Question: The groups of northern Tel-Aviv and Holon arranged a wonderful meeting in preparation to the upcoming World Kabbalah Convention. I experienced an incredible feeling of unity with the people there even though I have never met some of them before. However, when I spoke with one of them at a later time, I realized that I couldn’t feel the same unity. Does it mean that it is easier to unite with the group?

Answer: Of course. When you are alone you become absorbed in your own qualities instead of rising above them. We have to unite above our personalities and our nature in order to achieve a mutual connection where we bestow instead of receive.

Each person rises with his spark and then all the sparks unite together. There, among them, we find the Light, the Creator. When all of us rise above our egoism and unite in the common goal, you feel the unity. But afterwards, while speaking with an individual in a setting where your spark does not connect with his spark, you naturally return to your corporeal attitude.

Question: Does this mean that the power of the Kabbalah Convention is that it makes it easier for the participants to unite?

Answer: Yes. The power of the Convention lies in the fact that we can unify all of our sparks or all of our spiritual impulses which are aimed at the inner force of nature, the unity between us, the desire to ascend above the material, animate, egoistic desire. This force of the environment influences us all.
[22990]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/10, “The Matter of Giving the Torah”

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The group is my copy, my shadow, just as I am the Creator’s shadow. I receive much more from my friends than what I put into them. It doesn’t depend on them or their behavior, but only on my attitude to them. This environment is also the Creator. It is the opportunity He gave me to work with Him, having created an illusion for me as if something exists outside of me while, in fact, only the Creator exists outside of me.

That is why we must always awaken the environment until we attain the state where the environment influences me so I desire to unite with it in order to unite with the Creator through it. I cannot attain the Creator without the environment because the environment is an external means through which I will see the image of the Creator.

If I don’t desire to unite with the group, then I am not aiming at the goal, the Creator at all. After all, who is my neighbor? The force of the breaking that took place in spirituality divided me into two parts: me and my neighbor. What for? It was in order for me to discern what I lack in order to unite with the Creator.

As soon as I can bring this environment closer to me even though it seems foreign to me, the more I am able to come closer to the Creator. I was deliberately endowed with a dual perception so I would see a part of me as alien and hateful.

That is why “love your neighbor as yourself” is the main rule of the Torah. This is the only thing the Light corrects, and there is nothing to correct but this. If you don’t ask for this correction, then all your efforts are wasted. Everything else is useless cries into the wilderness.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/10, The Zohar

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Every one of us contains a spark, a desire to reveal the Creator. We unite our sparks, but this is not enough to reveal Him because the sparks are egoistic. They come from the breaking of our former unity. When we make efforts, we reveal that we desire the Creator “for our own sake,” for the sake of our own interests.

That is already an attainment because we have discovered the broken desire which the Creator described by the verse, “I created the evil inclination.” This is an important discovery. We reveal the evil inclination when our “sparks” aspire to Him and we unite them in the group.

As we make efforts to unite in the study, we discover our opposition to the corrected Shechina and the Creator. The Light shows us this. In our common desires to reveal the Creator, we reveal the broken place or desire, and this gives us great joy because we reveal the essence of the destruction.

From then on we can make a leap toward correction: to desire the Creator not for our own sake, but in order to give Him pleasure. Then the altruistic intention will turn our place into the corrected Shechina. We will bring it back from exile and thereby reveal the Creator inside it.

Our entire work is to correct the desire. At first we need a great desire, and then a corrected one. This is what the science of Kabbalah is intended for.
[22038]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/10, “What in the Work, is Israel Who Exiled Divinity, is with Them “

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Baal HaSulam explains in the article “Arvut” that no one can attain the goal without help from one’s friends because otherwise a person won’t have the fuel, the “spirit of life.” A person on the spiritual path must arm himself with a great desire after revealing the breaking between us because the force of hatred between us lays bare the evil inclination. Even The Zohar talks about how the friends in Rabbi Shimon’s group revealed hatred, and only after that did they reach love, level by level, by means of the Light they evoked through mutual study.

The goal is also something we discover inside our interconnection. By gradually restoring the connection between us with the help of the Light, we reveal 125 levels until reaching unity with the Creator. Thus, we attain the Creator Himself, the force of the Light that Reforms. If, however, we don’t base everything on the revelation of the place of the breakage and its correction, then our actions will bear no connection to spirituality.

Indeed, we have just one contact with the spiritual world, and that is the place of the breakage of the connection between us. It is written, “I created the evil inclination.” This is what we have to find and reveal. That is why our entire work is devoted to discerning the quality of connection between the friends on the path to revealing the Creator: myself, the friends, and the Creator (or Israel, the Torah, and the Creator).

We are looking for a connection between us in which the Creator is concealed. This is the key that opens the door to Him. By correcting our attitude to our interconnection, we find the quality of bestowal and love, and that is how we reveal the Creator. This is the only way a friend can help a friend. This constitutes our only free action. All other acts are compulsory, puppet-like. We shouldn’t demand anything from each other besides the desire to help.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/26/10, “They Helped Everyone His Friend”

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Unity Day Around the World, “Freedom of Choice”
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Right now we have the opportunity to hasten the rate of our advancement by egoistically choosing the lesser of all evils. Obviously, this isn’t free will yet because free will allows me to choose what I want, whereas here I am offered only pain and pleasure, and told: “Choose!”

