Question: How can we make a covenant among friends?

Answer: A covenant among friends is possible only if there is an upper party ensuring its preservation. A covenant can be kept only when we all connect with the upper force, which provides the union.

There is no chance that we will be able to keep this covenant by ourselves, but if we connect, we can demand this from the Creator—if we do it for Him.

The result is that “Israel,” the people who yearn for the Creator, the Light that Reforms, the Torah, and the Creator are joined together, and then the Creator keeps the covenant according to our request.

When darkness, separation, and conflicts come, this covenant is revealed and exists among us. But as long as everything is fine, it is impossible to test it. The test is only when we feel bad.

When we feel good, we don’t need any covenant; as long as there is the Light, it connects all the parts. The difficult part is to do so when the Light disappears, to keep these parts together then. This is called a covenant.

But how can you draw the Light in a time of darkness? It is impossible. But we want to reach a state in which even when we don’t feel the Light in our receiving vessels, we will feel the Light in our Masach (screen) and the Returning Light—a fulfillment in the vessels of bestowal instead of an egoistic fulfillment.

Today, I am a loyal slave of my desire to receive, and I want to serve in order to fill someone else in the same way. This will be a pleasure for me. This means that I want to make a covenant.

The covenant is tested only in the dark, when I get no fulfillment but I still want to keep the same good relations that I had before. Instead of my egoistic pleasure, I want to restrict my ego: a Masach and the Returning Light.

This is called a covenant; it is a state in which I don’t work for myself anymore but rather in order to bestow. This means that I keep the same attitude not only when I feel good, but when I feel bad too. When the good state returns, I don’t want to be confused and be enslaved by the desire to receive over and over again, and so I make a covenant for that purpose.

I want to feel pleasure in the vessels of bestowal; I want to restrict my desire to receive and work with the pleasure by building a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light above this restriction. I turn to the friend with this Returning Light and connect with him. This is called a covenant.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati #76

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It is written, “There is no coercion in spirituality,” which means that progress happens only through our free choice. And we have a choice only in this regard and in nothing else. Therefore, we shouldn’t relate things to free choice that we are completely not free in.

Freedom was given to us only in uniting with the group or humanity, with the whole world, with parts of my own soul, which only in my imagination appear external and alien, hateful, and distant spiritually and physically. And actions through which I try to bring them closer to myself is where I have been given freedom of choice. That’s because essentially, this is the only thing I have to do. There is nothing besides correcting the vessel of my own soul, whose parts I must all bring closer so as to perceive them as my own.

I have to feel the whole world, everything that seems to be on the outside, as my closest parts, even closer than my own body. After all, the body is merely an animal that lives and dies. But the parts that I now feel outside of me are the still, vegetative, animate and human degrees of my soul.

The entire world surrounding me now are four levels of the vessel of my soul, and therefore I see them outside for now. My body is a product of my imagination. It only seems to me that I exist in it. Therefore, while I am in this imaginary body, I have to try to bring all parts of my soul on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th degrees closer to me. I have to relate to them lovingly since this is all I have, my entire treasure.

As for this body, it is an illusion; it lives and dies in my imagination. It does not belong to the spiritual world. Everyone I now see around me – they are my spirituality. If I bring them closer to myself, then these corrected desires and my corrected attitude to them turns into my spiritual body. In them I reveal the Creator.

That is why it is written, “The Creator is concealed in the world.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati

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When spiritual insight is revealed in us, we actually begin to see and gradually understand more clearly that everything depends on the “place” (the Creator), which means on the number and the intensity of my discernments that reveal the spiritual reality and that show me to what extent I am connected to everyone else. Everything depends on the number of discernments and mainly on their intensity and the intensity of the connection.

Each of us suddenly discovers different discernments of his egoistic perception, but gives up his ego in order to connect with others. It turns out that a “dent” appears in my desire opposite a “bulge” in the desire of the friend, and a “bulge” of my desire opposite his “dent.” Thus we connect, as each one gives in to the other.

It turns out that I have given up my interests in order to connect to the friend, but he, in his perception will discover these “bulges” of my ego and will annul himself in order to connect with me. Thus, we don’t annul our ego, but constantly use it through more “bulges” and “dents.” Our sensitive and fine perception and its intensity depend on the amount of such connections in which we discover more and more discernments.

