality is a desire (Hisaron, need) that triggers the Upper Light. The Light descends and fills that desire. This is called a real question or prayer.

However, until such a real question is formed, one goes through an array of preliminary questions that are called “a prayer before a prayer.” In other words, before one really reaches the prayer, request, one undergoes numerous small, private, inaccurate questions until a correct question finally emerges.

In general, all questions boil down to one thing: “What is the meaning of life? Is it worth living? If yes, for what?” This is the only question that really exists. A man asks billions of different variations, and accordingly only gets a partial response. But at the end of correction, all will transform into one huge question that will be answered by one gigantic response—complete adhesion (Zivug a Shalem).

Question: What kinds of questions should we bring to you and which ones have to be clarified in the group?

Answer: It’s better if you come to me with a collective question. If you have a question that involves the entire group, please refer it to me.

Comment: So far, when I find answers to my questions in the group, I feel that they are correct.

Answer: Indeed “so far.” It is this way for every level, for me and for all. Answers that were right at this degree become incorrect when we reach a new level because the Keter of the lower Partzuf appeals to Malchut of the Upper.
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From a Lesson in Russian 2/10/14

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Question: What if I advance faster than my wife?

Answer: That’s the wrong attitude. Advancements of men and women are different in nature and style, and the comparison is inappropriate here. What a woman makes in the creation is not the same as a man.

Sometimes men and women can find a common language, but as a rule, they are unable to do so. Start reading any article or listening to a lesson and you will see that she thinks differently from you, as if addressing the subject matter from a different perspective. Eventually, women come to the same details of perception, but the path and the analysis of men and women are very different.

Men and women can discuss common questions, but when it comes to details, you need to take their current level into consideration.

Question: I see that our impressions complement each other from different sides. But at the same time, my wife has to spend a lot of time and effort with our child.

Answer: This is the women’s correction. Women care for their children and sometimes it looks like it is done at the expense of their self-correction. However, this is exactly how women advance, and a woman’s duty is to be a mother.

Some wonder, maybe I shouldn’t have children and should completely devote myself to studying, dissemination, and correction? No. Women should correct their souls by taking care of their children, by being together with them, and in the measure of time and desire remaining after this.

If a woman has the opportunity to marry and have children, she must do so. Women should take care of children even though it would seem that without children they could have done much more and advance much farther on their spiritual path. She could, but this is not a woman’s path of correction.

Question: Should women with children compare themselves with those women without children who have more time to study and disseminate?

Answer: No. If a woman with children participates in the study or any other activities to the extent she can, it produces correction many times greater than that of a woman who “refrains” from having children because she wants to be involved in Kabbalah. This kind of “abstinence” doesn’t help.

We just don’t realize that this world is built according to spirituality. If we bring sparks of spirituality into this life, we come closer to correction. One cannot rise to the next spiritual level if one has not laid a basis for it in this world. That’s why we have to marry, have children, and move on from there.

It would seem great if all of my students were disconnected from the cares of this world and were devoted to the spiritual. Imagine: everybody studies and disseminates. But instead they marry and women are almost immediately cut off from the process and men are obliged to support their families and resolve endless problems together with their spouses.

This is exactly what correction is. We cannot hide from this fact. Later, you will understand that this is the optimal way to do our job in the best possible way.

Conversely, those who avoid marriage reject the chance for correction. This applies to both men and women. So, if there is a possibility, you should start a family and carry the burden.

Anyway, a family is preferred over anything else because it is a basic part of the world’s correction. It is no coincidence that today the world is faced with the collapse of the family structure; this situation precedes the basic correction.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”: All these worlds and everything in them are included in the holy name HaVaYaH, Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey, and the tip of the Yod. We have no perception in the first world, Adam Kadmon. Hence, it is only implied in the tip of the Yod of the name. This is why we do not speak of it and always mention only the four worlds ABYA. Yod is the world of Atzilut, Hey – the world of Beria, Vav – the world of Yetzira, and the bottom Hey – the world of Assiya.

Question: Why are we using different words for the same things?

Answer: Let’s assume I’m expecting guests and I go to a market to buy meat for a barbeque. There are twenty different sorts of meat, different cuts of meat from various animals. All of them are just meat, but various kinds of meat are named differently since each of them has a taste of its own.

