Question: What is the role of the moderator in the workshop?

Answer: I am the moderator, and there are also two representatives in each group that are responsible for the order in the group, so that everyone will have a chance to express their opinion and to complete each other’s ideas. They must complete each other, and they should pay attention to that, so that everyone will follow what each one is saying and see how he can express the same idea. The moderators in the group should take care that one common opinion is formed that is complete and closed and that everyone fully supports one another. They should make sure that the speakers don’t talk for too long, so that everyone will have a chance to express himself. This refers to the moderators in the groups.

As a moderator, I simply read a certain text slowly so that everyone will start discussing it and expressing their opinion.

There should also be someone in the group who writes down the questions that the group will ask at the end of the workshop. Every group, both the men’s group and the women’s group, will have a chance to ask two or three questions. Those in charge should write down the questions and decide how they should be presented.

Question: What shouldn’t a moderator do in the group?

Answer: He should only support the friendship and the love; in this framework you can do everything.
[76456]
From the Virtual Lesson 4/22/12, Preparation to the Congress

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As a result of the process of correct interaction in the group, a person feels more that he is a great sinner and egoist, that he hates others, and he has all kinds of negative desires and thoughts, intrigues, etc.

He reveals this in himself to such an extent that he begins to cry to the Creator to correct him. He starts realizing that only the Creator can correct him because he feels that everything comes from the Creator, and there can be no other source from which this would have resulted, even from its very nature.

He reveals the Creator in the opposite form, as the creator of something bad. But at the same time he reveals that the Creator has created evil in him on purpose in order to force him to turn to Him, and then the Creator corrects him.

Why was it necessary to go this way—to create evil so a person gradually reveals it in himself and turns to the Creator with a plea for correction?
[76699]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/2012, Lesson 4

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Question: Initially we assumed that the psychological training would last three hours. At the convention, we dedicate one hour. And now you say that it is possible to implement it during a quarter of an hour before the lesson. What is the difference?

Answer: These classes constitute a person’s intention, which he needs to formulate; he must spend so much time per day in order to remain in that spirit throughout the day.

There are people who are constantly in this state, those who return to this state, and those who are not able to stand it. Their ego is still so large that even though they make a small effort, they already need to exit this state, they are not able to remain in it.

Everything depends on what state the person is in as he advances. You gradually develop within the bestowal of the upper Light. Only this gives results and nothing else.

When you yearn to go forward, the Light influences you. It changes you and next time you will enter it with more sensitivity and will do so more easily. You are already very close to these attributes, and you will be immediately included in them. Let’s suppose that in the morning you awake like beasts, exist in “separation,” and immediately enter this world, the world in which the force directs everything.

You begin to grasp your day in a completely different way, to see what is happening everywhere. The more you receive information from the sensations or from anything else, you see how the Creator plays with his creatures, and how he wants to bring them to independence and simultaneously to also resemble Him.
[76446]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2

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Question: What should a person do in order to annul himself? How can this be implemented practically in the group?

Answer: This is why there should be one instead of ten. Instead of millions or billions, there should be one. This means that we should feel like one. If you cannot annul yourself before the friends, you will not be able to advance, and to allow the Light to be revealed. The first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) is the condition according to which everything operates, and then comes the next part, the next stage.

Question: What should I do in order to annul myself? What should I think about?

Answer: You should think that you want the friends to attain everything, and this is the only thing that makes you happy. How does a mother think about her child? “I want him to have everything. It doesn’t matter what will become of me, what’s important is that he will be okay.”
[76449]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2

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Question: What we did in the workshop is actually working against the ego. But as time passes the importance of this work seems to fade. How can we constantly see the importance of this group work?

Answer: All our study is based only on the annulment of our ego, to start feeling ourselves as integral, and in this integrality, to give the opportunity for the Creator to be revealed, to express our desire for that, and to be happy that you give Him this opportunity. The next stage is adhesion. This is how our study session and every workshop should end. We can have the workshop for hours and include many more activities, but in the meantime we will focus on this.

