In our world “pretense” sounds like something dirty. We scold people for this, “Why are you so unnatural? Why do you pretend and lie?”

But in our case, we are pretending or playing with the most natural and authentic actions because they help us to rise above the material world. As I “play” spiritual states, I imagine myself there and elevate myself to them.

I don’t just want to entertain others by transmitting my joy to them. Joy is not simply laughter, but fulfillment by confidence and the correctness of the path, the goal I believe in. And this joy gives me strength.

This is the same fulfillment that has to reign inside all of us by virtue of our unity, meaning in the true, corrected state, in the world of Infinity. By playing it, I make efforts to fulfill our common desire (the spiritual vessel or Kli) just like in the state of the world of Infinity.

This is a very exalted and worthwhile game which is reminiscent of the Creator’s game with the Leviathan (the mythological whale). The Creator, the desire to bestow, plays with the creation He created, the desire to enjoy, spinning it in all the different directions and filling it with the Light of Hochma.

That is how I want to fill our entire group’s common desire to enjoy with the Light of Hochma. That means I am playing with very exalted things, even though it appears like a very simple action that any person is able to make.

We have to understand that from a person’s perspective, this game is a very serious action. And our ego does not allow us to lower our pride in order to become part of this game and start carrying out these actions in relation to the group. Granted, there are people who find this easy to do externally, as well as others who find it easier to express themselves internally. But the inner work is every person’s obligation and has to result in an elevated mood being maintained in the group.

Externally things might vary. There are times when externally you have to pretend to be inspired all the time because if you are surrounded by “little children,” you cannot allow yourself the liberty of showing them the true state. However, if it is a group of advanced students, they can do the opposite; instead of playing externally, they can remain serious and even express their sadness in order to create an opposition between the internality and the externality. That is how the great Kabbalists of the past behaved. However, we are still small and have to play or pretend externally, expressing joy.

Naturally, all of our dissemination must consist of programs that bring joy and leave people in a good mood. There should be fewer songs that are sad and sorrowful, and more happiness! We have to feel the heart of the friend or of the wide audience and take care not to bring them down or cause them to feel deep sorrow, but instead, to let them feel joy and unification. This is the entire wisdom.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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Writings of Rabash, “Love of Friends”: A man found him while he was wandering in the field and asked him, “What are you looking for?” To which he replied, “I am looking for my brothers. Tell me, where are they?” … This is talking about a person who has veered off the path of the spiritual development, who does not know the true way there, who has already reached despair and thinks that he will never attain his goal. That is why he answers, “I want to be in the group where there is love of friends because then I will be able to ascend up the path leading to the Creator.”

That is how we wander around, not knowing how to reach the right state. We don’t understand how to establish the connection with spirituality and where to find it. However, in fact we are already in the spiritual world now, which is why we are wandering around this field. We already have the opportunity to establish a relationship with the group and to connect with the friends, but we are unable to do this. Thus, we walk by, like we are blind. We are already in the right place, but we cannot find this connection, as if we are wandering around in the dark.

This darkness is not outside, but inside of us, as a result of our blindness and lack of understanding. What’s missing here is some kind of epiphany in feeling and reason so I would understand in what form I have to connect with the friends. Then I will find how to make the breakthrough to the spiritual development, to the first contact with spirituality which is called “three days of absorption of the spiritual seed.”

For that I have to understand how to bind myself to the environment the right way, and that is the most difficult thing to do. In our world we know of cases when a woman is unable to get pregnant. And it is much more difficult yet to get into the spiritual world.

The Torah talks about the great problems of infertility that each of the fore-mothers had and how difficult it was for them to get pregnant. This is a symbol of how difficult it is to bind oneself to the environment.

How, then, is it possible to help a person who feels that he is lost and does not see any chance of advancing spiritually? He has put years into it and seems to know and understand everything, other than the direction. At first he thought that the knowledge he receives will help him, or some kind of actions, or maybe time will do the job.

But later he reveals that nothing helps him and then he becomes confused. That is when an angel comes to him and finally asks him, “What are you asking for? What are you looking for here?” Then the person checks himself and starts to understand that he lacks precisely the connection with the environment, “I am looking for my brothers!”

