Question: How is a decision reached in a “group of ten” (a training group of ten people): Is it according to a simple majority vote or must everyone agree?

Answer: If there is some kind of “majority,” this is no longer called a “group of ten.” A group of ten is “one man with one heart,” so what kind of “majority” can be there? A minyan is formed from ten people if they are all united in one heart, in one prayer. So how could a group of ten adopt some kind of resolution if a part doesn’t agree wholeheartedly?

You cannot show that you are a hero and agree with the decision of the friends despite your dissatisfaction. There is no coercion in spirituality! In a group of ten, a resolution can only be adopted if there is universal agreement; otherwise, the “group of ten” concept doesn’t exist. All must be as one.

In contrast, the spiritual directorate adopts a resolution with a “compelling” majority, 8 out of 10 for example. This is because it’s composed of people with different opinions regarding various problems relevant to our world and they are trying to find a solution. They don’t make decisions about spiritual work.

There are people who decide what we will eat at the meal, what the schedule will be for the day, which article we will learn in the lesson, and I don’t even ask them what kind of a decision they adopted. But the concept of a “group of ten” applies only to spiritual connection as one person.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How is thought connected to feeling in creation?

Answer: Malchut that raises its request, the black point of deficiency, is the feeling. But this feeling cannot take on a certain character, volume, or form if it isn’t incorporated in Hochma and Bina. These two forces are meant to build a form called Adam that resembles the Creator, out of the raw and formless desire.

After the request rises to Hochma and Bina two opposite forces begin to operate on it. One force cannot set the direction and there have to be two forces that operate in different directions. The force of receiving and the force of bestowal build a form that is similar to Keter out of the raw material, out of the deficiency of the lower.

Both Hochma and Bina come out of Keter and so Malchut rises to them and asks them: “Build me like Keter since you come out of Keter and know it. So please make me like it.” This is our whole fulfillment.

Malchut doesn’t know what Keter is because it is Above. It’s the “edge of Yod” that we attain. But “from Your actions we shall know You,” which means that we will understand the Creator according to what is made of us, and therefore it’s called a thought.

You don’t need to be very clever in order to fulfill this, since the less wise you become and the closer you are to your inner reality, the better. Spiritual wisdom does not depend on the corporeal mind. No Kabbalist is wiser than ordinary people and isn’t born a genius, but rather has average abilities within the framework of this world.

The need for spirituality is not a result of extra mental abilities or even emotional ones. It’s something that is totally independent of corporeal attributes. So there is nothing to worry about; if you have a desire that forces you to sit and study, it’s enough. It’s a sign that you can develop it, and not by knowledge and different debates. The wisdom comes later, as a result of the spiritual attainment. First, you discover the feeling and only then you grow wise by it. It works in a relatively opposite manner from this world in which the more coldly you think, like a computer or a machine, the better calculations you can make and the wiser you are.

In spirituality everything is the opposite since the spiritual vessel is based on emotion, on the desire to enjoy. All the accounts are in the desire to receive. If you don’t take this desire apart and start playing with it, you will have nothing to work with. How else will you reach the feeling, the understanding, and the attainment?

A thought is the force of Bina, and Bina is totally based on a strong feeling, since it’s the level of Hochma that wanted to resemble Keter. It’s like a guest who discovers that he wants to be like the host since otherwise he cannot exist.

The problem is not just to exist, but to exist in the Light of the host. But this is impossible if you don’t repay Him by at least treating Him as nicely as He treats you. You cannot pay Him like in a restaurant and compensate Him for the expenses He had in preparing the refreshments for you, for the cost of the products, the fuel, the work, plus 20%. He expects a feeling from you that is revealed in thought, in Bina. Everything is fulfilled in the vessel of feeling. So all our advancement stems from disappointment, from tension, and from a feeling of economic shortage, which we translate to a spiritual deficiency.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/13, The Book of Zohar – Introduction

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Question: Why do I have to make such great efforts not to fall asleep during the lesson although I exert a lot of efforts in the study and in dissemination?

Answer: I will tell you a secret: People who are attracted to spirituality, who want to reveal the Creator, don’t like to study…. It’s because they want to feel! They may even seem a bit stupid and sleepy. They can read the same passage ten times and not understand what it says. I have experienced it myself.

