Question: How can we unite if we don’t feel the pain of our shattering?

Answer: Connection is only possible with a united effort. Alone you can scream for even a thousand years, but this won’t help. Here there must be a group effort where everyone is attracted to each other and ready for mutual guarantee (Arvut). Everyone must be ready to be responsible for the others: one for all and all for one.

These are the necessary conditions; it is impossible to replace them with anything else. And you want to finish the work yourselves, but this is impossible. You forget the formula and don’t take it into account. The formula is that we are making efforts to try to connect among us, to carry out all kinds of activities within the group in order to resemble the Light that Reforms. It must influence us and change us.

We are not changed by our connection. Through our inclination to connect, we awaken the intensity of the Light, the influence of the energy field in which we are found. The more that we try to connect between us in all kinds of forms, with this we awaken the action of bestowal, meaning the Creator who fills the world. And He illuminates us according to our efforts, and it is not important that they might be incorrect and confused. The main thing is the effort that attracts the Light that Reforms. And then this Light changes me.

You ask: What form must we attain? This doesn’t concern me and doesn’t matter to me; I never reach that form myself. It is the Light that influences me and connects me with the friends in this form that is suitable to its revelation. Then instead of Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) that arranges and corrects our connections, it transforms into Ohr Pnimi (Inner Light).

This is the same Light; no changes are made in the Light itself. But it sometimes appears as Ohr Makif and sometimes as Ohr Pnimi, sometimes as NRNHY and more. There exist a multitude of types of Light: Ohr Yashar, Ohr Hozer. But it is precisely the Light that makes the form for me.

You say: “We want to reach connection!” Where is the Creator within this sentence? And what do we want this connection for? Also for His sake! The Creator realizes this connection and He is also discovered within it. And from our side, we are only attracted to this connection, but certainly we don’t succeed in doing anything if the Light does not connect between us. All that is required of us is to attain the right intention.
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From a Preparation Lesson for the Arava Convention, 1/30/14

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Preparation for the Integral Convention: Two Opposites (The Law of Equivalence of Form)

The basic fundamental law of reality is the law of equivalence of form. According to the law of equivalence of form, the created being was created as something from nothing from the reality of something from something.

These two poles—something from nothing and something from something—are totally opposite from one another in our reality. However, in the Creator’s plan that is above our reality, these poles connect into one. As a result, the law of equivalence of form obliges creation to pursue this unity until it can independently reveal the thought of creation in which everything is unified.

By attaining the raspberry ball and the greatest importance of the goal, we see that we still cannot attain the concept of unity. We lack the inner forces in order to constantly focus our thoughts and our efforts on bestowal, on the Creator.

We want to cross check these two concepts of bestowal and the Creator, which mean to imagine the Creator as the attribute of bestowal. But the attribute of bestowal can be revealed only when it’s dressed in the desire to receive. In other words, we discover the Creator only in the matter that He created and not in any other way.

When it’s revealed in a person, the attribute of bestowal aligns his actions and thoughts. This means that the Creator is “clothed” in a person, in a person’s attributes, and then he acts as the one who bestows. This form is called the Creator. Only when we see ourselves and the Creator that is dressed in us, can we reveal the Creator.

We actually see ourselves all the time. When we look at the world, we also see ourselves, although in the opposite form, but it is still ourselves. Thus, according to the revelation of the attribute of bestowal, we see how it is dressed in the whole world. We discover that the attribute of bestowal dominates the world and this form is called Shechina (Divinity).

Thus we understand why we have to force ourselves to worry about the external environment. We can ascend to the revelation of the Creator and reach unity with the Creator from the raspberry ball only to the extent that we discover this attribute in the whole world.

The world becomes our vessel; all of reality is my vessel, my soul; everything that is external to me is me. But I see it on the outside in order to discover the attribute of bestowal more clearly, 620 times greater, in order to intensify and to amplify the feeling of Nefesh of Nefesh in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) above the power of the forces of impurity. This is how I begin to understand that the whole world was meant for me, for my work.

We have to recognize and understand that the forces of separation are necessary and we must understand them correctly. We have to enter a mode that we will accept the feelings of rejection as the left line against which the right line is evoked, the force of the group. We don’t see it as an obstacle, but as an opportunity to connect the right and the left lines and to create the middle line to advance even further towards depicting the Creator.
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Preparation for the Integral Convention, Nine Stages On The Path To Unity, Point 5

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Question: This convention is a convention of our connection with the Creator. What does this mean?

Answer: There cannot be connection without feeling the Creator. Otherwise, how do we know that we have reached connection? We test it only by discovering the Creator within the connection. Only in this way can we be sure that we have connected.

Therefore unity between us cannot exist without that one force that is discovered within us as a characteristic that fills and connects us, that stabilizes us. This is what we call having reached connection. Without the Creator, the connection will not happen: He must stabilize our connection and testify that we have attained Him.
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From the Talk at a meal 1/26/14

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From Rabash’s Article “A Prayer of Many”: …We can interpret the words of the holy Zohar, which advises those people with an inner demand, who cannot accept the state they are in because they do not see any progress in the work of God, and believe what is written… The advice is to ask for the whole collective.

