Question: What is a friend in the ten?

Answer: A friend is called “haver.” “Haver” comes from the word “hibur,” connection. Connection implies that we are different in our natural desires and at the same time united together in one goal.

Let us say there is one Kli and a second Kli, and they cannot connect with each other, but they can work to achieve one goal in which they unite, meaning, we unite only in the Creator and in no other way.

Egoists who are ready to annul their own egoism in order to unite in the Creator, to be incorporated in Him, are called friends. It is either women or men, but of the same gender. Only the Creator can connect us, and we can only ask Him about it. Even if this is not a real prayer, we can still ask.

If a person chooses the goal of attaining the Creator, then it can only be achieved by uniting different desires into one goal. Therefore it is said that the smallest group is two people.

But in order to create a whole group, it is desirable to be ten. Rabash writes about this in one of his first articles, not nine people and not eleven, but precisely ten. Why is this so? We study this from the unfolding of the four stages of direct light, from the structure of the ten Sefirot.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”

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Question: How can one reach the correct, true prayer at a convention?

Answer: All those attending the convention must understand why they are coming and what they will ask of the Creator. I come to the convention to be in such a connection with others that would give us a common force capable of breaking through the wall between us and the Creator.

Therefore, I come to the convention to unite with others, to be influenced by them, and to be inspired by how well they can do this, how they are managing, and the strength and opportunities they bring. I see friends who have traveled from far away, who are eager, who understand that there is a chance to break out of the shell in which we are trapped.

Baal HaSulam gives the example of a worm that lives in a radish, feeding on its bitterness, it thinks the whole world is like that. But when it pokes its head out, it sees sunshine, light, and hears birds singing: “Ah, what a beautiful world! Where was I before?”

This is what we need: to break through the shell of the radish we are in because beyond it, we see nothing. We come to the convention to absorb each other’s impressions and inspiration and together turn to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”

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Question: What is connection and my care for friends, for the group, for the ten?

Answer: This comes gradually when you make many efforts and realize that they do not give you anything. Then in complete detachment, you finally begin to understand that you have to follow the path indicated by the Kabbalists.

Therefore, you need to turn to the center of the group, and within the connection between you ask not for yourself, but for the others. By asking for them, you are actually asking for your spiritual self. And when you ask only for yourself, you ask for the physical self. And all of this a person begins to reveal only from his defeat when he sees that he is at a dead end.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”

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We have a very complex relationship with the Creator. On one hand He is a friend; on the other, a master, and from yet another perspective, a correcting, fulfilling force.

The Creator is everything. He cannot be defined as a single entity. Everything I feel at any moment, everything I relate to, receive from, or connect with is all the Creator.

Then the group fades away in my perception. It becomes my Kli, that is, the feeling through which I sense the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”

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Question: If my husband and I want to “kill” each other, is this a sign that we are progressing, or on the contrary, descending?

Answer: In any case, you need to rise above it, both on the animate and spiritual levels. What good is there in wanting to “kill” each other?

Show your husband out of spite that you can rise above yourself; let him be envious. When two people study Kabbalah, they can make significant progress, but it requires double work, both in the group and with the wife. The wife is like another group.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “On the Verge of Lishma“

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 8

Are Prayers a Fixed Order of Corrections?

Every new state is a correction process. A new state is called “a new day.” This new state comes from above, and we have no influence over it, except through our effort to carry out that day’s corrections. The corrections at each level are essentially the same, but the external conditions change, and the person’s work changes accordingly.

The order of corrections remains the same since every structure of the vessel at each level comprises ten Sefirot. However, the feeling is completely different because the light and the vessel differ. Therefore, without refining our inner self, we view all prayers as a single prayer, i.e., one that we read from the Siddur. However, if we refine our inner self, then each prayer is new every time.

