Our thoughts and desires are interconnected. Therefore, right now, as we study The Zohar, if someone is being lazy, this weakens everyone else. That person will be punished for his deed in that it will be even more difficult for him to keep studying.

We are all in one common boat. Either I am drilling a hole in it, or I’m trying to the best of my ability to move our common boat with my intention.

The less energy I have, the more difficult it is for me. Yet, if I overcome all these obstacles, then I contribute great efforts to the common effort to evoke the Light. I thereby influence everyone else and this comes back to me through them. As a result, I end up a winner.

Therefore, the more difficult it is during the study, the better it is. I have to feel the responsibility I have because we have all signed a group contract, a mutual guarantee, and this fact has to obligate me to act.

It is impossible to read The Zohar by myself; I need an environment. That environment is the people who are studying all over the world and expecting results from the study. The Creator has awakened several million people in different parts of the world, who are now reading The Zohar together with us.

Every person sitting in front of his TV or computer screen has to understand that if he is being lazy at this moment, then he influences all others! This transgression will come back to him and will push him away from attaining the goal in the same measure that he caused harm to all of us.

Therefore, the study is not just my personal work. Right now all of us together are trying to attract the Surrounding Light and with its help to move our boat closer to the goal. It is written that one has to attain such a degree of love for one’s friend that one would give the friend one’s last pillow if the friend wanted it.

Now think: Your friend wants to advance toward the spiritual goal, and the two of you are moving together in the same direction. However, suddenly you abandon him! What kind of punishment does a traitor of this caliber deserve?

From the 1st Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/10, The Zohar

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The Creator constantly confuses a person by placing obstacles before him all along his spiritual path. And it so happens that the joyful occurrences confuse us even more than the troubles. We suddenly uncover extraordinary opportunities, find success in business, have a chance to go on an exciting trip, and many other small temptations that come to us at every moment.

This causes us to start revealing that we don’t have any ability to control our state without the support of the environment, which is called “mutual guarantee.” If I don’t have global, universal support, with thousands of people all over the world also aspiring to reveal the Creator, despite all the obstacles which He deliberately places before us, then I cannot go through the “49 gates” – the obstacles that separate me from the Creator. And then I cannot reach the last, 50^th gate, where I unite with Him. (40 designates the distance from Malchut to Bina, and 10 is my own structure. Together they add up to 50.)

If I am not connected to people who are doing the same thing, then it’s all over for me and I will never attain the goal. I will stretch this work out for several lifetimes, and unfortunately, this is what is happening to people.

Even conventional science is now revealing that human thoughts are interconnected and transferred miraculously from one end of the world to the other. Scientists explain this by saying that our very nature causes us to think in synchrony. However, we who study Kabbalah understand that we are simply connected to one another through our desires within one common net of souls. That is why my thoughts and desires are transferred to everyone else.

Moreover, if we aspire toward the spiritual goal, then with this thought we begin to actively influence everyone and it spreads all along the entire system. Mutual guarantee is this inner intention, rather than sending each other SMSs over the phone. Mutual guarantee is when I think about spirituality, I desire it, and I’m burning with the desire for others to think about the same goal as well. Then I am redeemed from the angel of death.

If others don’t think about this, then nothing will help me and I will never be able to make the right calculation. I will always be distracted by something else. I won’t have the basis, the connecting net that holds me inside like a mother holding a baby in her hands. Without this, it’s impossible to attain our goal.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: Why was Sodom destroyed? Its laws seemed to be just. Everybody received what they were due.

My Answer: In Sodom, everybody stayed to himself. “Leave me alone, stay away! I give you nothing, you give me nothing. Then we won’t have any conflicts. Everybody is by himself. Everything is fair and just. You got a problem? Take it up with the Creator. But leave me alone!” The citizens of Sodom had turned this into religion. But, in and of themselves, the laws were not bad.

In contrast, the state of the world today is far worse than Sodom was. Now, not only is everyone separate unto themselves, everybody wants to destroy, steal from, and use everybody else. This was not the case in Sodom. The city’s laws stated, “Don’t be good to others, but don’t cause harm either. You’re forbidden to even wish harm to others in your thoughts!”

Sodom’s only flaw was that its laws prevented people from uniting, “Do whatever you want, but don’t get close to others.” This means don’t connect with others. It also prohibits waging war; however, war, too, is a kind of connection or, as in a breaking, a kind of interpenetration.

A breaking is no longer a state of “Sodom” but rather “Jerusalem.” When the broken parts of Bina and Malchut connect to one another, they can be corrected. However, Sodom cannot be corrected because there is no mutual connection. It can’t receive the qualities of Bina, and therefore, it simply must be destroyed. It is forbidden to touch these parts of the desire to enjoy that can’t mix with others, which as result cannot be corrected.

