A question I received: I know you and your group only through the television screen. I’m scared of going to the Zohar Convention 2010 and feeling alone in a room full of people. How do I deal with this fear?

My Answer: This is a common question. People are scared of coming to the Congress and feeling alone in a room filled with 6,000 people. Don’t worry, you won’t feel alone. If a person is really determined and aimed at the goal, he really mustn’t miss a Congress. Don’t be deterred by fear or any other worries. Simply close your eyes and come. You will be inspired by such a large gathering of people who all share one common goal. We will listen, study, and sing together.

You simply don’t have any other opportunity to attain this kind of unity. It’s impossible to attain it through a television screen. However, once it has been attained, this unity will work on you. Then, you can return to the TV screen for several more months of study.

You must be present for all three days because it’s not quite as simple as walking in and connecting right away. It’s a good thing that you are scared for your work lies in overcoming your fear.

On the first day, you’re only beginning to enter the spiritual work. Toward the middle of the second day, we begin to feel the connection, the warmth and the unity. A certain spiritual sensation begins to emerge within us. It’s very small, but it begins to prepare us for spiritual revelation. The third day brings the anticipation of parting, but the unity has been achieved, even if only for a moment.

In the spiritual world, a moment is all you need. If a contact has been made, it remains forever. Nothing is lost in the spiritual world. When you return to the TV screen, that sensation you’ve experienced and that contact you’ve established will continue to develop within you.

Everyone has to come to the Congress to feel together with everyone else. In doing this, you will give your soul a magnificent present.

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A question I received: What conclusions for our inner work can we draw from the principle that all of reality is perfect in relation to the Creator?

My Answer: This indicates that all the flaws are inside us, not in the Creator, and we must only correct ourselves in order to feel perfection. In reality, we already exist in the perfect state.

I hope that by preparing for  The Zohar Convention 2010 in February and gathering together, we will attain such a powerful unity that we will actually feel this. Spirituality becomes revealed only inside the unity of souls, not in the souls themselves. Inside the individual souls it is only possible to feel our world, whereas the spiritual world is felt inside the connection among the souls.

This connection can be attained by virtue of quality, in which case it’s enough to have a small amount of people – even ten people suffices if they are very powerful. Alternatively, if there are many people, their number can make up for what they lack in quality.

Quality times quantity equals power. So let’s hope that the upcoming unity will connect newcomers and old-time students into one whole, and then every person will receive the entire force of this unity which will give us a push upwards, toward the understanding and sensation of a new, spiritual reality. Then we will feel it in addition to the mundane reality that we feel today.

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All of our work happens in the “dark,” after we were together and felt unity and inspiration. Now that we have gone our separate ways, every group and every person have to attain the same joy, inspiration, and power that we reached at the Congress with our joint efforts.

If we do so, then by the time we meet at The Zohar Convention 2010 we will arrive there with the force that we realized after our last meeting by ascending above all the “sinners” that become revealed in us. If we are always inspired from the time of our last Congress to the next one (which has never happened yet), then we will really be prepared for the next Congress.

We must now make efforts to feel the same elevation as we felt during the Congress. Otherwise, all our work will go to waste. Now is our chance to ascend. At the Congress we were influenced by the environment; every person influenced everyone else. This is why each of us felt elevated; it was an “awakening from Above.” Now, in order to grow, we have to absorb all of that influence like a grain planted inside the earth.

Now is exactly the time each of us must do this! Each of us received everything from the others, but only potentially, rather than practically. The Congress is a time of giving, and now, between the Congresses, is the time of our reception when we have to absorb everything inside us, process it, and grow.

This constitutes our spiritual work. Instead of falling, each of us must stay at the same elevation as took place during the Congress. Do whatever you need to – dance from morning till night, or cry over not being able to do more. But the most important thing is to make efforts. Otherwise you won’t actualize what you have been given.

The joy we feel inside now must be much greater because it is the true joy of attainment. If we make several successful attempts, we will have the right inner preparation for entering the spiritual world. It will enable us to understand, assimilate, and live through the necessary spiritual degrees within us.

Granted, these aren’t yet the real spiritual degrees, but ascents by the power of an “awakening from Above” followed by us duplicating it with our own efforts, by an “awakening from below.” The breaks between the Congresses and a Congress are similar to the weekdays and Saturday. It’s like day and night, where all our work of preparing our desire takes place at night. When we correct our egoistic desires and give them the intention of bestowal, we reveal the same state as day.

The only thing that changes is one’s attitude; one then feels that it’s day. But nothing changes on the outside.

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A question I received: We learn in the science of Kabbalah that the state of adulthood (Gadlut) has to be preceded by a state of being small (Katnut). What does this teach us in regard to spiritual work?

My Answer: Everything happens step by step. Correction is always carried out from easy to difficult. We grow in this world according to the same principle. We are given exercises and Reshimot are revealed inside us, starting from the simple ones to the more complex ones.