The same applies to spirituality where everything has its own “flavor” – ten Sefirot of their own with a screen and the Light that fulfills them; each of them is a separate reality.

The same applies to the different names of the same entity. You are not familiar with them at this time and that’s why you are confused and perplexed. You haven’t yet tasted them or felt their “edges,” nuances, shades, or forms in this world.

Without having the slightest impression of spiritual details, you see different names just as duplications. But as soon as you taste the “spiritual barbeque” comprised of numerous kinds of the Light, you will discover their “flavors” and will recognize their names; you will understand why they are called this way and not another.

In this world, we describe flavors using words that are a part of our language: let’s say chips flavored with paprika or onion. In spirituality, you will see the essence of each name and realize why this particular flavor is called “onion” (batzal – בָּצָל). The word stands for “in the shadow” (be-tzel – בְּצֵל) – a certain type of concealment or revelation. When one starts distinguishing the essence of names, one won’t have to memorize them by heart. They will turn into spiritual vessels that are obvious in one’s sensations.

Now you don’t feel any taste. Like a sick person who has no appetite, everything seems bland. Different dishes can be prepared for him, but he eats without distinguishing any flavors and only does so because his doctor demands him to.

Here, as we approach spirituality we are “sick,” but we have “eat” in order to get well. Later, when we recover and become healthy we’ll find huge differences and wonderful tastes in food that seem so tasteless to us today.

So there is a process, “tasting” a new level, you yourself define its name, the names of the Lights that fill it and the vessels. Where do we get them? From our sensations. If we compare the names that we assigned to various objects and phenomena with the original sources, we’ll see that they coincide. It means that we don’t have to read a description of a phenomenon in books; everything emerges from within.

It is said that Adam gave names to everything in this world. After all, he was the first one to reveal the spiritual world and attain spiritual roots of everything, the source of all their properties and hence their names.

“Attainment” of something means that we penetrate to the very root of creation as if we attain Infinity, from which an object of our material world derives. And then you have no problem with names. After all, they stem from the Lights and vessels, and you yourself will determine their names.

The power of ten Sefirot with a screen and the inner Light forms the name of a Partzuf, the amount included in each set of forces. That’s why we label a Partzuf not as we usually name a newly born child according to our choice, but rather in accordance with the internal structure of the object. We can’t just give it a different name. This also applies to each of us; when we change, our names also change.

Consequently, a vessel, the Light that opposes a vessel, and a screen that connects them together allow us to perceive the entire reality without referring to any books. We don’t just name the details. Their names are a revelation, the spiritual attainment of a person.
[126608]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/28/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What is the right intention we should have when we open The Book of Zohar?

Answer: The Book of Zohar was written as a result of the connection between souls and so it operates and influences us in the right way if we connect. Even if I read it by myself, it will affect me by pushing me to connect. But it is impossible to understand this book unless you are connected with other people.

It isn’t just an intellectual understanding, but a revelation.  I feel how I overcome my ego and begin to feel the others in my connection with others. I feel new powers and new attributes in the connection with others, and so I discover the upper world.

The Book of Zohar gives me the feeling of the others by revealing a force field of love and bestowal between us which is the spiritual world. This is the right outcome that we should expect from studying The Book of Zohar.
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From the World Zohar Week “World Zohar Convention,” Day One 2/5/14, Lesson 1

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Question: Through service to his Rav (teacher), a student is linked to his Rav, to the Elyon (upper), and receives from him. What happens if there is a situation where the student does something against the desire of his Rav for whatever reason? How does this influence the link between them and the advancement of the student?

Answer: This indicates total detachment. If it is clear to a student that he is acting against the desire of his Rav, then how can he behave like this? The main spiritual law is the law of equivalence of form. Therefore, for the needs of Dvekut (adhesion), it is at least necessary not to oppose, but to be in some kind of agreement. Even if you are not ready to carry something out, you cannot act in opposition.

If the student acts in opposition to the desire of his Rav, then he has no chance of receiving something from him. We also need to understand that spiritual equivalence or lack of equivalence is much more intense than physical equivalence, and therefore it influences the physical world. In other words, it will lead to a great distance of the student from the Rav. He has no chance of remaining near him.

