Question: How can I check that I have returned to the center of the group during the workshop?

Answer: The center of the group is our only upper point, the upper desire, the place, where all our desires unite and wherever we look we see Divinity, the revelation of the Creator.

We will learn to check this in more “professional” ways in the future, according to the three parts of the existence of reality “world-year-soul,” according to the three lines. But as long as we cannot hold on to all these spiritual discernments, I check that I have reached the center of the group when I begin to discover that there is something outside my “I.”

It is as if I am under the influence of the force that is above me, which controls me, but only according to my desire, only if I let it control me! It doesn’t enslave me as often happens in other methods when a person is hypnotized like a “zombie” under their influence and cannot escape.

Here I am constantly conscious and fully understand: I understand that I can disconnect myself from this influence. Yet, I constantly choose to stay under its control. Every time I choose a greater connection, I add finer discernments to this state, both in feeling and in the mind. This means that I am at the most central point.

This central point begins to grow in relation to me and to clarify different discernments that are in it: my attitude to the friends, to myself, to the study, to the teacher, and to the whole world. I feel that all my relationships and my connections with everyone are centered in this one point. This means that I begin to work on it in every situation in my life.

In order not to detach myself from this center, I have to invest emotional and mental efforts in the mind and heart. According to these efforts I will discover what the true mind and heart are, because these are not ordinary corporeal attributes, but rather special spiritual attributes.

All my work is to clarify to what extent I can adhere to the center, to the upper, in every situation. I am like an organ that is returned to its place that feels that it isn’t simply stitched on to the body, but begins to live in it, to use its powers, and to bestow something on my part by taking part in the collective actions. This is already the feeling of life!
[78596]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/12, “Talk About the Workshop”

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By our efforts to be included in the center of the group, we will learn what mutual guarantee is. This isn’t a theoretical concept and not some static state; it is a method, a plan, of the connection among us. It absolutely determines how we “stick” to one another, like cogwheels.

But we must constantly remain both close and separate from one another because it is this state that enables us to keep the uniqueness of everyone and to find what everyone’s part is in the general life. Everyone adds and enriches the others by wanting to adhere to everyone, despite the feeling of separation.

It is like a living organism in which every organ keeps its uniqueness and doesn’t annul itself among the other organs, forgetting the special job entrusted to it. On the contrary, it performs its job faithfully by using all its special attributes and discernments and by them expressing its uniqueness to others.

One is green, another is yellow, and a third one is blue; everyone keeps his color, but we all contribute our colors into one whole wonderful picture. Therefore mutual guarantee and the concept of connection itself are revealed only in the center, where we learn to combine the two ends—personal freedom and our collective dependence.

We begin to respect our separation and understand why the Creator created us with an evil inclination. We see how He helps us by standing in our way to connect. The ego is no less important than the force of connection, standing directly in front of it equally. Only by the gap between the two—on the one hand, the feeling of my oppositeness and on the other hand the equality—do I acquire an understanding, recognition and mind.

I remain separate and still adhere to the center. Thanks to that, all the infinite space between the separation and the adhesion, the whole distance between the point of this world and the world of Ein Sof, becomes the place for the revelation of the essence of the Creator. Otherwise, I would never be able to attain Him. I would remain as one point that was lost and melted into the Light.

Therefore our main constant work is to clarify the center of the group, in order to find our place and to discover this concept more clearly until we reach Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction). On the way we attain the worlds, Partzufim, and the upper Sefirot because they all symbolize our relationship.

Everything the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about, the whole path, starting from the point of unity that exists thanks to the upper force until the point of unity that was created by our efforts, is the revelation of different ways of connection among us, called the worlds, Partzufim and Sefirot.

But when we clarify the system of connections among us, we discover that it actually determines the conditions for resembling the upper Light. So our connection is increasingly more adapted to the upper Light and accordingly the Light is revealed in this connection as the force of vitality, the force of attainment and understanding. This feeling of life grows stronger until all the connections among us are corrected and then the Light, the force of life, is revealed in its full measure.
[78593]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/12, “Talk About the Workshop”

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Question: Is it true that during the workshop we seemingly, enter the center of the group, and during the lesson from The Zohar, we are already reading from within the center of the group about what is taking place there?