We need to organize our spiritual progress in the same manner, without thinking that we can skip any stage. The chain of Reshimot obliges us to go through all the states gradually, one after another. We cannot miss any state or skip any degree.

Therefore, if I am not advancing to the next state, it is a sign that I still have not realized my present state, and hence I haven’t prepared myself for a change and a transition to the next state. There are no trade-offs here. The Creator cannot “throw” you upward. That would be like asking, “Why didn’t He create me in a perfect state initially?” If He did, you would lack the desire and a sense through which to perceive that state. You need to attain it on your own.

For the same reason, you cannot jump over or skip a few degrees right now. This is impossible since you will lack the right desire. How will you feel a more elevated state if you haven’t acquired a desire, a vessel for perceiving it?

Attaining a higher state means increasing your desire, widening your vessel of perception and making it more bestowing.

If you haven’t achieved the quality of bestowal, then you will not feel it. The whole spiritual world exists here and now – so go ahead, take it, if you can. The Upper Light is at absolute rest, but you lack the right desire for it.

You are saying, “I want to jump a few degrees up!” Well, try it. You will find that you cannot make that jump. You need to ascend gradually, step by step, by developing according to the four stages. That is how you will continually ascend higher and higher.

Otherwise, spiritual ascent is impossible. The order in which the Reshimot come out is predetermined. Reshimot are instilled in us and await their turn to be realized.

The Light of Infinity is Above, and it is ready to correct you and fulfill you. However, your desire is preventing it.

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A question I received: Why does spiritual work always have to be done joyfully?

My Answer: Joy is a sign that you are acting for the sake of bestowal and that you are not doing it by coercion, because you have no other choice or because you are afraid of bad things happening to you. We know how happy a mother is when she succeeds at feeding her child well, because she receives pleasure from this. Bestowal that comes from love, like with the case of the mother, always comes with joy. Joy is a sign and a consequence of good deeds (bestowal).

However, if a person is under the power of his ego, he feels tense and is angry at the Creator. Therefore, the force of kindness and faith is expressed through serenity, rejection of oneself in the face of the Upper Force, a willingness to receive its influence and its correction, which will change your qualities to bestowal. Then the Upper Force comes and gives you strength, and all of this is accompanied by joy.

A true plea to the Creator cannot occur without joy. If a prayer is heard by the Creator, it is called “the gate of tears” (Shaar ha-Dmaot), which means that a person wishes to be similar to the Creator (from the word “Dommeh” – similar). Therefore, he “cries,” meaning that he really wants to become similar to the Giver. However, these are not tears of sorrow; rather, a person feels joy because he has reached this great desire.

An appeal to the Creator cannot be sorrowful. If you cry, it means you blame Him for arranging all of this for you and are unhappy about your path, which you follow out of hopelessness. Then you cannot be righteous. Therefore, if a person does not feel joy in every state that comes to him (be it the greatest state imaginable or the worst possible state), this means that he is in his egoism and has no way to appeal to the Creator.

A person has to ascend in order to always remain in joy. Then he won’t care what is happening to him, since his only request is to acquire the force of bestowal. In that case, he will receive it.

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A miracle is a connection that I don’t understand between an action and a result; it is when my action suddenly causes a completely unlikely but great result. This is the meaning of the verse, “I labored and found.” We have to make efforts during the studies and try to find everything that is being discussed inside us. But what we find will be completely unexpected, even though we talk about it and wait for it to happen. When we receive it,  we will be shocked at how unable we were to correctly imagine this finding! That is why we call it a miracle.

What is the vessel of oil that I have to light up? It refers to qualities that I have to find inside myself. The oil is my will to enjoy. I have to understand how to light it, how to create a new wick in it using my efforts so the wick would come to the outside. The wick is my opposition to using my desire directly, to receive for my own sake; I want to use it in an equivalent manner as the Light. That is why I bring a wick out of the desire which includes a bit of my will to receive, but only as much as I am able to make similar to the Light and to cancel my egoism. I am ready to use it up for the sake of others.

For now I am only willing to bestow a thin, small wick. And I constantly have to check to make sure that I am not doing this for my own sake. I constantly think that I attained this, but it turns out that I did not. This happens over and over again because I constantly reveal new egoistic desires within me. That is how I gradually discern all of them until I finally create a wick inside me – a thin line (Kav Dak) of my desires, spanning from me to the Creator. The upper extreme or quality of this wick is similar to the Light, and that’s why it lights up. The darkness then shines as Light.

If I can imagine this state within me, within my desires and qualities, that means I am already in it. This signifies the arrival of Hanukkah, the holiday of Light. A small candle ignites in me, and inside my enormous egoistic desire, there is a tiny part where bestowal lights up.

This part of the desire longs to enjoy together with the Light that is able to shine in it, and it is called my soul. It is very small for now, but as I continue to correct my huge desire, I gradually turn all of it to Light.

