Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: …each member of Israel became responsible that nothing shall be missing from any other member of the nation. Only then did they become worthy of receiving the Torah, and not before.

With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the Mitzva, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person, since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.

If we can connect and through this come to mutual guarantee, no one will be able to shake it. You see, the power of Arvut influences everyone and if each feels that his ego has been neutralized, he will stop being concerned for himself and simply will not be ready to be an egoist. The power of Arvut necessarily neutralizes narcissism in everyone, and in this kind of an environment no one can remain uncorrected, this is to say, without self-nullification toward others. The environment nullifies the egoistic needs of the person supplying him with everything he needs.

With sufficient thoughtful support from the environment, my concerns for myself disappear. That is how the network that connects us works and it is impossible to get rid of it. I am linked with them all through thousands of bonds and innumerable threads. The environment activates me. It makes no difference if I want this or not. The mechanisms of the network are a fact, and therefore, since the group supplies my needs, it eliminates my egoistic desire. So, I am free.

Therefore, if the person is connected with the group, he must receive all the strength that he needs from it in order to relax himself. He no longer has concerns about himself. He simply is not prepared to “make” them because the group extinguishes them immediately.

Even today I am in a collective network, but I feel that I am not receiving anything from it like this or anything else that I need. All of my apprehensions are derived from this. We are totally linked. Within the network of threads that link us if I feel that I lack something, then I become apprehensive. I fear for myself, thinking, “What will happen to me?”

However, in the right group, after I arrange connections between us, I find that I am absolutely secure. This neutralizes all my fears and I will be free beyond the limitations of our world.

After all, “our world” is the reality where we feel linked, more or less, dependent on each other and influencing each other negatively. Seemingly, everyone here is not found in his place. This mutual negative connection in this shared spider web is our egoistic world.

To the contrary, when I enter a group of Kabbalists, I build the right connection with the closest components of the system. It is not by chance that I am brought to a group, rather, because I am truly linked to the friends I am not just spending time with a society of people who are like me. Now that I am attracted to the Source, this directs me to connect with someone close to me in the spiritual network, and even if they live thousands of kilometers away from me in the physical network, in spite of all this, I find them.

So, according to the degree of closeness, a system of relationships is developed between us until this supplies me with a state where I feel free of worries about myself. This is the first stage of self-nullification. In the second stage, the friends raise the upper One in my eyes: the group, the Creator, the Giver.

Therefore, the influence of the group is divided into two parts: The first is that it neutralizes the egoistic desire within me. The friends give me a feeling that they are concerned for me all the time no matter what may happen. In the past, my concerns for myself formed a terrifying future for me. Now, the friends give me a secure future. Only a group is ready to do this. It supplies me with Surrounding Light that matches my desires directed at the future. Only the friends can extinguish that and then the sensation of tomorrow disappears so much so I feel beyond time. This is the first condition. The group neutralizes the egoistic concern about the present and the future in me.

Second, I also need a force that will attract me toward the upper. In the name of this, with all their strength, the friends raise the importance of the goal, the Creator, the teacher, the group in my eyes, in other words, the importance of all the means to which I must hold.

In this way, through the collective network that we develop in the group, I reach self-nullification.
[106358]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Question: I live in Peru. This is a big country. In just the capital city, Lima, around eight-million people live, but we haven’t succeeded in building a group. Why?

Answer: I understand and feel your pain very well, but the idea is that there is a higher program and we cannot understand why it is realized exactly in this manner. As long as we have not reached the root, as long as we don’t see the entire system, the entire soul, where each is located and why he needs to experience this fate or another, until then, we will not understand and will not justify the Creator. We always will have claims against him.

I have been disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah since 1983. At that time I wrote my first three books, just thirty years ago. And I began to study six to seven years before that. In the years that have passed, great work has been done throughout the world. Many groups have invested enormous effort in the creation and distribution of materials through a variety of channels.

However, the results are disproportionately small. We see that only few have a desire to attain the truth.

Really, there never will be many people like this. That is how the world is built. Such special people are in the minority and it should not be otherwise for all the rest follow them.

At the moment, we—a few hundred thousand people throughout the world—prepare ourselves correctly. The world will wake up and follow us. In principle, one shepherd is enough for all to reach the goal. Therefore, it is forbidden to judge according to quantity because spirituality is built fully on quality and one person can be equivalent not only to millions, but billions.