In other words, everything that one feels that he is lacking and asks fulfillment for, he should not say that he is an exception, meaning that he deserves more than what the collective has. Rather, “I dwell among my own people,” meaning I am asking for the entire collective because I wish to come to a state where I will have no care for myself whatsoever, but only for the Creator to have contentment. Therefore, it makes no difference to me if the Creator takes pleasure in me or can receive the pleasure from others.

The fact that we only perceive a small fragment of reality is not essential. Authentic reality is integral, closed, single, and unified; this one vessel was created, organized by, and fulfilled with one Light called “The Lord and His Name are One” where the Creator is the Light and His Name a vessel, desire.

If we want to eventually start perceiving the true reality, responding to it correctly, and becoming its conscious participants, being worthy of a human developmental level rather than just behaving at inanimate, vegetative, or animate levels that are completely subordinate to the Light, we should start thinking solely about our society. In fact, all of us already act accordingly. We never make mistakes, nor do we ever commit “bad” deeds since we are just following the orders of nature without even acknowledging this fact.

That’s why only those who study Kabbalah can be considered “sinners” or “righteous” since they understand that reality is global, integral, general, unified, and that the Light fulfills it and acts inside it. If it is so, then how can we make personal, individual plans or rely on ourselves? How can anything of an individual nature exist if the entire system is completely intertwined?

There is no such thing as individuality. Each element is an inseparable part of a whole. It is included in all other elements of the system and the entire structure is a part of them.

There are just 10 Sefirot; each of which is divided into 10 parts and so on to infinity. That’s why it is impossible to state that we have something that belongs exclusively to us. Everything is collective! There is nothing outside us since we are present in each particle of the entire structure.

Thus, correct calculations are always of a social nature. There is nothing private. “Individuality” apart from a commonality is just a point in which we agree that we completely belong to the entirety and that nothing but wholeness exists.

We should think, feel, receive, and bestow solely through our sense of commonality—only through unity!
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/14

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It isn’t by chance that our big global group is divided into two parts which are necessary in order to express our prayer, our deficiency for correction correctly. Because of different reasons, the first part is given the chance to connect physically during the convention, while the other part cannot come to the convention and connect physically.

This is why there is another important element in our prayer where we must ask for the friends who are not physically with us so we will feel as if they are here with us. We shouldn’t feel any distance between us, but rather that the distance between us is meaningless since there is nothing but the connection with the friends.

We ask the Creator to bring the friends who had to stay at home closer to us and to convey all our feelings to them and their impressions to us. There shouldn’t be virtual communication lines between us, but heart to heart communication lines which are so strong that we will feel that the friends are not just beside us, but inside our hearts!
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From the Preparation for the World Zohar Week 2014 1/29/14

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Right now we need to clarify which problems must actually be solved before and during the convention. Otherwise this will not be called a “convention,” a convening, a connection.

Question: It is understandable that we need to feel happy about connection. But must we also be afraid of not attaining a connection?

Answer: There is a particular age below which the child is exempt from commandments (Mitzvot) because he is small. After that we begin to educate him and say to him what he is allowed to eat and what he is forbidden to eat, or that one can do something this way and is not allowed to do it that way.

The first commandment is called “fear” in the presence of the Creator. I am afraid of whether or not I will be able to give Him contentment, will this action make Him happier, what will make Him less happy? For this, I must reach an age of maturity, “Bar Mitzvah,” meaning a level when a person is aware that he is responsible for his thoughts, intentions, and deeds of correction. A “Mitzvah” is correction. The question is, have we reached this age?

If we were already like this today, we will feel the fear, the apprehension: “Friends, the goal before us is to give contentment to the Creator! If we don’t do this, it will be very bad.” This will be very bad not for ourselves, but bad for another, for others; otherwise, this is not called a “Mitzvah” if I am thinking about myself. But if we succeed in giving contentment to the Creator, this will be good for the entire world! What will be with us doesn’t matter to us.

This means that we must make many preliminary corrections before we reach realization of this first commandment of fear, of apprehension, of the thought, “Am I giving contentment to the Creator or not?” It’s forbidden for you to get some kind of benefit from this in return for this will no longer be a commandment, this will not be bestowal, this will not be giving contentment to the Creator. It’s possible to bring contentment to the Creator only if there is no self-interest, if one is making Him happy without considering personal loss or gain. We must still rise to this level by making a restriction on our ego so that the result will not be considered in relation to ourselves.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We should feel that we are in the desert and that we will remain in the desert, in desolation, in emptiness, if we don’t reach the state in which we can delight the Creator. We will only have the idea that we did it, that we are trying to do it, and that we are getting close to it. Then, there is a higher level, and we don’t want to know it since the exertion itself, delighting the Creator, is our reward.