Certainly, for a student, there is the possibility of approach and correction, for the Rav sees him as a little child who is capable of doing something foolish. The Rav can be angry at the student as at a child, but in spite of all this, he thinks of him as his son, and so he forgives him. However, he cannot agree and allow the child to act against his spiritual development.

In the physical world, sometimes we have no choice but to look with forgiveness at the mischief of children. However, in spirituality, it is impossible to tolerate this. This is because behavior like this leads to a lack of equivalence of form that is the main law of reality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

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Question: How can the lower hasten his own development and compel the upper to constantly operate on him?

Answer: On one hand, everything that happens to the lower comes from the upper, as it says “I am the first and I am the last.” If He is the first and He is the last, then what do I have to do? How can I bestow upon Him?

The only way to bestow upon the upper is through the group and not by oneself. I cannot do it by myself. The group is my upper and if I awaken the friends, I also awaken the Creator this way. This is our only work. If I want to hasten my advancement, my development, and improve my state, I can only do it through the group.

As long as I am by myself, there is no way I can bestow upon the Creator. When I am by myself I remain passive in my relationship with the Creator, just like the still, vegetative, and animate parts of nature. If I try to connect to the Creator by myself and study the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to do so, I still remain on the level of the still, vegetative, and animate.

If I want to awaken the Creator and force Him to take care of me, I have to do it through the group because the vessel of bestowal upon the Creator is in the connection between people. The same thing happens in the transition from one level to another. On the next level, I will have to attain a connection with everyone “squared” compared to the previous level. On additional levels the connection grows in the third degree, fourth degree, etc.

This means that each time I have to awaken the Creator by my own power, which is more tightly connected to the group. If I don’t increase it each time, I remain by myself, and then I am completely operated by the Creator, by different illuminations, which is the level of the still, vegetative, and animate, just as He operates all of nature and the people in this world.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/14, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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If you want to feel the spiritual state a little, you can imagine that you are drowning in a sea of Light and that you are left without oxygen, like a fish swimming in the water. The Upper Light wraps me on all sides and immediately responds automatically to my every move. I barely lift a “hand’ or “foot,” i.e., the slightest movement in my heart, and I immediately summon the response of the Upper Light.

This is how I should live all the time, from morning till night, from the night until the morning, and feel that I am in a sea of the Upper Light that fills all of reality. This is the only force, “There is none else besides Him.” He is good and benevolent and responds to every move I make in order to bring me to the goal in the best possible way.

I am in this Light in any movement of my desires: in the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, and so I immediately summon a response from the Light, I have to take this into account.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Is the process of the descent of the generations still going on or is it already over?

Answer: The process isn’t over until we begin the correction. But there is another question: Is it possible to start the correction if there is still room to decline? After all, we know that the ascent and the correction have to start from the bottom.

The point is that we correct the last part of the desire by hastening the process. This is the uniqueness of the “days of the Messiah” that we can use the drawing force and correct these vessels during our ascent. By raising a request, MAN, for correction, we discover a deficiency, the necessity, since in order to correct ourselves we need to feel the same deficiency, and this is possible only by the Light.

Suppose I have to feel a blow in order to appreciate the greatness of the Creator. This blow can be revealed in very difficult states in which I try to overcome troubles and do something. I build and destroy, delve into problems and fight them for a long time so that eventually I will give up and surrender and say: “That’s it, I can’t go on any longer; it’s impossible to advance this way.” This is how we learn by suffering.

But I can go through the same suffering and the same study and reach the same outcome much faster if I learn how to connect and to draw the Light that Reforms. Then I also feel sorrow, but it stems from the lack of connection, from the fact that I am not in vessels of bestowal. It’s a much more qualitative sorrow. In the first case, the sorrow belongs to the corporeal physical bodies with all their problems, including hunger, murder, etc., but now I choose another sorrow instead. We cannot do without sorrow; we have to feel a deficiency, a need, since otherwise the Light will not be revealed, but this is a sweet deficiency when I lack the love of the Creator, the love of the created being, the attraction, and the urge to attain a general connection among everyone.

These sorrows and suffering are on a spiritual level and not on a corporeal one. It’s one thing when millions of people suffered for a hundred years and another when I raise it to a spiritual height, and then a small group is enough. I hasten time this way, and now there is no need for a hundred years and for millions of people to suffer. Instead, this small group does it in a short time. Thus we change the corporeal clarification to a spiritual one.

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