Answer: It depends on how a person scrutinizes and feels himself. It could be that he simply reads or even when he constantly thinks about it, even if he doesn’t listen or understand the words themselves, the reading itself bestows holiness and purity on him, and this advances him.

Or it could be that he also longs to connect with the text, to understand what is written there, since after all, spiritual acts are spoken about there. The ten Sefirot, either on the smallest level or largest level, are the same ten Sefirot. This means that everything that is written here, without doubt, takes place in the first and lowest Partzuf that I acquire.

I acquire the first ten Sefirot, at the level of “pregnancy,” and in any case, also everything described in The Zohar will take place there, the entire Torah from beginning to end, at every level. It’s like a holographic picture, and therefore, it is written about me. Even if we are speaking about the Partzufim that are so very high like Atik of the world of Atzilut, and Abba ve Ima (Father and Mother), it all takes place in each level and in all kinds of details, but it takes place. Therefore, the text gives me a feeling of belonging, and it helps me to yearn. The main thing is that I want to be under its influence, like in a shower of light.
[78575]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/12, The Zohar

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Question: At the Sunday seminar you said that the center of the group did not exist before the breaking of the vessels because the three lines did not exist then, and now we are forming it. What does that mean?

Answer: We have a collection of data, but we have to gather it together into one ourselves.

Let me give an example. Suppose we used to have a mosaic image depicting the sun, clouds, a meadow, and several animals and people on it. It’s a pretty picture. Then this picture was broken into parts and the parts were mixed up.

Now you have to put the picture together again, but it will not be the same as the previous one anymore. That’s because you are adding your own component to it, the difference between what was created from existence and what was created from absence. In other words, the difference between the Creator and the creature is embedded into the mosaic, and the image transforms from flat to multidimensional.

In Kabbalah this is designated as a 620-fold addition. However, this is not talking about a quantitative addition, but about new details in the perception of reality.
[78691]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/12

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Question: How can we reach the center of the group?

Answer: We must constantly think about our common force so it would correspond to the Creator. It has to grow forth from our equal cooperation, where every person bows down his head, joins the group, and raises the friends in his eyes since without them he would not be able to take one step toward the goal. His mind and feeling are born out of unification, and inside the unity, he finds his soul. Thus, aspiring to the center means aspiring to one’s soul.

No one has his own, separate soul. Baal HaSulam writes that only one soul, one common vessel was created. Therefore, without revealing the center of the group, we remain on the “animate” level, outside of the spiritual world, outside of our soul, and exist in the material bodies.

We must constantly form the center of the group. It is a point, like an elevator that rises up the spiritual degrees by the might of the unity of its constituent parts, rising higher and higher, to greater quality, to a greater concentration of our aspirations and desires. This enormous field is the “territory” of our common vessel.

The Creator endowed us with various qualities by means of the breaking, and with the help of intention we focus on the central point.
[78694]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/12

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Question: What kind of an effort do we need during the seminar? Should it be a burst like that of an attack, or a fine internal search?

Answer: The seminar and our path in general are completely based on feelings, since we are clarifying everything inside of our material, the desire to enjoy. The desire perceives itself through feeling, but in order to realize the different states experienced, we need the mind. The mind comes to us only on the elevated levels, when we begin to unite desires in hope of reaching a corrected vessel. And this is when we begin to form our spiritual mind.

Prior to this we are only at the disposal of the earthly, animate mind, which helps us to better serve our egoism. This mind does not ascend higher than the level of this world because the lot of a slave adjusts to his master. That’s why those feelings and the mind with which we exist now are completely limited by the level of this world and don’t have anything pertaining to the spiritual. And here, it’s not important how smart a person is. This absolutely does not relate to the spiritual.

With the new feelings and mind, which do relate to spirituality, we now begin to develop in the search for our common point. This sensitivity must localize in the area where we are connected to each other, in the center of the group. The mind will appear in order to uncover the various subtleties in this and to help us unite. These are already the spiritual feelings and mind, belonging to the spiritual ladder.