Thus, continue to invest effort. Join the American groups through the Internet, and ultimately, we will see as you will come to the conventions with many other people. The main thing here is not to complain. We don’t see the entire “map”; we are not aware of the entire program. It is necessary to accept the result as it is and to act independently of the circumstances. Even when there is emptiness all around, I must turn to the entire world as if everyone is listening to me.

Specifically in this way, I direct myself, turning toward everyone as if all seven billion are listening to me, eager to understand and to find out, to absorb every word. This is my duty, and how many among them will the Creator awaken and to what degree is His business.

I recommend this approach for everyone involved in dissemination. For then I am “pure”; the Creator establishes the time for the world to awaken, and I accept this with equanimity.
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From the Convention in New Jersey 5/10/13, Lesson 1

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Question: The kind of network in which we now live is found in crisis.  Yet we are gradually passing to the next state which is stabilizing anyway.  What is this harmonious state that all of nature reaches when it leaves the crisis?

Answer: This is a state in which a person will transform, become integral, mutually linked.  He will think about everyone as partners in one system. What was obviously a purely theoretical plan will be clearly seen—a complete mutual connection in the world.

Moreover, this mutual connection doesn’t depend on everyone on the face of the earth being aware of all the rest through a chain of five people, or that what one person thinks in one place will immediately appear in another part of the world.  These are basic things.  We are in fact linked between us, like an underground mycelium within a network of roots, with all roots, with all plants, and so forth.

This network holds us, we live in it, are nourished by it.  This is beginning to be discovered now.  To the degree that we accommodate ourselves to it, we benefit; we understand how to live better, how to arrange ourselves in this new level, in this new world that is discovered.  If we don’t want to follow it, then nature will oblige us to do this through its pressure, and this pressure can be very tragic.
[108287]
From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/17/13

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The “Israeli Nation” is a collection of people in whom there are burning spiritual sparks. Whoever has this spark feels an uncontrollable urge to ascend. The spark that is ignited in a person pulls him towards the revelation of the essence and then he is called “Israel” which stands for Yashar El (straight to the Creator).

The sparks or the points in the heart (•) connect a person with the Light that Reforms. Such people can draw, summon the Light, and thus be corrected; whereas without the spark, this correction is impossible. Besides, by the connection between the points in the heart, they can awaken those in whom the points in the heart have not been ignited yet.

On the whole, the spark, which means the force of bestowal, is ignited in our ego, in the shattered desire that is the force of receiving. If I correct this desire, then it all becomes one big point in the heart, which means Israel, a vessel of bestowal, with regard to the nations of the world, who are vessels of receiving.

Thus, Israel is the corrected part of the general vessel and only through it can the special Surrounding Light be passed to the nations of the world. The Light comes in a different manner to desires that don’t have the spark, by “transmitting vessels” who prepare and organize them, and introduce integral education to them, and on the whole operate in order to improve their earthly life. Only Israel can fulfill this mission and only though Israel does the Light pass. Israel is the link between the Creator and the nations of the world.

This is why we are in this world since it’s here that we find such a connection between the different vessels. As for the negative urge and incentive, it’s the Creator who provides them in the form of the current global crisis.

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Question: What is the “Nation of Israel?”

Answer: The “Nation of Israel,” just like any other nation, is a collection of different people, but, unlike other nations, they are united according to a special principle of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Once, people used to live in tribes in ancient Babylon, and then they split up and dispersed in different directions and different nations that are corporeally connected, they were created by their corporeal desires.

In those days, Abraham collected about four or five thousand people out of several millions that made up humanity during the Babylonian age. Those who joined Abraham were people in whom the spark that yearned for something else was burning, the spark that evokes people to ascend above nature. They followed him with great hopes and expectations of finding the Creator.

They received from Abraham the method for the revelation of the Creator that allows a person to learn to love others in order to attain the love of the Creator thanks to this.

This group left Babylon even before the great dispersion and over time became the nation of Israel. First, the sparks were not united and everyone had different desires and could not unite.

However, Abraham began working with them and uniting them by a common idea and one goal, a perception that is above the egoistic desire.