This is how the general vessel is built for the interest of the public. The more common needs I discover, the more I can annul myself and connect with others. But then I have to think about the reason I am doing this for—for the revelation of the Shechina (Divinity). Here I have to attain one more connection that is more internal and for a higher goal by discovering that it is the Creator.

The Creator isn’t some personality, but a discernment that I revealed as a result of my clarification. It is the upper Sefira of Keter, which I discover after having clarified all the Sefirot that precede it. Just like the commandment of love, which we must reach, but which we actually cannot. It reveals to us by itself if we perform all the commandments that precede it.

It is the same when it comes to connection. If I with my point in the heart work in the group and connect with the friends, then within this connection, in all the four phases, I discover their inner root called Shechina. Shechina symbolizes the revelation of the Creator.

I cannot build this last phase, the Keter, the one who bestows, by myself. It is revealed since I have taken the four steps towards it.

I did everything that was in my power, I revealed the four phases and the forms of connection by myself, and then I discover the phase of Keter on which I cannot work by myself. This is the Shechina. On my part, I complete the work and then there is a discovery waiting for me, as it says “I have labored and I found.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: How do I work with the group in order to clarify correctly everything that happens with me?

Answer: First, try to connect with the friends. Leave the clarifications for now; you don’t have the right tools to clarify things. First you have to acquire the means, a spiritual vessel with which you can clarify what is happening. At the moment your attitude to life is distorted.

Today you have to build a new vessel in the group since the clarification and actually everything depends on the mutual relationship a person has with the environment.

Question: We are trying to do it in the workshops. How can we correctly clarify the questions that you are presenting?

Answer: You have to want to connect on the basis of my questions. The question itself isn’t as important as everything you are saying in the discussions. The words are necessary so that we will rise above them and constantly think about how to connect with the friends. No matter what nonsense the friend may say, I rise above it wanting to connect with him. I have to see the friends as the greatest in our generation, and on the other hand, I bestow upon them my part of the general bestowal.

The work takes place on two levels: below—hatred and coarseness, and above—love and purity. If these two things exist, it is already a certain type of vessel. If you attain such a great gap between coarseness and purity then the Light, the Creator, is revealed.

Until then, you constantly work in workshops, in connections and in studying in order to attain this gap, which for us is the goal called “Mount Sinai.”

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At yesterday’s seminar we had a general, collective opportunity in all the groups all over the world to rise above our heavy sensation. We were pinned down by this heaviness and it was difficult for us to connect and rise in our mind and heart.

We felt that we couldn’t do it. We were missing the necessary intensity of feeling and clarity of thinking, and that is a wonderful state for our work, which we have to enter for one moment in order to feel it. Yet we must know in advance that we are now experiencing this heavy sensation and will discern it in order to immediately rise above it.

Thus, I am experiencing these sensations that pass through my mind and heart: dullness of feeling, dimness of thought and consciousness, and now I rise above all of this. I don’t care what I now feel; above it I want to build a completely new state which is not based on my animate, earthly mind and feelings, but is related to the higher state, spirituality, bestowal.

This means that I will receive completely new instruments of perception and desire, which are above me and completely do not depend on me. I use other’s desires, not my own, but thoughts that are foreign to me, meaning those that belong to others, so that through them I will bestow to the Creator and to them. Then I don’t have any problems since I am not closed inside of myself, but I rise above my egoistic perception.

This heavy feeling came precisely in order to show us whether or not we can rise and fill the world with Light, whether we can give something to humanity. The sensation suited the topic of the seminar precisely. It was a complete package; everything was arranged perfectly from above.

Our groups should have connected together as much as possible, above this entire sensation of heaviness, and thought about our influence on the world according to the topic of the seminar.

Women found a wonderful answer to the question of how we should give to the world and how the world should connect to us, through the example of a mother who breastfeeds her baby. This is a very precise example because is reflects the transition from the round Sefirot (Igulim) to straight desires (Yosher).

That is, we rise above our desires and thoughts and find a new vessel thanks to our unity. When every person comes out of himself and becomes included in others, he comes out of his thoughts and sensations and acquires new desires and reason in which he is not limited by anything at all. This is the form in which we advance.

But some people get immersed in their sensation of bitterness and darkness and suffer because of it instead of turning it upside down and transforming it to Light through their work, ascending above the darkness. A person should ask: why does he prefer to suffer? Does he really love suffering so much? This is stupid and results from our pride, our inability to rise above ourselves.

