Question: After the congress in Novosibirsk, we feel a very strong responsibility. It is as if a new system of relations between us was born, when our whole life should be in mutual care for each other. How do we start our work anew, with a clean slate; how do we take the first step onto this new platform?

Answer: Indeed, a new sensation was born. But the connection itself is not new; it already exists and only becomes revealed to us more and more. I see that you feel the new stage and discovered a new experience. And respectively, your mind that works in sync with the feelings was renewed. Now the question is how will we accept this as a fact that binds us to connect even more—all of us together, and me with you as well. This was the qualitative change—I am much more engaged in the group since you have come to a more advanced state. And our further advancement is in that each of us now should maintain the unity we achieved.

We should at least try to maintain the same feeling that arose during our uniting at the congress. This is despite the fact that totally opposite states will be coming: totally opposite feelings and calculations will wash over. And they will not even contradict the former unity, but will just distract and sway you off to the side, forcing you to strive for the philistine values that you used to have in the past. And this is where you should try to view your condition with the Creator’s eyes. This means to look at it not only from “below upward” but also from “above downward”. In other words, you should see yourself as a child who is imagining being a grownup.

He doesn’t just look upward at adults from his place, but he imagines being big and what he would do then, how he would arrange his life, himself. That is, we should visualize how we would apply an “adult” spiritual state to our life if we were already in it.

To be an adult means to be like the Creator. And I need to envision I am next to the Creator and my spiritual vessel creates a complete connection of all desires, thanks to our self-annulment and the mutual inclusion of everyone into everyone infinitely, so that each of us feels all the common desire and the Creator being revealed in it. This cannot be described with words because all our words derive from the broken world and not from oneness.

With these eyes we should look upon life, the friends, the teacher, and on your entire work, and regard them accordingly. In normal life, “outside the temple walls,” we act as all others, not separating from them. But inside your group, you should see the corrected state. Everyone should view the group and his or her life this way. Then, a person can fit into this corrected picture. Likewise, as during studying, so with the teacher and the group, one can act in sync with the upper state being envisioned. After all, who is the Creator? It is the upper state. And this is all we need.

Most importantly, stay in “There is none else besides Him, the good who does good” every moment. I envision the Creator, who resides within me, as such, and what He demands of me in this case. What would be required of me if I were in such a state? How would I see everything if I were exactly the one, besides whom there is nobody else, someone good who does good?

I need to see that all my actions come from the Creator, and my attitude to the friends, and to the world—and all of it is good and only for their benefit. Everyone will eventually feel this way, and gradually, we are beginning to feel it. This is described as “penny by penny builds to a large sum.” We exerted efforts that accumulate and ultimately result in a leap: one passes level 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and finally makes a leap. And then again stages 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and a new leap. That is how we finally reach our first spiritual state.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12, “Questions and Answers Regarding Novosibirsk Convention”

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We constantly need to focus on the fact that “There is none else besides Him—only on this topic as there is nothing else except it. All the other topics are needed to support it to identify different individual states.

Moreover, I delve into this topic because the Creator produces all my feelings in me. Now, He is talking to me through my teacher, who is His conduit, and nothing more. Everything around me is a manifestation of the Creator in me; I myself am His derivative and have to respond to what happens according to this.

The more a person understands and knows the uniqueness of this, not disconnecting from the friends, from the world, or from anything, then the more he will try to feel it in reality.

This is the only force of nature that is manifested to us like that. Every day, we increasingly reveal its integrality, interconnection. Nature is integral, and we should not interfere with it. On the contrary, we must adapt ourselves to it. That is why Kabbalah says that we have to act in the external world: to provide everyone with normal, reasonable consumption, in general, to care about that. Everything else is just seeking unity, and through unity to the One.

Thus, any changes that you would like to see, you can only come to through this topic of the uniqueness of the Creator. It determines everything: why we should be united, why we should react to something in this way and not otherwise, etc. You will always come to the correct answer through it.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 3

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Question: Does the point in the heart awakening in a person indicate the dead end of material development?

Answer: I wouldn’t say that it’s the dead end of material development, although a person may, in all he does, whatever he may be doing today, feel that he’s reached a dead end in all spheres of action in our world.

In reality this isn’t a dead end of development, but a dead end of today’s paradigm. If we change it, then naturally we will begin to sense a totally different level of the universe. However in an egoistic, individual cognition, not in unity, in struggle with one another, we understand we can’t attain more, and can’t advance any further.