That’s why at the seminar the inspiration precisely for unity must reign, and not a simple enthusiasm in the hope of receiving new knowledge and for the development of the self. If I want my awakening and preparation for the seminar to join into this work, then from the very beginning I need to focus myself only towards unity. This means focusing on the importance of unity, the importance of the group and friends, and not to long only to attain something by and for myself. It’s a pity for those who exert such futile efforts, since they will be left out of the circle.
[78571]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/12, “Talk About the Seminar”

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Question: Although you warned us that we cannot be late to a workshop, we still had latecomers. Did we do the right thing by taking pity on them and accepting them into the common circle instead of making a separate circle for the latecomers?

Answer: It’s baffling how people can allow themselves to be late for a clarification of this kind! It’s the same case as when the Ari invited his students to go to Jerusalem and perform the final correction, but no one came at the appointed hour. I don’t understand how a person can be late to a gathering devoted to spiritual work.

Everything depends only on the preparation, on concentration, on the desire for it to happen. We need to start thinking about it for several hours before the workshop. Nothing will happen without preparation, we need to prepare the desire.

In everyday life, the feeling of hunger and other needs rise up on their own thanks to hormones and natural processes in the body. But when it comes to the spiritual, I myself need to arrange my desire through the environment. There is no desire in me for anything spiritual that would arise on its own like the need for food, sex, money, power, and knowledge do.

I was given only a single point in the heart so that I could develop my spiritual hunger from it. And everything else besides that point needs to come from the environment. Before the workshop, I need to arrange such an environment that it would influence me and I would arrive with an already prepared desire. Otherwise I will miss all the opportunities, as though I’m suddenly invited to a festive meal bursting with food, but I didn’t know and had just eaten a full meal. I look at all this abundance and don’t know what to do with it.

Preparation is essential. Thus, people who come late and burst into a group from a different world, from their job, or from a store; they cause harm. They cannot penetrate the common circle right away, at best only towards the end of the workshop are they able to somehow grasp the common feeling, and they interfere with others for sure.

Therefore, you shouldn’t welcome them with open arms right away, but verify what has happened: Is it truly the most important event in their life? I would not allow latecomers to enter. It’s necessary to take care in advance about not being late since we’re talking about the salvation of the soul. After all, haven’t you come in order to build the place where a soul is received?
[78565]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/12, “Talk About the Seminar”

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Question: What is the best way for the virtual student to participate in the workshop?

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Question: Should we invite new people to seminars?

Answer: You shouldn’t invite people who at completely new. These seminars are not for beginners. Beginners should discuss questions about the importance of the group, the greatness of the goal and the friends, and the insignificance of oneself, which are discerned in Rabash’s articles about the group. But I deliberately chose a topic for the seminar that relates to the foot of the spiritual ladder.

This ladder stands upon the central point of the group, and its summit reaches up to Infinity. This is the ladder onto which we have to climb.
[78562]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/12

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Question: During the convention we always feel infinite pleasure and fulfillment, but the moment the convention is over, there is immediately a heavy feeling of emptiness and reluctance to carry on. What does this hardening of the heart after the convention symbolize and how should we work with it?

Answer: I think that we felt these things after conventions we had in the past. We shouldn’t feel this way now because we don’t work from one convention to another any more, which is the reason that we used to fall after each convention, like after receiving a temporary gift, which we couldn’t hold on to.

Now we have to work continuously at building our collective vessel, and so we shouldn’t feel such deep descents although there will be descents and ascents on this way too, as there should be. This is because the upper Providence is revealed by the “round” and “straight” impact. During the straight influence, the upper Providence is revealed a bit and during the round influence, it summons periods of exile.

Every individual, whole groups, and even the whole world go through such “exiles” and “redemptions” alternately. These states are sequential, and nature is constantly changing: The seasons change, the geological eras, and the ecological eras all change in the endless process we are in.

We have to go through all these processes, but our advancement should be in a straight line, in the “middle line.” We will have to clarify it since we are the first to start this process, like the “last generation” of the egoistic world. So I don’t think there will be any special descents after the conventions. Our conventions will be of a different nature, which will be determined in the next few months.

I doubt whether the question about the descent after the convention will be relevant. But if someone still feels a descent, he should ask the friends for help. If the whole group is in a state of descent, it should turn to other groups for help since it depends on them as one man in one heart.

Thus everyone should help one another, keeping the finger on everyone’s pulse, taking care that not one friend will disappear and not one group will fall if it isn’t a purposeful fall.
[78384]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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