On the whole, this is the basic pattern according to which we should behave. It’s needed only in order to feel that we exit ourselves in some way. Then, after we begin to feel the Light that fills everything, the study becomes practical. We begin to see and to feel it inside us in different changes of form. Then we begin to notice it according to the intensity, the direction, the color, the attributes, and the feelings. At this point we have already started the formation of our vessel. But this is the first stage.

Everything that involves the ego is constantly growing, and if we later see that dealing with it is less important, it’s because we don’t deal with it. We will have such workshops together and make them part of our daily study. The time has come for us to include them.
[76510]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2

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We talk a lot about the things we want to achieve, attain, and reveal. But we have merited this aspiration because the entire world needs it. How can we help the world?

Everything around us is filled with the upper Light that permeates us, but we don’t feel it yet because of our egoism; great abundance exists in the world. There is everything! Only our egoism does not allow us to share with others, expand it in a way that would make everyone happy. Thus in the end everyone suffers.

Let us think about what we can offer to the world, how we imagine a corrected society where everything already operates according to the laws of mutual bestowal, love, and participation, when everyone understands that they are connected into one common system, and it cannot be that some are happy and others are not.

This interconnection manifests between us to such extent that we automatically behave this way. We reveal that we are an integral system. We only think about reciprocity. A person who thinks about others no longer needs anything else. As Baal HaSulam writes, everyone thinks about everyone else. I am certain that my friends are thinking about me, and this is why I cannot even think about myself. And this forces me to think about others.

The Creator pushes us towards this kind of unity, this kind of society. We hope to come to this is in a good way—through dissemination, education, and upbringing instead of having suffering, blows, and different cataclysms and catastrophes push us towards it.

Let us use the simplest example, a small town with a population of 50 thousand people: Ten thousand are working at the largest enterprise in the city. Right now they only spend half a workday working; there is no work.

Ten thousand people are elderly and retired. Ten thousand are children. And another twenty thousand people are in the service field, they work in all the city’s systems.

The problem is that the big factory, where ten thousand workers, engineers, and other professionals work, is closing. And for this reason the main source of income in the city is being reduced twofold since the revenue brought to the city by the factory circulates in all the fields of service.

This is a common problem, which today appears in many places in the world.

And now imagine, what we can offer to the population if we were to introduce our system of integral upbringing and education.

For example, we can begin with the employees of the plant since half of their workday is becoming free. How can we come to the other people in the city: the homemakers, children, the elderly, and those who are employed in municipal services since their workload, together with their salaries, are also naturally being diminished?

What kind of changes would happen in the city if we were to gradually introduce new social relations between people, spouses, within families, the household, on the street, the parks, in service, cleaning, delivery, in all the city and municipal jobs?

How can people who create integral relations save and cut their spending in a way that they are not able to feel it? Can this be done?

How can the double drop in the main city revenue be compensated in a way that a person practically does not feel it when he offsets it with new social relations, relationships between people?

Imagine how a town like this needs to live.

We must bring all of this in order, we must discuss and gradually incorporate all these problems into a system, and solve them because this really is a problem. And today it is already arising in many places.

If we are able to express this in a realistic way and imagine it together with scientists, sociologists, and political scientists with calculations and numbers, this will bring us closer to realizing these ideas.

But naturally, in general, nothing can be solved without integral upbringing. And this is the main thing.

Moreover, we must not forget that no problem can be solved without the influence of the Surrounding Light. We must still take into consideration that no matter what our undertakings are like, no matter what kind of wonderful ideas that great people and great minds propose – nothing will work without us hoping, knowing, and working in a way that will attract the Light, and then it will do it.
[76595]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 3

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Question: Considering the fact that everyone lives in different time zones and everyone has different time constraints, is there a possibility for a certain platform to exist one day, where there will always be a seminar going on so people could connect to it when it is convenient for them? Or does a seminar need to begin and end within a certain framework?

Answer: I think that all this can be saved on some kind of a storage medium, and people can enter through the Internet and study in any form convenient to them: alone or as a group.

Of course it is best to study as a group. It is best to study when you are free from any disturbances, etc. But in general, it does not matter. You are gradually entering a virtual force, which you are not yet able to perceive. This work is psychological.

Baal HaSulam writes that this is the continuation of materialistic psychology, but this psychology is of our next level of development, which works with desires and intentions, the things that our corporeal psychology also works with. There is nothing mysterious or mystical about this. We must develop these qualities in us! And nothing else.