The next level of humanity’s development is global unity and creating a common body of attainment. This is why people can’t continue to develop individually. We observe this in all that is happening to us. We have reached a dead end not only in the sciences, but also in everything else. That is, we’ve reached a certain limit beyond which everything becomes a blur, as though it disappears. Our egoistic organs of perception, which are only directed toward reception, can’t receive any more. In order to expand, we must begin to connect them to each other.

Each one of us has a point in the heart, an aspiration toward a greater, or so-called “out of this world,” non-egoistic attainment, the desire to go from the individual to the general. If we begin to connect these points, to create a connection between us, then the connection of at least ten points gives the power sensor, which is able to perceive the next state: the upper world. This state is followed by further development, which takes place not in an individual but in a collective consciousness and perception. Therein lies the difference between our world and the next level. Only in this!

Hence, if today we’ve reached a dead end, it is only a dead end of our individual attainment of the world. By connecting the aspiration toward the upper world, we can create a new organ of perception for the next level.

This is why our current world is pushing us out of ourselves today; it is showing us that we must become integrated, interdependent, and united. This is why such interaction and great interdependence is being revealed in the world. Through all this, we are gradually being shown the next, gradually revealing the next level of our world.

Let’s hope that we can attain this level. Then we will have to teach this to everyone else. Right now we are at the beginning stages, at the approach to this next realm.
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From the Virtual Lesson 12/2/12

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Question: You said that during the evening of unity in Jerusalem you simply didn’t have words and the strength to speak because you didn’t feel a desire coming from the group. What is required of us here and now? How do we form such a desire and supply it to you so that you have the necessary words to share with us?

Answer: This was indeed a very interesting and touching revelation for me. I usually never have trouble speaking because I live in what I say. And generally, just as any one talking about his family or interesting job, I speak about what is most important to me endlessly and in combination with anything else. But I suddenly discovered that I was unable to speak. And it happened even in advance of the event, for a few minutes before, I simply couldn’t understand what was happening to me.

In Jerusalem, there was a serious meeting with a large audience. About a third of it, 1000 people out of 3000, were people who came just because they were invited. They weren’t our students, our friends. And I really wanted to speak well in my presentation. Because with my students, those who yearn to know and are involved, with them I am in contact.

They are walking by my side: in ascents, descents, better, and worse—all together we experience the path. But in this case, with so many new people attending, I wanted to show them what we are doing, what we offer… and I didn’t have any strength to speak; I kept looking at the clock: one minute, two minutes passed. And I wanted to try to talk for at least half an hour; I didn’t know what to do with myself. And then it became clear to me: I wasn’t prepared well enough to talk with these people. It had to take place on a totally different level, at the level of unity with the group.

Normally, I speak on my own behalf. I mean the students do give me their support and I do feel them, I sense our common, collective union, but I still speak for myself. Here it wasn’t the case. Here, I needed the readiness of the group so that during those minutes when I’m on stage, the friends would really feel like they are right next to me, fully. That is the desire I felt, that need.

In other words, the support has to be not just in sympathy, but in mutual aid: “The friend went and we are supporting him.” No, I am there with him! I am with him now at the same time! I had never felt such a need for oneness.

I absorb the energy of my students in order to supply them with what they want. I sense their desire, all kinds of nuances, fluctuations in their mood, and generally, various spiritual states. And even though it’s not the friends’ fault since I hadn’t prepared them for it, at that very moment all I wanted was for them to be “in me” consciously on their part. That is what I was lacking.

Truly, we have climbed to a totally new degree where we must do everything together. There aren’t “me” and “you” anymore; together we work on creating a power of our unified desires, our aspirations toward revealing the world so that we feel real strength in this unity. If I say something, you are with me; and if you hear it, I am with you.

This is the kind of mutual inclusion we need, and that’s what we learned two days ago in Jerusalem: Our connection is becoming mutual. And I am very pleased with it! This means that a lot of my students are rising closer and closer to my level and we are now able to communicate with each other at this degree.

I hope that we will continue to interact this way with each other and further, representing one integral whole. There is no teacher, lecturer, or students who listen; rather there is one thing in common, the whole desire that wants to reveal the purpose of life! I think we can do it.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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Question: What does seeking balance at the level of “human” mean? How do we build the temple, to which you always come back? What does the term “temple” mean in Kabbalah?