This is already a great attainment where you understand that you will be able to realize your spiritual development only on this path, inside of the connection with others. The group turns into a spiritual place. Instead of the material, physical group that he sees now, he will feel the inner connection between everyone and will turn this connection into mutual bestowal. He will reveal the net connecting them, which is called the system of the upper worlds, and all of the worlds will enter it.

This group will become the place where he will gradually reveal all of the spiritual levels, until he will come so close to the other 125 levels that he will unite with them into one whole. This will be called the end of his correction (Gmar Tikkun).

If a person begins to feel that he will be able to realize his spiritual development precisely in this way, through the relationships with the environment, this means that he is wandering around the Creator’s field and looking, while knowing what to look for and what to ask for. He still has to go through a difficult road up ahead, but this point where he decides that the spiritual world can only be reached through unity with the environment is extremely important. That’s because it is opposite to all of his previous, material, egoistic development.

This point marks the beginning of his development and his connection with others “from himself outwards, for the sake of bestowal.” Therefore, this point is the beginning for the new path.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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All of the events described in the history of Purim are hints at the corrections we have to go through. It’s important to translate these corrections from the poetic, colorful language of legend to the language of qualitative inner changes in order to understand that it is talking only about how to strengthen the connection between us.

In the beginning of the Scroll (Megila) it talks about the nation of Israel, saying that there is one nation that is dispersed among other nations. This means that egoism enters in between the people who aspire “straight to the Creator’ (Isra-El, Yashar-El). This ego that separates them brings this nation to the threat of annihilation.

But when the nation of Israel (meaning all of us who aspire to the Creator) understands that it is necessary to unite together, and they make actions for the sake of this unity, then the force of Mordechai ascends and the force of Haman falls, and we are able to take control over our egoism, over the hatred that separates us.

Each of us contains our own Haman, and we can “hang him up on the tree”—on the tree of death which turns into the tree of life. That is how we reach the revelation of the Creator. Megilat Ester (the Scroll of Esther, “the revelation of the concealed” because “Megaleh” means to reveal, and “Ester” means concealment) conceals and reveals the Creator. By working with these forces called Mordechai and Ester, we attain the revelation of the Creator.

The Creator, the upper force, is never mentioned directly in the Megila. It talks about the King Ahashverosh, but not about the Creator because He is concealed as a result of the filling of uncorrected Kelim. The Creator is only felt in the corrected Kelim as their mutual bestowal. The same love that we feel for one another in our uncorrected state is the revelation of the upper force, the Creator.

When we read Megilat Ester, what is important isn’t simply to decipher which spiritual qualities hide behind which characters: Where are Zeir Anpin, Malchut (Queen Esther), what she conceals and how she joins Zeir Anpin, and Mordechai (Bina). Mordechai is the quality of bestowal, Bina, whereas Haman is all the impure worlds of ABYA, the impure desire, Klipa, the snake, the “monkey” instead of the human (a monkey, Kof, is written as the letter Kuf, a long line that descends beneath the line of the letters like a monkey’s tail and nourishes the impure desires). Yet, the most important thing is to find which feelings are signified by these notions in the relationships between us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/11, Shamati

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Question: During the lesson we work with the Light that corrects us. But what do we work with at the Convention?

Answer: At the Convention this happens even more! We don’t have any other means to influence what is happening to us besides the Light that reforms. It is the only thing we can awaken!

We awaken our future states that haven’t been revealed in us yet and which are about to be revealed. They are states of bestowal to the outside, where every person bestows outward, to his neighbor. This is precisely the quality that we want to discover—each person inside of him and all of us as a whole.

When we reveal this quality of bestowal, it means that we have revealed the Creator. As Kabbalists tell us, this quality gave birth to us, formed us, and dispersed us far away from one another so that by uniting with each other we would reveal it once again.

In the meantime, the Creator is in exile. What does that mean? We can say that He also disintegrated into tiny pieces and is inside all of these broken parts that are far away from one another. As soon as you begin connecting them, you start to recreate or restore Him, the common force of bestowal.