In Part 12 of The Study of the Ten Sefirot, it is written that the day begins in the evening; i.e., preparation for the next day starts from the energy of the previous day. This preparation includes the evening Shema, the bedtime Shema, and continues through the night thanks to the previous day. But from midnight onward, the vessels change. A completely new vessel is created, which is prepared through the morning sacrifices. Then follows the Shema for the sacrifices, the Shema for the Creator of Light, and so on.

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Question: You said you could not rest; you were always looking for something. Did you understand what you were looking for? This is a personal question for you.

Answer: Not quite. The meaning of life. What is going on with me? How should I act to find answers to the questions? This type of questions.

Question: So something did not satisfy you?

Answer: Sure, I was dissatisfied with meaninglessness.

Comment: Scientific work is pointless, as is…

My Response: Of course, all that is…

Question: Was there some kind of premonition that it had to be somewhere, that you must seek it?

Answer: In general, it is somewhere because nature itself does not tolerate this emptiness. It screams outright, screams there is a goal and there is truth, and it is for everyone although each person may have their own, but one can find it.

Question: Did you feel this inner cry?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: Did you reach a point where if you could not achieve your goal, there was no point in living?

Answer: Definitely. For many years it was meaningless.

Question: How did you come out of these states?

Answer: It is not easy, but I think a lot of people are still in such a state.

The most important thing is to understand that it does not depend on you, it is given to you from above, it is a gift from nature. And you must keep looking for answers to the question of your fate.

Comment: That is, on a positive note, you keep going, you are not stopping.

My Response: Absolutely, yes.

Question: How long do these states last: “If I do not find it, life is not worth living”? Are these statements internal?

Answer: I have had it for decades.

Question: What is the most important moment in your life?

Answer: The most important moment was when I found my teacher. I realized that a great happiness had befallen me now.

Question: In all the time that you have been studying Kabbalah, have you ever regretted it?

Answer: No. How could it have happened?

Comment: Probably the person asking may have doubts.

My Response: Doubts, meaning to forget and fall asleep?

Comment: I do not know, maybe there is something else.

My Response: I am not hiding from anything, and I am not turning a blind eye to anything; there simply is nothing else.

Question: You have been studying for a long time. More than forty years, nearly fifty. Was there no moment of doubt? Have you ever regretted it? Or were there some doubts like if you were in the right place?

Answer: No, such depth and horizons are revealed to you that you have nothing more to look for. Either you give it up, or you stay with it.

Question: So you never had any doubts, and you went along with it. But you did go through different states, right?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Why are these states given on the path?

Answer: To test yourself.

Question: So, you were questioning yourself?

Answer: Yes. “Do I need it?”

Question: “Am I in the right place?” Did you ask yourself this?

Answer: “Am I in the right place?” Not really. Whether I have the right sources, whether the methodology is correct, whether I should behave this way—all such questions were there.

Question: How did you answer these questions?

Answer: My answer was that I did not believe in anything, and therefore—to check.

Question: Is there anything in life you regret most and would like to take back and do differently?

Answer: Yes, I would like to take back and redo absolutely everything except my choice in life. That is, the choice itself is correct, but its implementation could have been more intense.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/1/24

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Question: When you feel that you are hated, what is your internal reaction?

Answer: I need to look at why I caused such a reaction.

Question: So you think about why you triggered that reaction?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Let’s say you find the reason. What is next?

Answer: I must correct myself.

Question: What does this correction mean?

Answer: Correction means improving myself so that next time there would be no reason to hate me for it.

Question: Is hatred actually a reaction of egoism?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Fully, absolutely?

Answer: Definitely.

Question: So today you have a different conversation with your own egoism?

Answer: Yes.

Question: You often say that the Creator is jealous. Are you jealous? What do you feel when your students leave you for another teacher?

Answer: Completely indifferent!

Comment: That is hard to understand. You invested in the student, watched him grow…

Answer: I did everything I could to bring him closer to the truth. And if he ultimately feels his place is not among my students, that is his right.

How could I turn a student into a slave? That would be far worse than any wrongdoing, it would be stealing his freewill! That is it! It is almost like removing him from the pedestal of being a human.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/21/24

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