Answer: Seeking harmony is the most important law of nature. On the still, vegetative, and animate levels, nature does it automatically, instinctively, by its own forces. Based on all our research of space, the functioning of living organisms, of all of nature, the ecosphere of the Earth, we see how nature itself tends to equilibrium. Here it is warm, there it is cold; here is pressure, there is a vacuum, etc. A mutual combination of parameters takes place; that is, nature always tends to the average.

Any forces tend to equilibrium. And so do we. What is the law of similarity? This means that if I am similar to you in something, we understand each other through our similarities. If my senses (for example, vision or hearing) are similar to what is happening in a certain range, then I sense it happening. That is, the law of similarity on our part is the basis of communication in our world. And on the side of nature, it is just the basic law of what it tends to: the law of similarity, the law of combination, averaging.

This law applies to all levels except the level of “human.” At this level, nature, on the contrary, leaves us this opportunity. It seems to say: A human being must be engaged in his similarity to nature himself, averaging at the social and other levels. Why? Then he will rise to the level of “human,” instead of remaining an animal. And so we are in our world suffering all the time, although we are the smartest and the strongest.

But considering what we do with each other and with the world, we are the most despicable. Based on the fact of what we do with the land on which we live, how we exhaust everything and each other, we are completely irrational. That is, here nature leaves us the freedom to choose—only to human beings! Thus, we have to learn this law.

That is why Kabbalah teaches us how to realize the law of similarity in an individual and in human society. If we implement it correctly, it raises us and leads to the level of similarity to the upper force. To accomplish this, we, all seven billion people who live on the planet, must unite together, interconnected in such a way as to form one single desire.

After all, all this exists in the program of nature; we will reach it anyway, either by the path of suffering or the path of awareness. In order to come to this by awareness and not just suffering (because this means terrible problems for centuries), the science of Kabbalah is revealed. But it must be implemented by always exiting ourselves to connect with others who are similar to us, who are also interested in this method of the revelation of the upper force.

So, the law of similarity is the fundamental law of existence.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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Question: Why is Israel geographically surrounded by enemies who pressure it from all sides?

Answer: Only so we would rise to the next level, the level of our complete interaction. This is the state the world is waiting for as an example from us, because it doesn’t have the solution to the general crisis, just like we don’t have the solution to the conflict in the Middle East. If we solve our problem with unification, then analogously, the world will gradually solve the problem of the crisis.

Question: So what’s happening in Israel now will happen in the whole world as well?

Answer: Undoubtedly! Because we are the ones who have the method for universal unification. Two thousand years ago, we lived according to this method. Back then we were the first to realize it inside ourselves, that this was what our state’s existence was based upon. And now this nation is not in accord with these principles by which we should exist, because we need to live in overall unity between us, rising above our mutual egoism, rising above our current nature.

Question: Then how should Israel coexist with its neighbors today?

Answer: By paying no attention to them. If we start to focus on our own unity, then we’ll see how quickly, in the span of a few weeks, we will create a positive field within and around ourselves. They will stop bothering us, and the entire world will begin to feel goodwill towards us instead of hatred.

Question: So we don’t need to take any defensive actions?

Answer: Defensive actions are needed, but they’ll only help temporarily. We should do that in parallel, but only in order for us to have enough time to reach that force of unity that’s called “mutual guarantee.” It exists on a level above all the other forces in our world because it belongs to the level of “Adam – human.” Currently, we exist in the state of still, vegetative, and animate nature. Nowhere in the world has a society been created that exists as one whole. But we can accomplish it, and today the world needs it, since it doesn’t have a solution to the crisis.

This issue can only be solved through mutual connection, the correct unification amongst ourselves. Only then will we reach a balance with nature and all its properties, because if a person unites with others correctly, he develops within himself a new property, a new force that lifts him and favorably affects all other levels of nature.

This isn’t a simple unification that we’re accustomed to imagining, but a very serious and sober understanding that without unity, we won’t find that force that will balance our egoism.

We need a positive force that will balance out the negative force, and then through the help of these two forces we’ll be able to advance and also push this equilibrium through into the world. Then the world will gradually exit the crisis; it will begin to understand that through this balance between people, through mutually complementing each other, they can deal with everything that is happening around us. We call this mutual guarantee.