Baal HaSulam describes two scales of measurement: “bitter versus sweet,” and “true versus false.” We must ascend to the degree of truth instead of falsehood, or in other words, sweetness and bitterness. Everyone sees that there is no free choice here, but only the analysis: To what extent I am controlled by my mind and to what extent by my heart?

Everything is determined by what is revealed to me and what is not, and what is more important: truth or bitterness? Obviously, I will choose according to my perception. However, real free will emerges solely in the group. The group serves as that external factor by which I discern the meaning of the external truth.

Therefore, “truth” means I have to be part of the group. However, there is resistance between the truth and the group, which is my egoism, the will to receive pleasure. It is a complete system and it doesn’t depend on my ability to discern “true,” “false,” “bitter,” and “sweet.” I don’t need to be smart or sensitive. It doesn’t matter who is more intelligent, witty, or farsighted. At the end of the day, we view everything in relation to the group, our unity, and the Creator.

I exist in this circuit, this spiritual transistor where I activate the Light that streams from above downwards to the degree I am united with the group.

This is our free will, found in the middle third of Tifferet. On one side of it there is the ego and on the other side, the group, and I perform an analysis on the scales of “true and false” over “bitter and sweet” in relation to myself and the group.
[#21912]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/10, “Waste of Barn and Winery”

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I join the group and with its help I start forming the image of the Creator in my mind. Meanwhile, I don’t wish to unite with the group, to listen to the friends, or to accept their opinion above my own mind. Yet, gradually I develop a clearer, more detailed understanding of the notion of “group,” where I must keep annulling myself. As a result of this opposition, I gradually discern the place of my free choice.

Baal HaSulam explains that free will implies choosing the group. At the current stage, the general understanding of this is: Join the group, realize yourself inside the unity, and everything will be fine. But in truth, all the worlds or all the 125 steps of spiritual ascension to the goal are located exactly between me and the group. When I adhere to the group inseparably and irreversibly, I will reach the full correction, the World of Infinity, where we are united together in one point.

All of the worlds are laid out along this path and they are all yours. Our entire work lies in unifying with each other. In our times all of mankind is standing at the threshold, as it were, in the form of a pyramid. We, the souls who are a little closer to starting this work, are the upper part of the pyramid. The remainder of the pyramid below is the rest of the world. The difference is that we at least are trying to unite, while the rest of the world isn’t even thinking about it. Yet, the world is experiencing extreme pressure through suffering and the global crisis.

Why is it global? It’s because mankind is being shown that it must come together, that this is imperative in our era, and that our aim is unity. Granted, this is a long and difficult process, but nonetheless, it has been set in motion. This point is being rubbed into every person’s face.

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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/10, “Waste of Barn and Winery”

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Question: Do we have to feel what The Zohar describes within us, or should we seek the sensation of The Zohar in our connection with the group?

Answer: The Zohar tells us about various states that each of us undergoes individually. However, a person can prepare for this only through unity in the group, similar to the authors of The Book of Zohar, which they wrote while in the state of unity.

They wrote about bestowal, unity, as well as its various levels. The levels of unity are the 125 steps of ascension. At each rung, a multitude of a person’s desires and qualities come together in order to become equivalent to the Single Light.

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “VeYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 392: A wall is the Lord of all the land, Divinity, as it is written, “Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth.” Thus, the ark of the covenant, Divinity, is the Lord of all the earth, which is a wall, and for this reason, “Hezekiah turned his face to the wall.”

We must turn to Malchut, our collective spiritual vessel (Kli, desire) where we are all connected. This is called “turning to the wall” with a request that we want to wholly assemble it and to see that it separates us from the Creator.

As we restore this wall by uniting all our desires, it begins to link us to the Creator and transforms from a separating screen into a connecting one.

What is the condition that makes it possible? If we “recline,” meaning we do not perform any actions ourselves, then the Rosh (head), Toch (body), and Sof (extremities) of our spiritual Partzuf (soul) are on the same level. Thus, we turn our face to the wall and wish for our connection to truly become a connecting point to the Creator.

That is when the Shechina, our unity, becomes a vessel (Kli) of fulfillment.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/10, The Zohar

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Right now we are thinking about the unity between us because we have discovered that we can reveal the Creator only inside it. I don’t want to feel myself inside the connection between us; I want to feel everyone together. And no matter what problems come to us, it’s only in order to give me the opportunity to strengthen the connection even more. Then the problems are called “a descent in order to ascend,” but we have to prepare for them.

Imagine that you have already attained the sensation of “outside yourself.” If we want this field of connection to exist between us, then inside the descents, disappointments, and efforts to stay together, we will feel that the only force that can hold us together is the Creator.

Why do we need the Creator? Why can’t we connect together on our own? In order for a connection to emerge between us, we have to reveal the inner force that hides inside us. This force does not belong to us at all, but the field of connection between us will be able to exist only if this force (the Creator) becomes revealed.

We need the revelation of the Creator because otherwise our unity will be lifeless. It will be similar to dead cells that were taken from different bodies and brought together – but where do you get the force of life? How can you breathe life into a body from outside? We don’t know how to do this. This is the force of the Creator who is inside matter and enlivens it.

You can take atoms or molecules and connect them however you want to. But where will you get the force of life in order to bring your creation to life? We are unable to do this, and will never be able to. We can connect things that are already alive, meaning, use something that’s already there.

The same thing happens to us: We can unite and create a connection, but who will bring it to life? That’s why we will demand the Creator! We are already starting to feel that this connection cannot exist without Him.

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/17/10, Selected Excerpts for Yom Kippur

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