He operated according to the principle that “Love covers all transgressions.” However, people can feel love only if the desire for pleasure grows in them. They acquire a sufficient power of rejection when they overcome it and ascend to love. Otherwise, the uncaring and alienation between them can extinguish any spark.

The dynasty of our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob begins here. The group fulfilled its measure of initial unity, and then a new wave of ego covered it, and as a result, the successful and unsuccessful attempts to unite turned into a kind of work that we call the “exile in Egypt.”

It is the same group. No matter in which tent it dwells, what it studies, and in what it engages, its current state is simply called “Egypt.” “Pharaoh” appears between the friends, mutual hate, and the Torah, the method by which Joseph sustains the group, and later on, Moses.

Finally, the “study group” reaches an unbearable state because the ego simply tears them apart and they don’t know what to do with it. They really want to connect and to establish the mutual connection between them, but the ego separates them so much that they reach a dead end.

Then, they not only understand, but also enter a new state of the essential and vital need to escape from the “king of Egypt,” to exit self-love and transcend it.

Just imagine how strong you must be to hate the ego, how repulsive and unbearable it must seem so that you would “leap” and hold yourself above it. You simply don’t have the power to contact it, and this hate raises you. This is the meaning of the “exodus from Egypt.”

However, escape is not enough. How should we unite now? We still must coexist with the ego. In this state, the children of Israel stand before “Mt. Sinai,” not above hate, but rather, around it. Then, the Light comes, and thanks to it, they acquire the understanding of how to unite correctly, which means to use and to what extent to use the hatred in order to unite above it.

They begin to work mutually in different ways, and it is impossible to do so without incorporating the negative force. In order to receive the positive force, they make a covenant with each other, and between them and the Light, the Creator. Thus, their self-correction begins.

The group is the same group, but from now on it is a nation since now they really are united just like any other nation, but they are united in a collective desire, in sparks of bestowal.

The basis of their unity is not the ordinary corporeal desire for a good life in this world, but the necessity to live in the Creator, in the upper. In fact, the children of Israel also are attracted to the “good life,” but behind these words, there is already a different meaning. The term of what actually is “good” changes.
[108029]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson  05.22.13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut“(Mutual Guarantee): The purpose of Creation lies on the shoulders of the whole of the human race, black, white, or yellow, without any essential difference.

But because of the descent of human nature to the lowest degree, which is the self-love that unrestrictedly rules over all of humanity, there was no way to negotiate with them and persuade them to agree to take upon themselves, even as an empty promise, to exit their narrow world into the wide spaces of the love of others. The exception was the Israeli nation because they were enslaved in the savage kingdom of Egypt four hundred years in horrible torments.

All of humanity clearly has to reach the end of correction, and no one can escape this. But the process is gradual. We begin from easy discernments, and then by using them, we move on to the correction of more difficult discernments.

The easiest part is called “Israel” and it seems to “hasten time.” Only now in the point of transition between the 20^th century and the 21^st century has humanity reached the eruption of the ego that is becoming round. On the other hand, Israel has preceded this process and reached the level of the great “ego” back during the exile in Egypt. Then they fell from the level they had attained and eventually descended to the last exile that has lasted until our times.

The current ego is much greater than the ego in Egypt. In addition to that, it has become round, it has become global, and is similar to the form we will have to enlist on our way to the correction.

Back in Egypt, the desire to receive that opposes the connection in the general circle was revealed among the children of Israel and it doesn’t allow them to be one whole. This is the only thing that is called “the evil inclination.” It isn’t about the size of the desire but rather about its objection to connection.

But the rest of humanity has developed on the basis of the ordinary desire to receive that belongs to this world and is meant to exist in it.

Now Israel, with its evil inclination, is finally ready to be in a circle. We already understand what is going on and how to correct the situation. But humanity doesn’t understand that yet since it has arrived at this circle with the help of its ordinary “linear” ego and not with the help of the evil inclination.

As a result, it’s very difficult for the nation of Israel to connect. No other nation is as divided as this nation. This is how the evil inclination, which no other nation has, is revealed within it. It’s very difficult for the nation of Israel to perform the correction, although they have already been through this path. Today they only have the shattered Reshimot (reminiscences).

