The Importance of the Giver

610.2Question: The basis of the spiritual world is the importance we attach to it. The sources say that there is only a gram of light and a gram of desire, and everything else is determined by how we treat it, what importance we give to this or that phenomenon. How does this happen?

Answer: We are used to the fact that in our world desires and fillings have some kind of metric proportionality: meters, cubic meters, parsecs, distances, tons, etc.

And in the spiritual world there are no earthly dimensions. Everything there is measured only by feelings, by the relationship of one to the other. Therefore, if I am concerned about a gram of some material, which for me may be more valuable than the entire universe and all life, since, let’s say, this gram is the birth of a new life, then I treat it as something that fills the entire universe. It is more to me than anything else. This is how the spiritual magnitude of an object is measured.

In other words, a spiritual object has neither geometric nor metric dimensions and is determined only by the magnitude of my attitude, my attention, and the greatness of the object in my eyes. These are purely subjective measurements.

Question: In principle, does a person who attains spirituality, a Kabbalist, enjoy not what the Creator gives him, but how important the Creator is in his eyes?

Answer: He does not feel what the Creator gives him. He feels only in the measure of the greatness of what the Creator gives him.

Question: Take an example from our world. Let’s say a cup of coffee is also from this single force. I can just have a coffee. But if some important person made it for me, I would naturally be filled not only with a drink, but also with the importance of this person, how great he is in my eyes, in the eyes of the whole society. Is that how it works?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: But still, there must be some kind of material…

My Response: There must be material in our world. That is why we start with the material world, which is created so that we can move from it to other, more abstract categories.

Question: So I have to treat all the pleasures of this world in the following way: it is given to me by the Creator, and I only lack the importance of the one who gives it to me?

Answer: Yes, but when I begin to develop importance to the one from whom I receive, and it is in me more than the importance of the received object, then I move on to other dimensions.

That is, the object itself no longer matters in my eyes. What matters is the importance of the one who gave it to me. And then I move from the sensations of our material world to the dimensions and sensations of the upper world: I received this from the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States. The Significance of the Spiritual” 5/21/19

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Crossing the Machsom “In The Blink Of An Eye”

962.3Question: You often say that now we will cross through the Machsom. And many, especially beginners who really want it, get disappointed.

I remember how in my first congress I thought: now, now, now. And the older ones said: “Yes, he says that every congress.” And so every time a person loses the importance of the goal.

How can we rise above it? After all, the longer a person studies, the more each congress becomes routine for him.

Answer: No, this is the wrong attitude because everything adds up to one strong attack. Therefore, the accumulation of disappointments, efforts, hopes, dreams, and their non–fulfillment, unreality, their distance or apparent proximity, elusive hope—all this accumulates in us and eventually leads to a state where we still become worthy for the spiritual world to open up to us.

There is nothing in our world that can replace this work in terms of its importance, necessity, eternity and perfection, and aspiration for something higher. Everything else is an animal existence.

So if a person denies it or says: “Come on, whatever,” he should just be thrown overboard the ship. He is ballast and has no right to stay.

Every beginner hopes that now he will slip into the spiritual world. However, we know that it is very difficult, and at the same time we still have to believe that it can happen at any minute. That is what it says: “The salvation of the Creator is instantaneous and unexpected, like the exodus from Egypt.”

So, if you’ve been told: “That’s it, in a moment!”, and immediately it happens. This is really the only way. At the most inopportune moment! At night, when it’s dark, when there is no hope and no prerequisites for this, suddenly “bam,” and that is it. It is given the opportunity to urgently rise up and escape from egoism, get rid of it. In a hurry!

Now they give you such an aspiration, such pressure, such a kick from behind that you fly away from it in the dark, not knowing where. And you don’t need to know! And those who reason with their smart brains, will remain with them in the animal body and in the animal world.

So only the constant accumulation of efforts, the integration of all hopes and plans will lead to getting rid of egoism.

I do not know what those people who are ballast are striving for, what they think, what hope, goal, or deliverance they imagine. In Kabbalah, deliverance means getting rid of egoism—only.

Question: And if a person is completely desperate?

Answer: Let him go. If he stays in the group, but is in despair, does nothing, believes that everything is over, he ruins himself even more. He is a ballast in the hands of his friends, like a seriously ill man, like some kind of appendage. He’d better leave. I advise.

Question: So there is no other way for him except to leave?