Or maybe you don’t understand that your spiritual vessel is not inside of you, but above you? And that all of these difficult sensations in the heart and mind are meant to help you ascend. The general force of the group must awaken you and help you do this, so why aren’t you using it? And the teacher tells you that you have to ascend. Don’t you understand that, or don’t you hear it?

But in any case, this is a good study. This heaviness is simply a gift from above, corresponding precisely to the chosen seminar topic. This is how we are being shown how easily we could rise above it, but we weren’t able to. And all of it is due to insufficient value of the environment, lack of importance, and the need to rise above this sensation.

This only shows that the quality of bestowal to which I ascend is less important to me than the sensation in my own stomach. First of all I want to feel good myself, and only then am I ready to ascend higher. Look at how egoistic this condition is.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Thus, because of the above necessity, the Torah was given specifically to the Israeli nation, solely to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for it was inconceivable that any stranger would take part in it. Because of that, the Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the whole of the human race the world over.

It isn’t just about one of the nations that was suddenly given the Torah. The “Israeli nation” is a collection of people who left ancient Babylon. They connected under the leadership of Abraham who taught them to connect through ties of love above hatred. Of course, they didn’t want that, just like all the other Babylonians, but they accepted Abraham’s method. Thanks to the “spark” that is concealed in them, they understood that it is actually a method of correction and that the egoistic nature, the hatred, was given so that we will unite above it and build a group in which there will be these two discernments, one opposite the other: hatred below and love above. Thus they arrived at “Mt. Sinai,” at the state in which we reveal the upper force.

When they connected, they began to work through the connection according to Abraham’s method and then Isaac’s, and then Jacob’s, which means in “three lines.” In this process they received a growing “hardening of the heart” and in their work they went through the phases of HBD, HGT, NHY, including the exile in Egypt. This means that they felt the difficult internal states and overcame them by rising above their ego and reaching the necessity for adhesion. The ego separated them extremely, and they still tried to hold on, as much as they could, by at least keeping their inclination for connection.

Eventually, the necessary tension among them was created—on one hand, the ego that erupted in the form of the “ten plagues of Egypt” and the inaccessible “Pharaoh” on the inside, and on the other hand, the recognition of the necessity of the connection, which they built above them. They were even ready to go to the desert without any reward, just to have a chance to serve the Creator. This is what they demanded from Pharaoh when Moses gave him the Creator’s message: “Let my people go, so that they shall serve me.”

Then they reached the state in which they could receive the Torah, which means the Light that Reforms. There was enough tension between the ego that was revealed and the pressure aimed at connection. They were given the condition—to become “one man with one heart,” to “love thy friend as thyself,” and they accepted it by saying: “We shall do and we shall hear.” Then the revelation of Light that Reforms began, which means that they received the Torah.

Thus they became a nation. Now they had a collective infrastructure that united them: the Light united them. Without the Light, there is no connection among them, which means that there is no nation. Therefore, Baal HaSulam says that Israel in exile is not a nation but “a bag of nuts.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: My exertion belongs to corporeal life and not to spiritual life. How can I ask the Light to change that?

Answer: Our desires change if we yearn for connection; we reach bestowal, and through bestowal, we reach the revelation of the Creator in order to bring Him contentment since it is He who wants to be revealed to us and not that we want to reveal Him by ourselves out of curiosity. It’s only possible to change something in us when the Light changes us. All the work is done through the Light; all the changes in us are performed from Above according to our request. But in order to reach the Light, to come in contact with it, to pass on our request and our deficiency to it so that it will be accepted, we have to operate through the group. In order to do that, our deficiency must be dressed in the intention to bestow.

We shouldn’t try to change or limit our desires forcefully; nothing will help except a prayer, a demand for the Light that Reforms. We have to put all our heart into this prayer. You won’t be more spiritual if you stop eating, breathing, or enjoying life; you won’t change your attributes by that.

The point is not to change mechanical actions that are performed by the arms or legs and not to use high language, but to change our inner attributes, which only the Light that created them can do. Therefore, we only have to know how to demand these changes! This is possible only if we get together and build a collective desire in the group through which we can turn to the Light with a demand.

The demand that is formed within this collective desire is the one that will be accepted. After all, the Light is in absolute rest, and to the extent that we reach an equivalence of form with It, we summon its action. It depends on the intensity by which we demand it in the group.

This force is abundant, but everything depends on us, the users. The user must include many foreign and strange desires of the friends in the group, which until now weren’t connected by anything. However, they are ready to connect in order to attain the upper one and so their attempts to connect are perceived as a demand from the upper one to connect them.