If you let someone on the outside read this passage, he will immediately “understand” what it says. This is very typical of the wisdom of Kabbalah since the point in the heart is awakened in a person when he reads, the point of feeling and not the mind. A stranger perceives the text in a totally logical way, and so he has no problem understanding what it says.

This is the reason that we sometimes see how new people come to the group and apprehend and master the material easily. It’s easy for them to understand what the text says, they immediately begin to study TES, and in a month or two already begin to discuss the most complex theory. People with the point in the heart, however, who have studied for ten years, cannot understand what it says since they are looking for a feeling and not for logic, like a clever donkey.

We should understand that there are two main obstacles for students. The first obstacle is when we discover problems in the group, in the relations between the friends, but we don’t understand that these problems are actually the springboard forward and we escape them.

The second obstacle is that a person reads the text over and over again and already knows it by heart, but feels that he doesn’t understand what it means. This is true not only with regards to the theory in “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” or TES, but even with regards to Shamati and other articles. Certain articles may sometimes move a person, but most of them seem dry and do not touch the heart.

This is actually a good sign. It is said: “It isn’t the wise who learns.” It doesn’t mean that I am giving you permission to sleep during the lesson, but in fact I do understand it. I have never made complaints to students who sleep since I understand them. It isn’t just feeling tired, but a result of wanting to feel spirituality. If they don’t feel that, they don’t understand why they sit in the lesson.

It’s said about this: “Time does what the mind doesn’t do” since the mind cannot really help us here, but time can! This means that with time the Light influences us when we are in the group or even when we sleep during the lesson. You should just let the Light work on you, and the sensation will come.
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From the Convention in New Jersey 5/10/13, Lesson 1

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Our ego has grown for many years until a spark suddenly awakened in it, a glimmer, a starting point of the perception of the upper world. When such a spark is ignited in a person, he begins to feel discomfort and worry. He feels that this world is not enough for him and that he needs something else: There is something else in this life above the corporeal existence, a more sublime goal.

He cannot go on living like everyone else anymore, and he yearns to understand the meaning of life, its essence, its basis. What is the inner force that manages him and what is the purpose of his life?

This spark undoubtedly exists in each of those who have gathered here in this convention since otherwise you wouldn’t yearn to come here. Yet, there are many people who come to study and check themselves when the spark in them is ignited. We have to make great efforts in order to fulfill it, and this is something for which they are not ready yet. In the meantime, the gap between the force of the ego that pulls a person into his own body and the force of the spark that pulls him out of his body, calling him to transcend, is very big.

A person’s ego is very heavy and it keeps the spark inside it as if in a prison cell. Therefore, such people surrender to their ego and agree to remain in this prison. They find different excuses, according to which they eventually leave the spiritual path since they must justify themselves. And thus, they leave.

Rabash says that there are sparks of the love of others in each of the friends; that is, there are anti-egoistic forces. The ego hates the others, and the force that is opposite the ego is called love of others. But one spark cannot ignite the Light of love, meaning to make me feel someone else’s desire as mine and fill it, just as I fill myself. In other words, I cannot exit myself and be incorporated in the other, which is called “love of others.”

Therefore, we gather in a group and agree to work and empower one another in order to collect all our sparks and, in the connection between them, discover the upper world.
[107198]
From a Talk on The Importance of Gathering 5/10/2013

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Suppose I hurt someone. Can he love me in return instead of feeling resentment and hate towards me? For what? Maybe I am bigger and smarter. Or maybe he loves me since by the blows I want to bring him to the good, to something special and sublime?

For example, I pressure my little son to study so that he will grow smarter and become a “great man.” He may not like that now since he may want to play, but I oblige him to study.

In response he doesn’t love me, but hates me. However, later as a result of my blows he grows smarter and thanks to the study develops internally. I force him to develop, and with time he understands that I do it for his own good. Yes, I pressure him and force him to follow the hard way, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t love him, as he previously thought. No, I do it this way because I want what is best for him and I suffer even more than he does because of my toughness, but I simply have no other choice.

So, the Creator has no other choice either: This is the only way He can create the created being. Only then, as he develops, he will turn to the Creator not because of the blows or the pleasures that come from Him, but in a different purposeful manner, understanding that the Creator awakens him to exert and to ascend, to reach eternal, perfect life, to come to eternal understanding, and to reach a new, special level.