Sodom’s ideology is incredibly strong. In today’s world, we can bring it out, explain it to people, and they would understand and wish to follow it; however, it’s flawed in that it doesn’t allow the mixing of the parts of the broken soul, the qualities of Bina and Malchut, which is necessary for the next phase of correction.

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A question I received: What does it mean that we have to desire to study The Zohar together? How should we do this or feel it?

My Answer: Correction means that all desires are united together. When our desires are separated from one another, we feel this reality or this world within them. When we unite our desires together, then inside them we feel a reality called “the spiritual world.” Everything is very simple and it does not involve space or time. Everything depends on the unity of desires into one whole or their separation from one another.

Right now we feel this reality because our desires are disconnected and each one stands on his own. Inside your own small desire, which is aimed only at your own good, you feel what you are able to feel inside it. You feel Light, but when the Light appears inside this desire it seems to you as what you see now. Do you want to see something different? Well, you won’t be able to do anything with these earthly desires all the way until the End of Correction.

When this earthly desire is revealed and grows within us, we feel that we live. Afterward it dwindles and we feel that we die. Then it comes to life again and dies as if it is revived in order to be used and then goes back into concealment. However, besides it, there is another desire called “the point in the heart,” which comes from another, spiritual level. This is a desire we can connect to others. We cannot connect the desires of this world, which are desires of the still, vegetative, and animate levels. They exist in their regular form, where every person is connected with others to the degree that nature obliges him to, and not more than this.

However, we can unite our desires called “the points in the heart,” and then we will feel the spiritual world within them. This is why I have to imagine this common desire (Kli or vessel). It is very tangible and it really is in our hands. If we could unite our desires for spirituality, our points in the heart, together through mutual help and mutual connection, then we would feel the spiritual world. However, the sensation within them has to be mutual. It cannot take place in each separate individual because it is revealed through the unity of desires.

What is it that becomes revealed? It’s the connection among the desires. This connection is called fulfillment, the Creator, or the Light that fulfills the desire. We don’t reveal the Light by itself. We only reveal our impression of the Light, the quality of bestowal that clothes into us. It clothes precisely into our relationships of love and bestowal to one another.

There is a force that enables us to unite together and treat each other with mutual bestowal. My bestowal to another person is called “Light,” and the mutual bestowal that I reveal among everyone is called “the Creator.” This is the meaning of the verse, “From love for the created beings to love for the Creator.”

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A question I received: What advice can you give us now before such a meaningful event as the Zohar Convention so that all of our thoughts and intentions will be as one thin ray of Light, concentrated on the same thing?

My Answer: We should be scared to death that one person will lose the intention and drill a hole in the collective boat.

Everyone should be concerned about this – we need a mutual guarantee.

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We read the words of The Zohar, but we don’t understand anything yet. I only provide a brief explanation in order to direct a person, to show him where to begin searching for these qualities inside himself and how to picture them. For example: Aaron and his sons, the evil force, Moses, and the Golden Calf are all qualities that we need to recognize inside ourselves.

Right now, each person’s desire added to everyone’s collective desire is our “mutual guarantee,” where mutual guarantee is the force of unity, which consists of many layers. Each layer or degree has a collective force of unity, called a mutual guarantee. It works the same way in the human body; the general defense system gives all of its strength to overcome an illness. The immune system works together to battle a foreign body to try to achieve the desired goal.

On every level and for every type of inner work, a person needs to receive another form of a mutual guarantee from this force of unity – a feeling that everyone desires the same thing, but no one understands each other, and that everyone thinks differently. All of this helps new sensations to begin to emerge within us.

Each person has the desire to interpret the text in his own way, according to the root of his soul; he directs himself in a particular way, according to his form, and he tunes into the collective desire to reach the spiritual goal. All individual desires, needs, and aspirations connect this collective force together making it very rich, complex, and multicolored. And later, when the Surrounding Light begins to influence a person through this template, he goes through a collection of desires, demands, and confusion – a depiction of all the qualities of every person described in The Book of Zohar.

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A question I received: When we work on uniting with others, do we reveal the common ego or our personal egos?

My Answer: We all work on uniting in order to achieve a common desire to reveal the Creator, the quality of bestowal. There is no separation between the personal ego and the collective one. I depend on you, you depend on me, and everyone depends on everyone. If one person drills a hole in our collective boat, everyone will drown.