Answer: Only if he silences his mind and heart and gives himself completely to the flow of the group, he will see how it takes him out into the wide open.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Cross the Machsom” 11/14/10

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The Spiritual versus Material World

49.01Question: Kabbalah studies take many years. Why do people break down and leave?

Answer: Many of my former students who left us still harbor bitterness, even hatred, toward me and a negative attitude toward our organization because they see how difficult it is to practice Kabbalah.

And it is true. A person feels it is challenging for him; therefore, as usual, he looks for an excuse in his instinct of self-preservation.

And to justify oneself means to humiliate and discredit me. Go online and see what they write. Why? It is from the instinct of self-preservation. A person must assert himself, which means destroying the other.

But I don’t care what is written there. Sometimes, I hear from my students that someone wrote such and such. Well, So they wrote… Of course, this interferes with dissemination. However, this doesn’t bother me personally. I still do my job, and whoever comes comes.

A person has a clear instinct—to put down someone else for his self-aggrandizement. If he cannot rise, then by suppressing someone, he supposedly rises relative to others.

I don’t measure myself relative to others. We must measure ourselves against the Creator! Therefore, in Kabbalah, the more exalted there are the better!

In our world, you want only to be the richest and the rest poor so that you are the strongest and the rest are the weakest. In spirituality, this is impossible! Only together with like-minded people can you achieve something! And the more people there are with you, the higher you rise since everything is built on a combination, unity, and mutual guarantee, a common vessel.

But in our world, on the contrary, everything is built on suppression and disregard for others. Therefore, you can immediately see where people are. Sometimes, I hear what this or that person is saying and immediately understand where he is.

I don’t even want to check him through the grid of my properties and powers in a spiritual state. Just hearing it is enough. If a person responds well, he moves upward toward correction, and if he reacts poorly, he descends into egoism.

Question: What do you mean when you say that you test a person through the grid of your spiritual properties?

Answer: It is impossible to explain it to others. What is the point? It still won’t help.

The properties of each person are in a common Kli, in a common vessel, in a common soul. But why should I feel it there if it is at the very bottom? It is as if in our world, you went to the slums where he lives, to the dirt in which he exists, to the environment in which he is located.

Do you need to plunge into all this?! For what? I don’t even want to think about such people, let alone contact them. It is not worth it. Contacting them gets you dirty. That is why Kabbalists don’t do this.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah, Science and New Age” 1/28/12

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Spiritual Scale: One to One

944Question: We say that we are moving toward spiritual conception (Ibur). Where are we headed now? How do you assess our current state?

Answer: We are moving toward such a unity where we will truly feel ourselves connected together like a small body. This is the state of Ibur where we have nothing but a common point formed from the connection of many points.

Question: Can this be felt in your own group of ten or in any random group of ten?

Answer: It makes no difference. In spirituality, there is no difference at all. We say a group of ten because there is nothing but that. And if there are thousands or millions of groups of ten, it is still one group of ten. It depends on the scale at which you measure it. You can increase the scale tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold, a millionfold, and then narrow it back down to the minimal, rational one-to-one scale.

In spirituality, one to one is the ten Sefirot, the group of ten. It contains practically everything created by the Creator. In order to unite and correctly envision this group of ten, we sort of break it down into its components and then try to reassemble it, explore how we can connect, achieve some kind of conjunction with each other, and so on.

What does Kabbalah fundamentally deal with? It addresses the laws of communication between egoistic individuals guiding them to organize into a single integral altruistic system known as the ten Sefirot.

The scale, whether larger or smaller, does not matter. It is the same system. We do not need to correct the whole world, all ten billion people; we need to correct ten people.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”

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Be Afraid and Pray

939.02Question: Usually a lot of people who just show interest in Kabbalah come to the congresses. You said that we have to reach such power that it is sufficient for everyone. This is an unbearable feeling of responsibility. Do we need to include a request for these people in our prayer for our friends?

Answer: We are obliged to consider everyone as our friends, everyone in the world who is with us in any form of unification: via the Internet, by telephone, it does not matter. They are all, in general, our friends, they all participate in some way in our striving forward, no matter what level each is at.

We have to think about them. We are pioneers, the forward-looking group. Therefore, we have to act this way.

Comment: When I pray for my friends, I periodically forget to include everyone else in my prayer, then it seems that my prayer is incomplete.

My Response: All this, of course, is formal. We do not need to pay individual attention to new people, we should automatically include them within ourselves and continue our spiritual work. For now, you cannot yet care for these friends to be with you. But it is necessary to be reminded about this.