We have to build an image for ourselves that is close to the truth. Otherwise we live in various religious fantasies, imagining an unreal, non-materialistic picture.

We have to understand that the difference between faiths or religions and the science of Kabbalah is that faiths or religions want to imagine spirituality in the material desires, which perceive everything “within” and therefore build their notions according to the earthly reality, with creation being below and the Creator being above, as if they are separated by distance rather than qualities. They do not talk about man’s correction.

In contrast, the science of Kabbalah says that everything is inside of man. Thus, the upper reality or dimension becomes revealed in a person’s inner corrections and changes. Therefore, the most important thing for us is to correct man. By correcting our qualities, a person feels that the Creator is revealed inside of him.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/11, The Zohar

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Let us hope that by virtue of our efforts we will sweeten the Gevurot, the harsh events that require us to overcome them, which are being revealed in the world today. We have to think about this and make efforts.

A big convention in North America will begin soon where we will try to exert a positive influence on the world through our powerful unity. The right approach is very important here. “A positive influence” does not mean that we will eliminate all the bad occurrences. We cannot eliminate them or correct them. Rather, we have to take care to ensure that people advance toward mutual bestowal, to interconnection. Then, as a result of that interconnection, the earth will calm down as well, all the problems and revolutions will become resolved, and so on.

Don’t come forward against nature, trying to prevent the disasters. This is an incorrect prayer and it will never happen this way. Instead, turn to the cause of the troubles, to the source of the natural occurrences. The problem is inside of us, and therefore we have to correct our own states. That’s all there is to it.

We have to unite as much as possible and wish for our unity to be the means for the whole world to advance toward the same thing. Then everything will immediately calm down, including the occurrences happening right now, as well as the troubles that await us in the future in order to incite us to attain correction.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: How is it possible to explain to people that real evil lies in our opposition to the nature of the universe?

Answer: We can give a person this knowledge and sensation by presenting this fact to him by means of the right upbringing from society’s end. We will have to organize this upbringing in a way where it will contain a connection with the Light that reforms.

An additional problem emerges here. People without a point in the heart have to receive this illumination through us. If we take care of them, if we give them the method of correction, if we hold various events, broadcast TV and radio shows, work on the Internet, and if we formulate all the necessary principles for people, then they become attached to us and are nourished by the force that operates in our system, which lies deeper than their system.

It is enough to attach them to this extent in order for them to understand that their future depends on unity. But how can we bring them to this sensation? It can happen with the help of upbringing, social opinion, and the influence of those around you. The environment is able to instill the most removed and unnatural notions in a person. How so?

The society simply starts demonstrating condemnation or respect for certain qualities that a person has, and that’s all it takes. The people around a person can treat him dually: positively or negatively, and this is entirely sufficient.

We have to understand that there is no other way to go, that we have to attain balance with nature, and that we have to involve the mass media and other means, paying special attention to the young generation in order to already start teaching children about life in the new world. Without this, there is no other way to achieve anything.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/11

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The first principle of upbringing: Nature is united and we are opposite to it.

Part one: Research of nature and society shows that we are all interconnected. People are a single organism or a single system inside of nature’s system.

Just as it befits the parts of a living body, so we should unite with one another above all the differences for the good of the whole body.

Today we are gradually discovering this and therefore we are calling humanity’s present state global and integral. It is global because in our days the interconnection among the world’s entire population is forcefully being revealed. Among all of its parts and in all of its differences, no matter what it is, the connection is being revealed as a necessary factor.

This is coming from the side of nature rather than our desire to be interconnected or not. It is simply a fact that from one day to the next we discover more and more ties among us.

A question arises: Did this connection exist before? Or were we disconnected before and now our interconnection has formed and is being expressed?

This question needs to be divided into two parts. On one hand, we are and always have been interconnected and are in total, perfect unity. This is our state relative to the Creator and it is not a criterion for measuring anything. This unity is called Infinity (Ein Sof): the state of Infinity, the world of Infinity, Malchut of Infinity. However, we are yet to reach it in our sensations.