All of our spiritual work lies in finding all of these qualities inside us.

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Our goal is to discern who we are, what our reality is, who the Creator is, and what qualities we need in order to attain Him. To help us accomplish this, a multitude of different opportunities become revealed to us in life, but the more we spread ourselves thin on them, the more we will suffer. If, on the other hand, we discern them, reduce them and focus on just one aspiration, then we will feel pleasure.

We enjoy only when we reduce the field of our searching, and after making many discernments, concentrate on one single point. When dealing with all the other pleasures and opportunities, we have to discern them one after the other and thus build a special instrument – like a huge glass lens that can focus all of the light that comes to it into one ray. The greater the lens is, the greater is its ability to focus the light and the more light it is able to focus. Eventually it can compress the light to such a small point whose concentration and might are so powerful that anything is possible within that point of Light and desire.

This is obvious in the field of optics, by examining the way lasers work. We can do the same in our inner work when we focus a multitude of different desires within us. That is exactly how we achieve a higher, spiritual force. Everything is built on what is now present inside us. The more our egoistic desire grows, the more we spread ourselves thin on it; we desire everything there is in the world! If it were possible, we would receive everything: money, power, knowledge, and everything else.

But why is it that we see so many different pleasures before us? It’s because that is how fulfillment appears to us in our desire. The entire descent of the worlds from the World of Infinity down to our world consists in multiplying the number of different Lights, desires and pleasures. It is a gradual division of the Direct Light of the World of Infinity into many Lights.

This distancing from Infinity and perfection amounts to a multiplication of qualities, which come out of one point and that we imagine. If we learn to unite all of these multiple qualities together and reach the One, Unique and Indivisible, then we will achieve correction and unity. That is the only way we will eliminate all suffering: by choosing the one force of bestowal, preferring it over all egoistic pleasures. That is how we will ascend upwards.

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In the future, only 5% of humanity will work on providing the whole world with the “necessary things for existence,” while everyone else will work on advertising the importance of the spiritual goal. Alternatively, all 100% will be engaged in spiritual correction, and will work one hour a day to provide themselves with “what is necessary for existence.”

The work of developing spiritual connections between all the souls is continuous. The Creator has to be revealed in this world, which means that each person in this world has to be inspired by your desire for spirituality and your feeling of its importance. In response, they will inspire you with the same thing from their end. To the extent you inspire each other, you will desire and be able to connect with each other.

Today we are just beginning the work of disseminating Kabbalah. Dissemination is not just about disseminating the knowledge (such as through books, internet, and TV), but also about establishing a connection between every person and everyone else. This is the practical implementation of the correction.

Everyone will have to work on this, since we are all inside a system of connections within the common Kli where the Creator, or the spiritual world, becomes revealed. Dissemination is an opportunity for every person to tune into the corrected system.

Therefore, we have to realize that the dissemination of Kabbalah is not a duty, but the action of correction itself. It is your connection with the world.

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A question I received: Why is it written that an effort is only something that is beyond the ordinary?

My Answer: With regard to spiritual work, we always talk about acceleration, not speed. There is a well-known principle of relativity which states that if an object is moving at constant speed that is identical to your own, then it is not considered to be moving at all. If you assess its position relative to others, then you may find that it is moving relative to them, but relative to you, it is still. And in Kabbalah, we measure all the changes relative to the person himself.

Therefore, if we are acting out of habit and carrying out constant, habitual actions, which don’t require us to add a new effort at every moment, then we do not change. If I am not adding effort, then I won’t ascend to the next level, and that means that I won’t make a spiritual movement.

Therefore, you can check your advancement, despite the absence of any reaction, by the accumulation of efforts that you put into correction, bestowal, unification and studying. What you have to check is what you have added to what you had yesterday!

You should make a habit of constantly increasing the effort. You have to get used to a constant acceleration. What we need is constant acceleration, not constant speed! This has to become a habit.

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A question I received: Besides the writings of Baal HaSulam, we also study the writings of Rabash. What do they give us?

My Answer: Rabash provides a detailed explanation of the phases of the inner work, yet we don’t understand the entire depth and breadth of his explanation. There are places where Baal HaSulam gives very concise explanations for beginners, and Rabash goes on to expand them. He thus creates a wide entrance for those who wish to enter the spiritual work. When a person reads line after line, he experiences different sensations. That is how Rabash leads the reader with his detailed explanations, like leading a baby by the hand, taking him from one game to another, and from one impression to another.

However, don’t think that his articles are intended exclusively for beginners. They conceal an enormous depth. It’s just that Rabash always lowered himself before his father, Baal HaSulam, and thought that there was nothing more to add after Baal HaSulam. This is why he did not publish anything of his own and did not write many manuscripts. It was because of his modesty. Yet, he was a great Kabbalist and we are yet to reveal him.

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