The emptiness that is created between us always will be the place that the Creator must fill according to our state. The higher we ascend the spiritual ladder, this emptiness will take on a new form, a new essence, a new identity, until finally we will reach a state in which we will ask for nothing except for the opportunity to make an effort in total darkness. This darkness becomes a place full of Light for us.

It is said:.”Darkness will illuminate as Light.” But how can that be? After all, it remains darkness! For us, it isn’t darkness anymore. If we bring the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) into it, our impulse to bestow, the darkness turns into Light and night turns into day.

If we turn ourselves into a vessel that can work only in order to serve all of creation, this vessel becomes a conductor of the Light. We actually are ready for this transition which is a totally new phenomenon that never existed before. Therefore, we can reach the right action by our mutual effort. Our action isn’t in feeling and understanding the Creator but rather in discovering the right deficiency. This is the only thing that is required of us.

When we have the right deficiency, we immediately will discover that we are already on a certain spiritual level. Even now, we are already in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), but we discover only part of it according to our deficiency and one day, we discover all of it.
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From the Preparation for the World Zohar Week 2014 1/29/14

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I am very glad that we have such an extended convention, long meetings between all the friends around the world. This allows us to be integrated with each other, to connect, and unite. First of all, it says that from Above we are allowed to do that. All the forces of the Creator are intended to help us, to give us a chance to unite. The rest is up to us. 

Somewhere between two and three weeks before our convention, a new attitude came to us from Above: focused, aimed at us, the desire of the Creator, Who waits for us to rise to Him. Therefore, we have to take this challenge and begin to work with it. We are in a state when everything has been already transferred to our hands and depends on us. 

I very much hope that we will not miss this chance. You noticed that shortly before our convention, we suddenly had an opportunity and readiness to explain the direction to the goal more clearly and openly. The lessons have risen to a new level and have become more accurately directed at it. So, I am very glad that we are on the threshold of correct connection. We have the power for it. I am very proud of you, of our chance to get together and bring great joy to the upper force that cares about us. 

We just have to thank the Creator for the opportunities presented and quickly realize the chance provided. We received it and not accidentally. Why have we all of a sudden received such a connection with the upper force that we have the opportunity to reveal it as managing everything, enveloping, and filling everything? Why does It want to raise us and make us its partners? This is huge luck. We are just the lucky ones! 

Therefore, we must accept every friend as a great special person in his generation, chosen by the Creator from many millions of people and brought here where our friends from around the world gathered. This is a great state that has a huge impact on all of humanity. 

Neil Armstrong once said, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Indeed, this is what is happening to us only in a spiritual sense, and it strongly advances the world. Therefore, we need to honor every friend and collectively thank the Creator.
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From a Talk During the Meal 1/29/14

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We have already experienced the first feeling of connection, but the question is how do we continue using our experience? If we simply enjoy the pleasant feeling and the tranquility, then we are clearly using the illumination that comes to us. As a result of the loss of the illumination, we feel a descent. As Baal HaSulam said: “Shame on he who does not constantly step up his efforts, but makes a complaint, separating himself from the Creator.”

Therefore, we must constantly work on increasing our desire and efforts on this inclination in different forms among the men and the women, in different circles. We know that Ramchal’s students took turns in studying continuously from The Book of Zohar. There was always a small group that was responsible for keeping the general state every hour of the 24 hours in a day. We may also have to do something similar in the future. We have an opportunity to organize this duty around the clock all over the globe, in all our groups on every continent. It makes no difference whether it’s a big group or a small one, any small effort that one small individual makes is like a great effort that a grownup makes.

Now we should fear the descent back to the domination of the ego. We feel good and pleasant; we have experienced some unusual feelings and we are starting to enjoy and to analyze them, but no matter what I feel, what is important is to constantly remain above my feelings and my calculations and to yearn only for bestowal. When I am in bestowal, I don’t feel myself and I don’t even think about it. I only ask for bestowal: For whom am I doing all this?

I live thanks to the intention to bestow and not in the state itself. In the spiritual world, the state itself is not included, only what you add to it, the acceleration, and the derivative.
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From the Talk at a Meal 1/27/14

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Question: How can I rejoice and be serious simultaneously?

Answer: It depends on a person’s development. We see that children cannot display complex feelings: They are either happy or upset and cry, again and again, instantly moving from one to another. A serious grownup, on the other hand, understands that there are different states in life and one can feel both joy and sadness.

A whole person understands creation and knows how to connect its ends, so the worst feelings on one end and the best feelings on the other end support one another and intensify one another. He understands that this is how the matter of creation is arranged, in contrasting poles of darkness and Light, and that they must both exist one opposite the other.

If a person feels that this system exists and operates between these two ends, he is happy that he has both the force of evil and the force of goodness and that they don’t extinguish one another. By connecting on the middle line, the right and the left lines do not extinguish or nullify one another, but rather, support and amplify one another by 620 times.
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From the Talk at the Meal 1/26/14

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