Right now, we, all of humanity, are going through the levels of development. We have to modernize our interconnection at every moment. Throughout history we developed on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, until we attained the human level, and after that on the human level, we again went through the same sub-levels: still, vegetative, and animate, until reaching the modern era of the human degree on the human degree—the “human in man.”

That is how we have gone through the entire process of human preparation and have begun to develop the human in us. “The human in man” is the likeness of the Creator which we must acquire today. The likeness of the Creator is the same thing as the global, integral interconnection among all of us. Today we stand at the beginning of the phases of unification—unity that happens out of realization, awareness, and desire. That is how it has to be from our end.

That is why now we are not being assessed in relation to the world of Infinity, but in relation to how much we understand, realize, and are ready to take on the form of unity that nature or the Creator places before us. Don’t try to be a righteous man, regardless of how you envision this concept. You have to be corrected according to the conditions you are in. “Corrected” means united. There is just one thing we have to do—unite with one another.

On the path to unity we go through the phase of bestowal for the sake of bestowal (“Don’t do unto others what you yourself hate”) and then reception for the sake of bestowal (“Love your neighbor as yourself”). Yet the principle is unchanging: All of man’s upbringing lies in unifying with his neighbor.

Nature is becoming expressed as more and more global and therefore we must also be global and unite with it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/11

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Question: I know from experience that people don’t understand what kind of unity we are talking about. How can we explain this to them at least approximately?

Answer: Unity does not imply that I live in a common room or am acquainted with everyone. In practical terms it means that first and foremost I need to find a way to correct myself so as to not wish any harm to anybody. This is the first step.

We are not connected by mass media, text messages, or the Internet. These are merely the manifestations of the system we reside in; they are the means which allow us to feel how connected we are. The Internet will not bring unity to people; it will only explain that we are welded together, but in a negative form. After all, I use this Kli (vessel) exclusively for my own benefit and, possibly even to harm the others.

Hence, the first correction amounts to ceasing to desire any harm to a fellow human being. I begin to feel that we are inter-connected as integral parts, literally embedded into each other. I need to reveal this system since otherwise, nature will show it to me in a very unpleasant form. It strikes me in one place, and I suffer a misfortune in a totally different, seemingly unrelated place.

However, this is your part, and you have to feel this blow on yourself. If you still don’t sense what the others do, it means that you are not in the same organism, the same system, together with them. You still need to receive corrections: Either you will desire to accept them or nature will compel you to this.

For now we see how everyone is rejoicing in the others’ sorrow, each time when somebody feels bad. This is our nature. Today it is becoming revealed, and in accordance with it, we have to perform a correction.

By means of what? Kabbalists say that it’s the opinion of the environment. We have to artificially assemble around ourselves the environment which will obligate us to think differently and will educate us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/2011 on The Principles of Global Education

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Question: How is it possible to unite the whole world if nations, countries, and religions are so different from each other in every way?

Answer: These are egoistic differences. When we unite spiritually they disappear and we all become as one man with one heart.

The earthly differences actually don’t separate us at all. One person likes to spice up his food with pepper and another one doesn’t. One person holds ceremonies this way and another person that way. This doesn’t make us different at all. On the contrary, that is exactly when we begin respecting one another.

Being dissimilar does not obstruct us from coming together spiritually. On the contrary, by uniting above our egoistic differences, we make them even more powerful and all of that power is aimed at spiritual unity.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/11

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Question: Today the example of the united Europe shows us that openness and integration are not very effective. In fact, they’re actually counter effective. What is missing there?

Answer: The missing link is mutual bestowal. The Europeans have created a common market. In the Kabbalistic terminology, a market is the lowest possible place where people only sell and buy things. And that is what the Europeans have in common. That is the basis upon which they united.

This kind of unification is devoid of the participation and cooperation that we are talking about. It is merely a low, wicked, material linkage. As a result, they will reveal such massive hatred among them that they won’t be able to bear it. The situation threatens to blow up in a big explosion.

There is no agreement between the Europeans. They are simply afraid that things will get even worse otherwise. Europe had counted on uniting against America—but is that really a union? Taking immigration into account, it is crippled on both legs.

Real consolidation takes place by virtue of empathy, on the human level, when we are united into a single system.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/11

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