It turns out that our only request is in connection, and thanks to the connection all our attributes will be corrected. You can’t decide to be a little more generous or more of a saver. You don’t understand which attributes you need. Ask for one thing only—to connect with the friends into one collective desire so that all your attributes will be corrected in this connection. This is the only thing you can ask for and this is the only request that is answered and for which there is a correction.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/08/12, Writings of Rabash

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In the News (from Aalto University): “Research team at Aalto University and Turku PET Centre has revealed how experiencing strong emotions synchronizes brain activity across individuals.

“Human emotions are highly contagious. Seeing others’ emotional expressions such as smiles triggers often the corresponding emotional response in the observer. Such synchronization of emotional states across individuals may support social interaction: When all group members share a common emotional state, their brains and bodies process the environment in a similar fashion.

“Researchers at Aalto University and Turku PET Centre have now found that feeling strong emotions makes different individuals’ brain activity literally synchronous.

“The results revealed that especially feeling strong unpleasant emotions synchronized brain’s emotion processing networks in the frontal and midline regions. On the contrary, experiencing highly arousing events synchronized activity in the networks supporting vision, attention and sense of touch.

“Sharing others’ emotional states provides the observers a somatosensory and neural framework that facilitates understanding others’ intentions and actions and allows to ‘tune in’ or ‘sync’ with them. Such automatic tuning facilitates social interaction and group processes, says Adjunct Professor Lauri Nummenmaa from the Aalto University.”

My Comment: Recent studies illustrate the view of Kabbalists that we are all parts of a unified system. Currently, this system is manifested more clearly as a general integral relationship between all humans and all parts of nature. But our egoism is not integral, and that is why we cannot behave correctly in the integral relationship that is revealed between us. The cause of the crisis is in this contradiction between the integral system of connection and all parts of nature and society. The only solution is to correct egoism—to make it integral as well. This is the subject of integral education.
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Question: If the spiritual spark has such a great force, then why isn’t a person giving it as a whole, and instead constantly fluctuates, sometimes rising and sometimes falling?

Answer: It’s because a person’s responsibility is to establish a correct connection between the desire to enjoy and the spiritual spark. On one side, there’s the Creator, the spiritual spark, and on the other side is the creature, the desire to enjoy. And I need to connect one with the other, to clothe one in another.

The desire to enjoy is our natural material, the real me. But now, the spiritual spark illuminates me and I lose my head, not knowing what to strive for, to some spiritual world that’s who-knows-where. A person, having felt this draw for the first time, loses balance and a sense of reality. This is why in our days, our whole world seems fragile and distraught.

And our job is to reveal a great Light of NRNHY instead of a spark, and to attain the entire depth of the desire and to connect them together, for that desire to acquire the form of the Light and clothe in it. Then it will become a vessel or vestments for the Light, and we’ll reveal not a small spark, but Light 620 times more powerful.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/12, Shamati, #21

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Question: What does it mean to bestow to another when you’re only preparing to enter the spiritual world?

Answer: It means to do everything in your power to unite with others, and in that bond to reveal the common bestowing force, the Creator. But you do it precisely because you fulfill His desire to be revealed to the creatures. To this end they must prepare an altruistic desire in which the Creator’s force of bestowal will be revealed. The creatures will reveal a need for love, and the Creator will be revealed as Love.

In order to connect to others, I need a screen. Otherwise I cannot unite with anyone, as I desire only to consume everything within. Therefore, don’t think that you are capable of unifying on your own: It’s the upper Light that unites us. It puts a screen before me over my own ego and raises me over it, where it concerns my heart, the concentration of desire. And it is there, in the space above it, where the source of all my desires, goals, and aspirations is transferred. Like a mother who as if exits herself and lives within her child.

This kind of attitude is called Yesher (straight line), but before this my desire was Igulim (circular). To the degree that I can make a straight intention toward others, it means that I have built a “straight line.”

Now I exist in a straight desire, but it is similar to the Surrounding Light, or circles. This is somewhat of a paradox. In my ego I am similar to the Light; the Light is circular in its bestowal and I am a circular egoist, open to everybody.

But in my work, I am like a straight line, which is opposite to the Light, for the Light is circular. How do we then connect together? The circles and the straight line are connected by the restriction done within them both. It is thanks to this restriction that a mutual point arises—their point of contact.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/7/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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