On the other hand, the nations of the world are ready to learn about the connection that will improve their life. Because they have no shattered Reshimot they don’t object to connection and if they see that the “linear” connection will provide them with a better future, they accept it.

It turns out that if Israel helps the connection of the world, their connection becomes closer. I cannot even imagine how they can start to connect without it.

This also explains why an external pressure upon the nation of Israel is necessary. This pressure is already growing and it will increase and become an actual threat of annihilation. Otherwise, Israel will simply not understand what and how much is required of them and what is required of them in order to get rid of the external pressure. It’s about an essential external factor that allows them to think about correction.
[107948]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee): A person can help all the people in the world in the ascent up the levels of love of others. Thus he affects a certain measure of advancement on the ladder of love for others in all the people of the world in general. This is because that degree, which that individual caused by his actions, whether large or small, ultimately joins the future in shifting the world to a scale of merit…

And one who commits one sin, which means that he cannot overcome and conquer his filthy self-love, and hence steals or does something of the sort, sentences himself and the whole world to the scale of sin.

Thus we see that Kabbalists look at reality as a unified system. Of course, when a person sentences himself to the scale of merit or to the scale of sin, he sentences the whole world in the same way. His actions necessarily affect and influence all the other mechanisms and the other parts of the whole world down to the very last. Today we discover this in reality, but in fact, all the worlds including our world are a system that is interconnected.

So we have to acknowledge the responsibility for making the right choice, for sentencing myself to the scale of merit, in the dimensions of the whole system. I have to understand what I am responsible for right now, when I worry about the correction. I have to double my concern according to how I imagine the general picture.

This is because with the disclosure of the filth of self-love…, a person subtracts a certain amount from the sentencing to the final scale of merit. This is similar to a person removing from the scale that single sesame seed his friend had put there… Because he could not overcome his petty lust, he pushed the spirituality of the whole world backwards.

This is the system we are constantly in and the slightest movement by even one millimeter is enough to move the whole system. But there is a weakening mechanism, “filters” of concealment, or the worlds.

The system is totally revealed in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) to its full size and depth. Accordingly, whoever is there has to be responsible for the whole system, as he feels it and fully manages it, without a flaw, just like the Creator. There we are totally equal to Him, adhered to Him.

On the other hand, it’s our responsibility and our obligation to enter the system integrally by understanding our mind and our feeling, which depend on the current level that is part of the levels that descend from Ein Sof. We are responsible for the system in general since it’s a qualitative characteristic and not a quantitative one, but to a lesser extent.

For example, I am responsible for keeping the system “clean” and you are responsible for its “color,” and someone else for the “electricity,” another for the “air conditioning,” and so on. Thus I fulfill the uniqueness of my soul, since without me no one will make up the part I have to fulfill when I operate the system in my own unique style. Without me it will not reach wholeness, since it is integral by nature. So every level increases my responsibility: It’s as if I replace the Creator in different aspects, and when I begin to understand the system I begin to understand Him, to feel Him, and to resemble Him.

The system is actually the relationship between the friends. After all, there is nothing but that. We discover everything in the friends, in humanity, in the still, vegetative, and animate nature. This means that we have to discover all the parts of this world in addition to the world itself. This collection of ties is actually the spiritual worlds, mutual bestowal, the system of creation. It’s as if we put on special glasses and see all the mutual connections between all the components.

But this system is revealed gradually. First in the group of ten, and then it grows wider and deeper in discernments that we couldn’t discover otherwise. First it was difficult to notice the connection between us; it was hard to discern it, but with time it’s revealed more in our understanding and feeling and in the most varied forms.

Thus we connect and discover the system and the forces that operate in it that are actually the Creator who sustains this whole complex. We discover the form that He creates in the matter of the desire. He is revealed in matter and not in an abstract form and not in the essence.
[107843]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

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In the News (from Bloomberg): “Germany and France will announce joint proposals this month to address Europe’s soaring youth unemployment, the Labor Ministry in Berlin said, confirming a newspaper report of a planned ‘New Deal for Europe.’