People become united with their hearts and thoughts, realizing that they belong to one single whole. And then the upper force appears in them, and it really releases all tensions, removes all conflicts in the world, and brings everything into a state of balance.
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From the Talk About the Situation in Israel 11/22/12

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Question: In recent news, here and there, the first drops of information regarding the upcoming international sanctions planned against Israel have started to leak. European countries have already openly stated this, and the UN is preparing certain sanctions.

Tension rising from a small seed is beginning to grow like a snowball, triggering a domino effect where one event leads to an avalanche of others. We can imagine where it may take us since we have seen how this works in the example in other countries. You explain that all evil is revealed so that we reveal the good. Now that we can already  see this evil that is about to overtake us, what can we do to correct the situation and bring us to the good?

Answer: I hope that we will first realize that everything descends from the upper force and there is nothing else. The entire nation of Israel must reach the final realization of the middle line. And then, in relation to the rest of the world, we will be a shamash, the candle that lights up all the other candles in the candelabrum.

Nature is one, and within it, there is only one upper force; Einstein attempted to discover it some time ago. This is the one force working in the entire universe, and all the other forces and laws man observes and senses derive from it.

We exist within the grid of forces, which is under the authority of one upper force that holds all of reality together. If we uncover this unified force, we will know everything: how to get along with this force, how to manage ourselves, how to achieve the best possible condition, and what our purpose is in accordance with the general program of creation, and what goal we are supposed to reach.

So, we needn’t fear the UN and other countries’ sanctions if we are holding on to this upper force. After all, we understand that all negative events are a projection of our own shortcomings that we need to feel in the form of disappointments, problems, and threats so that we may advance and be more united.

Then let’s start uniting! Let’s become as the Torah teaches us: “One man with one heart.” If we started to connect, we would be able to see the “reverse world.” In the same world today, full of hatred and enmity, there would be peace, contentment, and good relations, many times greater than the what we are trying to achieve now.

The nations of the world will immediately start feeling good about the people of Israel and will only wait for when we will achieve even greater connection. After all, through our connection, as through a pipe, the upper force begins flooding the world. And then the crisis fades, and all the hatred, all the competition, all the problems, religious clashes, unrest, and economic hardships disappear.

Everything stabilizes and calms down, and it is solely up to us! Therefore, I take the news about sanctions and the enormous pressure and threat as a sign that the nation of Israel is at a crucial, critical point in history. This is where it is being decided whether the world will move forth benevolently—toward oneness, which is the end point of our development. As it is written: “And My house will be the house of prayer for all peoples,” and “all nations will gather in it to unite in a single union.”

Or are we going to have to move towards the same goal, but by suffering? That implies a third world war and terrible misery and suffering, and most of all for the people of Israel. After all, we are the ones responsible for the world’s correction, and therefore, all the pressure and all the troubles that come upon the whole world will return to us as a result so that we suffer.

We are the center, the same group that came out of Babylon and was once perfected. But then it was correction only for ourselves, but now we have to perfect the whole world, to become “a light to all nations.”

So when I hear about impending UN sanctions and the European countries, I am not looking for some temporary relief measures. The only way to avoid this threat is to begin moving in the right direction. Otherwise, nothing will help.

We have nowhere to run; we are here and now begin the correcting process, having acknowledged that it is all up to us and it is our sole responsibility to build a center of the world here from where the whole world will be receiving its spiritual nourishment.
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From the Weekly Torah Portion 12/4/12

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Question: When we speak about the unity of the Israeli nation, to what extent do we expand this concept?

Answer: It includes all the Jews. After all, they are the descendants of Abraham’s group that took upon itself to be one whole, “as one man in one heart.” It isn’t a question of religion; the Jews simply have a Reshimo, a spiritual gene, because they already fulfilled mutual guarantee in the past. We may say that after the exile of the Jewish nation and its mixing with others, this Reshimot now exist in everyone. It is true, and yet this is the obligation of the Israeli nation.

People with a point in the heart that pulls them upward (•), no matter where they live, join the Bnei Baruch organization (BB). There is also the part called “Israel in this world” or “Jews,” who at the moment have “quiet Reshimot,” points in the heart (•) that have not awakened yet, which, on the contrary, pull them downward. After all, they are using the force of bestowal in order to succeed in their dealings in this world.