Habit is second nature, you will gradually get used to thinking about them. And not only thinking, but genuinely empathizing and raising MAN together with them. You will feel that they are inside you.

Question: And what should we do with the feeling of responsibility that presses on us that we will not have enough power for everyone?

Answer: It is very good that you feel such pressure. It is wonderful! Be afraid! This is the best thing I can wish for you.

Be afraid, worry, suffer. All these are necessary feelings that push you to think about unity and to direct it correctly to the Creator.

Question: So, be afraid and pray?

Answer: Certainly. Without fear, there is nothing at all. Fear is the most correct, natural feeling of our empty desire. I am very glad that you feel this way. I wish this feeling for everyone.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the convention”

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Questions about Spiritual Work—152

221.0Question: What is the desire to receive I can use for the sake of bestowal to others?

Answer: Anything that the other person wants. If you wish them success, you must use your desire to receive to pass it on to them.

Question: A person has 613 selfish desires. Are they first corrected to bestowing for the sake of bestowal, and then to receiving for bestowal?

Answer: Not all and not necessarily in a specific order. It varies for each person, but generally bestowing for the sake of bestowal is corrected first, followed by receiving for bestowal, from small pleasure to great.

Question: What does it mean that the Torah fills desires?

Answer: The Torah is the quality of bestowal, love, closeness, and peace. You must feel that these feelings fill your desires. Ask for it. Ask for yourself, your friends, for your group, for everyone.

Question: As a child, I saw how tefillin affected my parents when my father put it on. It strengthened their bond and created an even greater desire. How can we increase our desire in a way that we relate to it like tefillin?

Answer: We have a stronger influence—our connection. If we unite with each other and together turn to the Creator, there is nothing greater and higher than this.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/24, Writings of Rabash “And You, Israel”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 7/25/24

Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 9”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 557 “Concerning Ohr Hozer [Reflected Light]”

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3rd part of the Lesson – Lesson on the Topic of “The Spiritual Power of a Physical Gathering”

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 7/24/24

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The Growth of Egoism Is a Condition for Spiritual Advancement

115.06For this reason, they were not ready to receive the Torah at the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but only when they came out of Egypt and became a complete nation. Only then was there a possibility to guarantee everyone’s needs without any care or concern (Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”)

After leaving Babylon, the children of Israel went through three spiritual periods known as “Abraham,” “Isaac,” and “Jacob.” These are the right, left, and middle lines interacting with each other.

While in Babylon, people suddenly felt a massive surge of egoism tearing them apart. Therefore, Abraham’s group left Babylon and began to draw closer to each other. This was the ascent to the spiritual level of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

However, while uniting, they again found themselves under the control of egoism. This period is called the Egyptian exile.

The constant growth of egoism is necessary for our further advancement, otherwise we would have nothing to rise above and no basis for working with each other. Therefore, periods of spiritual development always follow this pattern: ascents and descents, ascents and descents.

But the descents are not entirely new states. From the state of a shattered soul, negative relationships and negative qualities continuously arise within each of us and between us, which we perceive as descents.

This is how we move forward. If a person stocks up on the correct energy, has a group, engages in systematic studies, and needs to progress, they will inevitably experience descents and various unpleasant states. But it is precisely by overcoming these states that they will advance.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”

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Directed to the Truth

272Question: What is the truth?

Answer: There is only one truth—the Creator. Everything else is false, relatively, of course, based on what is closer to the Creator or farther from the Creator. But in principle, all of it is false.

Question: But we still receive from the Creator. We do not perceive Him directly, but reveal Him in some form of clothing. What here is the truth if it is not clothed in the desire to receive?

Answer: The extent to which the Creator is clothed in what we feel is how we should evaluate these things. Truth is revealed in the similarity of the Kli to the light that fills it. If there is a small difference between them, then the Kli will appear spiritually more powerful to us. And vice versa.

Question: Does a Kabbalist discern the difference? For example, does he feel falsehood in material Kelim, and then switch and feel the truth in spiritual Kelim? How can one make the switch?

Answer: Begin to direct yourself to the truth through spiritual possibilities, not material ones. Strive to see in the manifestation of people their higher human essence, how much they can rise above the material world and evaluate actions, objects, and forces as far from egoism as possible.

You need to switch to the sensation of truth, i.e., tune yourself only to the truth, pray for it, and receive only the truth.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is Truth?”

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