When he reaches that he already has two types of nature:

1. The feelings of pleasure and suffering that come from the Creator.
2. And above them, a new love that he feels for the Creator, instead of the hate he felt before.

This is how the created being becomes independent of his initial nature and receives a second nature.

In this world I sometimes also want people to love me, not because I am nice and good, but that they will love me just as I am, even if I treat them badly. I want you to love me and to appreciate me, although I treat you toughly and I cause you pain. I want to you to love me not because of how I treat you and others, but because of who I am.

It’s somewhat like the game that the Creator plays with us when He establishes direct relations with us and at the same time allows us to focus on another “direct line.” It’s like the relationship we see between parents and children, when the parents love the children although they cause them great troubles and worries. It says: “Love will cover all the sins.”

Thus we can understand the game that the Creator plays with us. All our work involves transcending the body that feels only pleasure or pain, establishing the right attitude towards our Teacher, who teaches us to transcend our “animal,” and appreciating His essence: Why does He do that and for whom? He does it only for our sake.

It says that He suffers more than we do since He has to conceal Himself and to put our “animal” part through different sufferings. He does that so that we will transcend this level and become human beings, sublime, eminent, mature, and developed. He wants us to appreciate His attitude according to its essence and not according to how He evokes us to transcend the “animal,” ignoring the pleasures and the sufferings that He intentionally sends us, and see everything with regards to the goal.

In Kabbalistic terms it means that we perform a restriction (Tzimtzum) on the “animal” feeling of pleasure or pain and aim only at the goal, that is, we perform Zivug de Hakaa (coupling by striking) above all the corporeal pleasures in order to be only in mutual bestowal with the Creator, regardless of all my “animal” pleasures and sufferings. This is already a different, higher level, in which I establish my connection with the Creator according to how much we both think about this connection, about the unique goal, about the special state.

Coming back to the example of the father and son: When the son already understands why the father treats him toughly and forces him to study, he transcends the sufferings and rises to a new level of relationship with his father, as they both worry about his success. Thanks to this they are in unity, in adhesion, and in a common intention; they are connected and understand one another. This is already a spiritual level, the unity of spirit, despite the pain and the limitations that the son has experienced by his father on the corporeal level.

These two levels are essential since otherwise the father and son will not be able to establish a real, personal, inner connection between them. Without the spiritual connection they will be connected only by what they receive from one another, which is on the “animal level,” where the created being is undoubtedly operated by the Creator and remains dependent forever. This example clearly explains the basis of our connection with the Creator.
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From a Talk On Preparation for the Congress in New Jersey, 5/10/2013

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Question: Looking from the outside, it seems that we are engaged in a mad chase after unification, love, and bestowal. What do we actually expect in return? How can we picture the rewards?

Answer: I will receive a soul for these efforts.

I either live or die like an animal, just don’t end up as prey for wild beasts, but rot in the ground, or I acquire a soul and live an eternal life. It is not after the animate body is gone but actually now, while living in this world.

Plants, for example, don’t feel what animals feel. Animals live a much richer life than plants. It is exactly for this reason that a “two-legged animal” doesn’t understand that eventually, it lives a physical life although it could acquire eternity.

It is impossible to explain that eternal life is unlimited: I am not limited by my physical body, not by my desires, not by time, and not by motion—not by anything at all. I transcend all these limitations and exit my boundaries.

How? It is very simple. Everything is prepared for me. A whole was broken to pieces. Each of these parts feels its boundaries and limitations. However, if it wants to come out of it, it can do so. This exit of one’s boundaries is the connection with others.

I work against my animal desire and, above it, I acquire a human, a higher desire; that is, I acquire a new vessel. I live in it and feel the unlimited life in it. It has no boundary that is determined by time and space, and there is no current “self.” It is because the spiritual world is not my “self” at all. There, the competition is over the greater connection, over the greater bestowal that leads to unlimited, infinite dimensions.

Everyone must reach that. It is impossible to settle for less. The goal of creation, its plan, the current crisis, and our entire life obligate us to do so. The only problem is how to organize this. All the necessary forces for that are ready, so use them. However, we don’t want to draw them to fulfill this goal.

Still, whatever the mind doesn’t do, time does. So, it isn’t a hopeless situation and a Human can emerge from every “animal.”
[106809]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/5/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Question: Along the spiritual path discover the evil of the ego, and yet, it is also pleasant since I aspire for something else.