Finally, there is the part called the “nations of the world”: They have a point in the heart (•) hidden even more deeply that are hardly noticeable, which pulls them even further downward. As a result, people with points in the heart who have awakened are drawn to correction by themselves; the people who belong to “Israel” must be corrected, and the “nations of the world” are left in a state that cannot be envied, meaning that they depend on the levels above them that are responsible for the correction.

This is why we need to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah among the Israeli nation. Otherwise we would keep silent like Kabbalists in previous generations. A new era has begun and although dissemination is a burden that none of us wants, we have no other choice. Baal HaSulam wrote about it in the article “Messiah’s Shofar,” in The Nation newspaper, and in other places.

Question: What will the rest of the development of people from the second layer be like?

Answer: They won’t be able to do anything on their own; they will have to join us and to learn to help us actively. They will understand in their mind and their feelings that they must participate in the correction. Their point in the heart has not awakened yet and they are aware of the need for it rationally, simply because otherwise there are troubles.

Then they will turn to us: “We must unite, help us do that!” and we will help. They will not yearn for the Creator, but for a secure life. We are pulled upward by a desire, while their desire is to manage in this world, yet at the same time they are able to unite. Only later will the spiritual spark awaken in them, and also in the “nations of the world.” After all, it says that at the end of correction they shall all know the Creator from the smallest to the largest.

So it all depends on us, meaning on our dissemination to Israel and to the extent that we ourselves are united. This is what Baal HaSulam says in his article “Messiah’s Shofar“: The dissemination of the wisdom in the masses is called “a Shofar.” Like the Shofar, whose voice travels a great distance, the echo of the wisdom will spread all over the world, so even the nations will hear and acknowledge that there is Godly wisdom in Israel.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/12, “Exile and Redemption”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 54: When the Creator sees that one has completed one’s measure of exertion and finished everything he had to do in strengthening his choice in faith in the Creator, the Creator helps him. Then, one attains open Providence, meaning the revelation of the face.

This is where the work in the group comes in—all of the person’s obligations, according to the designation of his soul and his generation, which can be very different from one generation to another and from one person to another. No one knows for sure what one’s obligatory measure of exertion is, since it is very personal, because everyone stems from the spiritual root of his soul. Even when we correct ourselves and connect, we are still in different states, although we are connected into one big vessel.

Every time new people join us, we immediately connect to them in one system, and accordingly changes take place in us. There is never a change in a person that stems from himself. If he lived alone in the world, he would never change.

All our changes are a result of perpetual movements towards connection in the general vessel. This influences everyone personally, each time awakening a new environment, in the attitude towards a person, to which he has to connect: either by the path of sufferings or by the path of the Torah. This is how everyone operates throughout his life.

Most people go through these connections unconsciously, unprepared, not understanding what they are doing and what they are living for. This is how they are reborn from one generation to another and their whole correction is done unconsciously. About this it says “go and make a living from one another.” Everyone influences everyone else and as a result everyone changes according to the Reshimot (informational records) in the general shattered desire.

So no one changes on his own. All the changes stem from the fact that a person forms different connections with others at any given moment. This is how this general system exists and operates.

It either happens on an unconscious level, or in people who are already on the preparation level, which means that they want to advance to conscious actions. In the meantime, however, they only make efforts, as preparation. They work on it so that they will be worthy of their advancement and to participate in it actively, and thus they advance.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Human nature is such that in a desperate situation, one is ready to accept any illogical solutions. So if Israel finds itself in a truly critical situation, it will say: “So what can I do? Let’s try to connect.”

Answer: It is impossible without a deficiency, without sufferings. The problem is how to ease these sufferings. People have to see in advance that this is the good and easy way that solves all their problems: political, military, economic, ideological, etc., eliminates anti –Semitism, and changes the whole world so that it will treat us well.

But until we reach the minimal general connection among us, we will have to guard all our borders simultaneously. However, the moment we reach general unity, we will see clearly how unnecessary these borders are. We will summon the balance that this world needs.

I am not fantasizing; I am a very realistic person. I am speaking about the fact that there are forces in this world that we, the Israeli nation, can use, and it is a pity that we don’t do that. So it is as if the whole world is telling us that we are the reason for all the suffering, which is true.

We have a serious scientific method, although on the outside it seems like a game of “being good kids.” We have to study and implement it.
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From a Talk about the situation in Israel 11/22/12

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