“The blueprint will be unveiled in Paris on May 28 and will enroll the European Investment Bank to unlock billions of euros in loans to companies that create jobs for young people,

“The EIB may ‘leverage’ the 6 billion euros ($7.8 billion) to be made available through 2020 by the European Union to offer loans worth a total of as much as 60 billion euros, the newspaper said, citing unnamed officials. …

“The economy of the 17-nation euro area will probably shrink for a second year while unemployment will rise to a record 12.2 percent, the EU Commission said May 3 as it presented new forecasts. Youth unemployment – defined as people aged below 25 without work – rose to 24 percent in the single currency area in March, according to Eurostat.”

My Comment: Everyone understands that this is not the answer because there is no demand, and it’s unclear what jobs to create and what for. Development drives us towards a society of reasonable consumption of what is necessary for existence: healthy food, clothing, and so forth.

We will no longer be able to create artificial jobs just to occupy people, deliberately produce perishable products. We must admit that we have “arrived” at a new future: There will be no work, but people will be engaged into building their future image of a “person of the integral world.” Correcting oneself is the only work that remains for us.
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Question: A child who wants to be a designer yearns for his goal and therefore plays at it. However, when we begin to work with a group in a factory—begin to learn, to imagine or to play—this group has no motivation. There is neither a need nor a necessity to become integral. There is no need for them to nullify themselves. Moreover, they explain that, “It is the world that is broken. I am good!”

Answer: This is not important. After all, this is because we are not conducting workshops for beginners. First, we have conversations with them including questions and answers. I don’t start by welcoming discussions and arguments because they must rely on people having serious knowledge. Therefore, our system is composed of learning and workshops.

In this way, the first part is informative where, by showing all kinds of clips and pictures, you can explain to the participants with specific examples about what is happening in nature, with us, toward what we are advancing, and  how mandatory and imperative all this is for our salvation.

Motivation is very simple here. Every day we are discovering greater and greater threats from the world around us, from nature, and so forth. If we don’t unite seriously and integrally, then there is a threat to our lives from ecological disaster coming from all around the world, not only from human society.

It also needs to be explained without threats. Rather, all kinds of experts must be invited or interviews with them must be shown in which they explain the necessity for mutual integral cooperation between humans and between them and nature.

We need to give them a general picture of what is happening.

I understand very well that the person is very far from this general picture. He is not concerned about anything other than what concerns him in the present moment. He doesn’t want to see beyond his nose, and he is right! That is how he was created! So, he sees before him a vast world that doesn’t seem to depend on him. Rather, he is included in it only because he needs to live his life and nothing more than this.

However, without threats—rather through education—we show that trouble is already knocking on his door, he then will begin to reflect and think about this.
[107899]
From KabTV’s “Wisdom of Crowds” 5/14/13

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Question: Lately, rich people give up their money for the benefit of society. The fact that they benefit from that is irrelevant. They still think that if they build another hospital or school in Africa, they will benefit society. Even my African relatives who live in Europe say that it won’t help unless we force the Africans to work, but the Africans don’t want to work.

Answer: We have actually prevented them from doing so. In the past Africa used to produce and export different products, but our incorrect attitude towards this continent changed everything.

Question: What will the six billion people on this planet do? We invent work for people just to keep them busy. Was this complex world created so that a person should wake up in the morning, ride over-crowded public transportation, reach an office or a factory, perform mechanical actions, come back home, and thus keep on doing this for the rest of his life until he dies?

Answer: We have turned ourselves into slaves. But now our perception is changing. Man was created to do a totally different kind of work—to work on himself and not to work in production.

We all understand that one percent of the population can provide for the rest of the world whatever is needed to sustain a sensible life, a home, family, health care, and all the rest. One percent at the most, and soon this will also be replaced by automated machines and computers that will produce practically everything.

Man, however, will only engage in regulating the two forces of nature, the force of receiving and the force of bestowal in which we have to exist. We have to develop the force of bestowal in us next to the force of receiving and aspire to balance them.

Implementing the integral education system in factories and schools will mean that after a couple of lessons a person will begin to understand that the world is totally different, that a person doesn’t have to be in control, go to work, work for a whole day, come back home, go to bed, and thus over and over again. He will suddenly understand that this is not his destiny and that it will never help anyone.

It turns out that there is a method that raises us to the next level, and if we don’t reach it out of our freewill, nature will push us in this direction.
[107660]
From KabTV’s “The Global Crisis” 3/19/13

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