Answer: If I enjoy the pain, even if it also connects me to the Creator, it is impurity, called a Klipa (shell) that protects the fruit until it ripens. It protects me so that I still will keep the connection with the Creator, but it isn’t the right state yet. After all, the sweetness in this pain is a sure revelation of the Creator. I feel that the pain comes from Him since otherwise, He cannot draw my attention. If I agree with this egoistic sweetness and enjoy it, it means that I am in impurity.

The question is to what degree can I bear the pain in the current state and at the same time, understand that it is essential in order to keep the connection with the Creator. How can I not fall into pleasure through this pain? How can I stop the moment I am in contact with it and immediately get on the right track?

After all, I am drawn to the sweetness. I descend and succumb to the deviousness of the ego, which lures me like a snake by the sweetness of this purposeful pain. Different religions and faiths based on the suffering of the righteous stem from this.

Question: How can I focus the process on the right path?

Answer: I ask the Creator who is Good and Benevolent for help. He wants me to feel good in the connection with Him and that the good will lead me to Him, but how can I do that?

If I feel emptiness, threats, troubles, and darkness in my egoistic desire, then, as a result of my hopelessness, my desire to receive looks for the source of evil, even if it is the Creator. It remembers some preliminary higher cause from which everything stems.

However, what should I do if I enjoy, if my desire is full, if I feel that the entire world is at my feet? My life is just fine, and I am fully satisfied, and nothing or no one threatens me. I have endless bars of gold in my warehouse. I am healthy, full of energy, and I have something into which to invest them.

At the same time, all this hides the Creator from me and bars any thought about Him. If the pain and emptiness push me toward Him, then the pleasure keeps me away from Him.

The question is, how do I prefer to advance: by the path of pain or by the path of pleasure? After all, in this state, the hard way is the way of pleasure that “encloses” me and eliminates all the options. How can I think about the upper force when I lack nothing in life?

It turns out that the path of “I shall hasten it” is not simple at all as compared to the path of “in its time.” When I advance according to schedule, my powers are enough. The suffering, the emptiness of the egoistic desire, pushes me to the Creator. At the same time, only along the path of “I shall hasten it” do we have free will.

If I want to hasten my advancement when I feel good, I need a group. My private desire is “fattened up” and “heavy,” and so I simply need the friends, additional external desires. Only by the connection with them can I advance.

The more I advance toward the end of correction, the more external desires I need. My inner desires are filled, and they immediately throw me off-track.

Question: When is the Creator revealed this way?

Answer: It is when you want to restrict Him, in other words, when you stop wanting Him and instead, want to bestow upon Him. After all, when you ask for His revelation, you want to discover the attribute of bestowal, real bestowal and not like “commercial” one when you give something in order to get something in return. This is bestowal in order to receive. On the other hand, when you begin to at least bestow in order to bestow, even not to receive in order to bestow, you begin to come to know the Creator’s attributes. Later, when you receive in order to bestow, you already begin to locate the attributes of the Creator within you, to identify them within you, and to attain Him.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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The Light and the Kli, opposed to each other in the world of Infinity, enter each other, build from their integration a system, and evolve downward so as to shape the conditions for our development here, at the bottom.

In the end, everything is derived from the way the Lights and the vessels mutual complete each other. The path that spreads out before me doesn’t leave room for useless questions: “Do I want to?” or “Am I ready?” This is just a style of speaking, our “slang.” In fact, everything is built in an ideal form, everything has been considered down to the last detail.

There is no need for resentment and anger. We are found within a system of the four phases of the Direct Light, spiritual worlds and levels, and we learn about its details, its mechanisms. All the necessary means and forces are available to me. I can use them provided that I am fulfilling my role. My role is to determine exactly what I must be doing now and realize it simply and clearly.

No great intelligence is required here. Everyone can do it because these are the most foolish, simple activities. Therefore, whoever is more “foolish,” less sophisticated, he is more successful.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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And all the people answered together, and said: ‘All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.’ And Moses reported the words of the people unto the Lord.

And the Lord said unto Moses: ‘Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe thee forever.’ And Moses told the words of the people unto the Lord.