There are many people in the world, for example the Bedouins in Israel, who can feel nature very well and are able to tell what is happening 50-100 kilometers from them by reading the tiniest signs; they do not even know how they do it. They feel the Earth, or can tell what is happening in the world according to the behavior of an animal.

We once possessed these feelings too. But they have simply disappeared in us since we have stopped using them. And now we are developing new senses. When you start attending a music school, you gradually develop pitch, musical memory, etc. If you do not develop these things, you remain an amateur. You can develop anything.

Basically, this rudimentary organ exists in us. We simply must develop it. And Kabbalah tells us how to develop the perception of the upper force. We were developing normally in our world, while we did not need it. But now we have reached a state when we do not see a solution without it. We must reveal it.

Imagine when the entire program of nature, all the knowledge, all the qualities, everything passes through you, and you see and feel all of this—then what kind of problems or crises could there be?! Instead of seeing all this as disturbances, you see it as help, birthing contractions, which help you to be born. You are being pushed to the next level. This is what I see in the world instead of a crisis.

And once the people see it, they will go forward with joy and gratitude!
[76443]
From the Vlinius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 2

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Question: At the workshop, I felt the interaction between the masculine and feminine parts. This was an absolutely extraordinary feeling! Now an intensification needs to occur that is amplified not tenfold, but a hundredfold. From where do I obtain this addition, this intensification? What needs to be done, and by whom, right now or at the next workshop?

Answer: A workshop shouldn’t end. A workshop is a small, intermediate stepping stone to the next degree. We shouldn’t forget this state, but keep it within us. If we go outside or sit down to a meal, we maintain the same state as now.

The meal should proceed calmly. Don’t disturb a person sitting next to you with some extraneous questions. There should be minimum discussion.

I’m not saying that you should withdraw into yourself, by no means. But every person should feel that they have time for thoughts and feelings. And the most important thing is to preserve what we felt right now. This is the state that we need to come to.

And after a meal, try to preserve this state even more, because any disturbances that are here and there need to be connected toward the strengthening of our present feeling.

Everything needs to pass smoothly from one into another. Practically the whole congress is one single action. In principle, this should all be accompanied by steady movement with constant ascent.

I am asking you not to lose what you are receiving, collect it bit by bit, the way a child accumulates knowledge and skills and becomes big. This is why all the disturbances should immediately be attached to the movement forward. You will see how fruitful they are. It is thanks to them that we advance. It is written that egoism is “help against you.” It is against, but it is indeed help.
[76503]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Workshop 2 

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Question: In your opinion, was it important to have voiced our common demand during the workshop? I had a feeling that at some point you were nudging the focus group towards expressing “Creator, fill us! We are ready. Change us.” Should these words be said out loud? Or perhaps only “I sensed. I felt…?”

Answer: No. We have to move forward through Kabbalistic sources. We need to read articles, analyze them, and precisely through these articles to penetrate the world of the Creator more greatly and deeply.

We can reveal Him only if there is a primary Kabbalistic source in front of you. Under no circumstances should you trust your thoughts and desires! It’s necessary to follow the text. If you don’t like one text, take another; you can change them.

I open a book, say, Shamati, on any page and I begin to do spiritual work from it. If I see that the page I opened isn’t right and doesn’t quite correspond to my state, then I can turn another 15-20 pages—that’s not important. Then I start reading and working here. But nevertheless, I work from whatever is written in the book.

After all, a Kabbalist describes sequential actions of cause and effect that incrementally lead you forward.

And if you’re going to make things up yourself based on that mass of thoughts and feelings that rise up inside you, then who knows where it will lead you. Being small, we learn like this from older kids, and they tell us what to do, how, and why. And so we must keep on studying like this, progressively.
[76505]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Workshop 2

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When starting a workshop, we need to concentrate on and think only about what unites us—our points in the heart. We need to unify them. Then each of us and the group as a whole will have many times more strength.

Most importantly, this force will be directed at connection with the friends, and then it would be able to evoke the upper Light, which will begin to manifest in this connection. We need to feel that in the connection between us, the common Light is revealed.
[76628]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Workshop 4 

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