Therefore, the individual and the group are united as one (Echad). If we are marching into battle together to reach a goal, then does it really matter if it’s an individual or a group? It is like a team: either we win together or we die together. A society has all that an individual has and vice-versa. Therefore, the concept of “the individual” disappears and it becomes irrelevant whether I succeed or someone else does. It is everyone’s success or failure that matters. The group and I are the same thing.

This is called a mutual guarantee. The fact is that we are unable to achieve it on our own, but it’s what the Light of Correction (Ohr Makif) wants for us. We are given a condition: to unite as one man with one heart. However, we are unable to do this. We reveal our inability to bond, which is known as “the broken Tablets.” We understand that we are incapable of this since we are opposite to the Torah.

Unity is not what I imagined spirituality to be. I imagined it as something I can acquire using my ego. However, when it comes down to it, I don’t want spirituality because it is opposite to everything I ever imagined it to be. This is true evil being revealed in me: the fact that I don’t want unity and I am unable to achieve it. This is called the “Golden Calf,” where the Upper Force makes a calf for me. It is done by Aaron, the quality of kindness (Chesed), and this revelation occurs inside a person as a result of tremendous effort.

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A person who really aspires to spirituality will not calm down with a small attainment. He will always feel that he does not understand or know anything because he does not feel spirituality. The point in the heart is expressed precisely through this need to feel the Upper World.

You have to feel this spiritual picture inside of you. The Zohar is a book of adventures. But it’s not a book you simply read or a movie you watch on a screen. You have to enter inside The Zohar. And it’s not like entering our illusory world, but it can only be done once you get rid of all your illusions and fantasies. You don’t need special 3-D glasses to feel that you are inside this movie (like when watching a movie such as Avatar).

This demand comes from the point in the heart and it can only be increased with the help of the group. Only the group can give a person the strength needed to reach the goal in addition to his point in the heart. If he doesn’t cancel himself before the group in order to receive this force from it, then he won’t attain anything. This constitutes our mutual guarantee without which none of us would have a spiritual vessel (Kli).

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A question I received: How can I strengthen my connection to the group if I only see them on the computer screen?

My Answer: This weekend there will be a global Kabbalah congress, hosted simultaneously in dozens of places around the world. Some places will host gatherings of hundreds of people, and other places – dozens. All together there will be thousands of people all over globe in attendance, all of whom desire to feel as one!

We must understand that we can only unite by connecting our points in the heart. Let’s participate together in all the lessons, meals, seminars, concerts, and in everything. But the most important thing is our thoughts.

I must remember that I am together with thousands of people all over the world who share the same desire with me. Thought and desire are not limited by physical distance. They are forces that spread with infinite speed and are unstoppable. The force of thought and desire is more powerful than anything in the universe.

Therefore, if we try to unite together, we will definitely evoke changes within us, and I very much hope for that to happen. Today our world group is strong enough to help everybody make the jump over the “wall” and cross into the spiritual world. If we try to do it together, then we have every opportunity we need to make it happen. It all depends on our willingness to connect and the understanding that one person is incapable of establishing this connection alone.

Our state is identical to the one at Mount Sinai. We are given a condition: Unite as one man with one heart. But everybody understands that this is impossible! We are standing around Mount Sinai (Sina means “hatred” in Hebrew). A mountain of hatred separates us from one another; it separates all of us. But we have points in the heart, which are gathered at the base of this mountain and unable to do anything.

That is why we demand for the Creator to be revealed in order to give us the Torah – the Light. If I were capable of connecting to others on my own, I would have no need for the Creator. He created the evil inclination, which is the evil I reveal while standing at the base of this mountain. We find that we are unable to unite together despite our great desire and understanding that there is no other way to go, that this is our only salvation.

It follows that we demand the Torah as a means of correction. But this is only made possible by the Upper Force, which unites us into one common spiritual vessel by assembling together all of its disconnected parts.

And then the Creator is revealed to the creature; this is called “the giving of the Torah,” where the Creator acts as a witness or a guarantor to our mutual guarantee. It is precisely He who upholds this mutual guarantee; He is the collective force of bestowal that unites us together.

From that moment on we continue to build our common spiritual vessel (Kli) by ourselves, having set off on a forty-year-long journey into the desert…

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I connect the points in the heart wishing to create a Kabbalistic group out of them, or the unification of the souls of Isra-el (“directly to the Creator”). Meanwhile, besides the point in the heart, each person also has a part of the egoistic desire. We are willing to cancel this ego of ours in order to unite. And to the extent that we unite in this common desire, according to its quality of unity and mutual guarantee, we feel the Upper Light, the Creator, the quality of bestowal, which governs within us.

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