And the Lord said unto Moses: ‘Go unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments,

And be ready against the third day; for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. (The Torah, “Exodus,” “Jethro,” 19:8 – 19:11)

We begin to come in contact with the attribute of bestowal, to be attracted to it, and to absorb it from its highest point that is called “Moses” (from the word “Moshech” or ” to move,” to pull”), which pulls itself from within the ego. In this way it receives upper energy, an upper attribute, and thus begins to feel in what way it is now possible to continue to work for the bestowal to the Creator.

He begins to acquire the same absolute attribute, like the Creator, Whom he is now facing. He feels the Creator, but still doesn’t belong to Him. They are joined, but in an external way.

A person understands that he now needs all of his egoistic attributes so that as much as he is able, he will pull them to him, to strongly pull within the point in the heart which is in contact with the Creator, to enter gradually within it from his ego, to connect, to add the entire nation, those attributes that he left for a while, within the point that is called “Moses.”

For this reason they need to go through a certain period of final preparation: three days of detachment from their ego and correction of their external attributes, so-called “garments.”

In each one of us there are five levels: the root (Shoresh), the soul (Neshama), the body (Guf), the clothing (Levush) and the palace (Eichal). The inner part, the root, soul and body, we already corrected. Without that, we wouldn’t have departed from Egypt, the point in the heart wouldn’t have detached from the ego. And now, we need to correct the clothing, so-called “garments” on the soul, and afterwards also the palace, the rest of the attributes of the world.

The first three discernments are: the root, the soul, the body. That is, if we express it in a picturesque way, then in the beginning we correct all that exists in my body, in the flesh, my inner part. And the clothing is what is on me. That is what I exchange, what I can take off and wear. The palace is the rest of the world.

“And they washed their garments” means to wash the uncorrected attributes with the Light of Hassidim and to correct them.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/4/13

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: This means that each and every one in Israel would take it upon himself to care and work for each member of the nation, and to satisfy all their every needs, no less than the measure imprinted in him to care for his own needs.

And once the whole nation unanimously agreed and said, “We shall do and we shall hear,” each member of Israel became responsible that nothing shall be missing from any other member of the nation. Only then did they become worthy of receiving the Torah, and not before. 

With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the commandment, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person, since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.

If we understand that to reach spirituality and receive all the good is possible only if we connect, then the Light that Reforms begins to influence us. It acts such that I stop being concerned for myself because everyone is concerned for me. The main thing here is to attune yourself correctly to summon the Light that we can direct towards each of us as if we had a torch.

My egoistic motives demand that I form a connection with others. When I connect with them, it seems as if I am letting go of myself and am concerned for them as I can’t attain what I want otherwise. This is exactly the way everyone acts, so by aspiring to discover the Creator, who is within the group, through the connection between us, in this way we attract the Light that Reforms.

A question can be raised here: Why does it arrive if we are still egoists? What are the higher laws of nature according to which it’s discovered? We all want to receive for ourselves: “Bring me this world. Bring me the next world.” It may seem that in either the Light, meaning pleasure, itself must reach us, or darkness, if there were some kind of valve that exists in spirituality, which realizes the necessary conditions for being altruistic.

But the idea is that we surrender ourselves to each other. We learn together, we carry out shared tasks together, and in spite of our ego, the Light does its work. But it arrives first not as pleasure, but as correction. Thus we are changed—thanks to work within the group we bow our heads before each other for selfish reasons.

With an approach like this there is no lack of agreement, it’s open and very honest. It’s possible to talk a lot about love of the other, but it’s necessary to judge according to the facts. We are dominated by the ego, but we accept a condition that obligates us to aspire for love. Why? It’s because we expect a reward.

In the future, the whole world will correct relationships between people, taking into the account the gain it will bring. Everyone will hope to benefit from relationships based on love, and at the same time the Light that Reforms will pass to them through us and not the darkness that would arrive if not for the use of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Likewise, a person, who already understands this and hasn’t learned enough yet, is not sufficiently included within the group, and ultimately will receive darkness instead of correction, and will flee. And the opposite, if someone were to give of himself one hundred percent, then he would never feel darkness and descent. Even though he might have additional difficulties on the way, he would work with everything in the right way and would be corrected by the Light.

In fact, as Baal HaSulam writes, that in the middle way, by way of the middle line, one experiences falls, deviations to the right and to the left, ascents, and descents. This is called “normal” progress; it’s not ideal, but not too terrible either.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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