The Purpose of the Association

Spring Congress 2006, Lesson 5

Lesson by Rav Michael Laitman, Kfar HaYarok, Israel

April 14^th, 2006

Bold and in quotes: Original text of Rabash
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized Italics: transliteration from Hebrew

It is generally very difficult for us to imagine how we’re arranged and in what manner we perceive. We perceive everything within ourselves. Everything happens only on the inside of us. This picture of a huge world (and is it really huge?) that is comprised of so many various objects, forces, actions, and phenomena is found only inside of us. However, without even examining this picture but by merely slightly understanding it and directing ourselves to it in a proper way, by agreeing with it, one can already begin his proper spiritual work. This is because in that case he will clearly know that everything depends on his inner properties, how similar they will be to the Light, which is simple, direct, infinite, and which actually is not made up of any parts, but at the same time, encompasses all the types of feelings experienced by man. The Light is the force that created us, our desire, and along with the desire, as if within it, it created a supplement to the desire: reason, the various sensations in us, memory, etc.

Happy are those who can properly attune themselves right from the very first lessons on Kabbalah because then it becomes easy to talk to them. Then they understand that there’s no sense in studying the Upper worlds—they don’t exist. These Upper worlds are simply our higher perception, our inner perception. We call them “Upper” with respect to today, but they are inside of us. This is what Baal HaSulam writes in the introduction to Pticha (Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah): all the worlds and everything that populates them are inside man. How can we imagine this? Certainly I can’t shove the whole universe, with its enormous amount of still, animate, and vegetative matter, and all of mankind, inside of me. What does it mean to “shove it into myself?” I feel it inside of myself. It does not exist outside of me. And for this reason it is stated this way.

We can’t completely understand this whole revolutionary view of a person being something that perceives itself and nothing else. However, it is said that if we at least accept it, if we initially accept it in this manner, then all Kabbalistic texts will no longer seem strange to us. First of all, we will properly understand the Talmud Eser Sefirot, the Pticha, and everything that talks about the Upper worlds. This means that we will understand our constructions and the sensations in them, if they will, to a certain degree be similar to the simple Light of this single force, the Creator, that surrounds me.

This means that Kabbalah talks about the sensations that take place when I enter some kind of similarity (from zero to some similarity) to the Upper Force. To the degree that I am similar to the Upper Force, images that are more or less similar begin to be depicted in me. I can’t feel the Upper Force itself inside of me. I can only feel my own properties, which are similar to Him. What does it mean that “my properties are similar to Him?” My properties are opposite to Him but have taken on the form of similarity to Him, meaning the desire to receive works for bestowal, as we say. And we talk only about this. Even if we talk about this Light that exists outside of us, we don’t mean the Light itself. We mean the existence of something that we perceive on our highest level, when we have equalized to the Light entirely; our very highest sensation called Simple Light, or the Creator completely disclosed.

If this is the case, then our only task lies in working inside of ourselves, inside each of us. Why do I need everything that surrounds me then? Why am I created in such a way that I perceive myself and the surrounding world? Kabbalists tell us that this is an illusion that is purposefully created in a way that it is I and everything else that exists around me. This is so I can tune myself into this surrounding Light that I do not perceive.

How can I reach similarity to Him? Here I have that which supposedly exists outside of me: the still, the vegetative, the animate, and the human. Incline yourself to think that it is you, in the full meaning of the word. When you begin to perceive all these surroundings as yourself (entirely as yourself), once again, proceeding from your only material (the desire), you will feel that you and they are one whole. To this degree you will become similar to the Upper Light, and it will be revealed. Where will it be revealed? This attitude of yours to what surrounds you is what will be felt by you to be the apparent Upper Light.

Then you will understand what Kabbalists spoke of and why they told you to engage in friendship and love of friends, the relationship to the surroundings, to “love thy neighbor,” and thousands of other matters.

In our every-day existence, those who are improperly inclined to the perception of reality imagine it supposedly to exist outside. Therefore, these people think that Kabbalah undertakes some kind of unrealistic and out-of-this-world project. It wants to change man to love another and, in general, it engages in utterly unrealistic things. But, in actuality, it is the only thing that we must engage in, whether we want to or not, because the only thing that develops in us is this constant egoistic substance and we constantly exist in it, in its sensations.

Therefore, we constantly perceive ourselves to be increasingly more opposite to the surrounding static Light in our continuous and changing egoistic desire, which is opposite to the Light. It turns out that if I don’t work to change my desire in accordance to the Upper Light, I am simply running away from the only true reality.

However, it is very difficult to keep ourselves constantly in this vision of the picture of the world, in being self-absorbed on the inside and perceiving all external things as a projection of our own qualities onto the whole world. We treat this in some unclear manner: Should I treat people well or should I treat people poorly? These are my desires, my properties. So, who are these people? Here too exists a multitude of various theories, which are true, untrue; and Buddhists have done much work here as well… “There is no outside,” “there is no you.” All kinds of different things have been done here.

As soon as a person loses that concentration of thought: “Me and everything inside me; there is nothing outside; it is merely a projection of my qualities or feelings onto the world;”—having established this picture, if any changes occur in him, the picture is immediately blown away and he can no longer put it back together. He can only begin to imagine it again if he presses the “stop” button and begins to somehow evaluate the occurrences while in this frozen state.

The picture is gradually revealed after the Machsom (barrier), in the sense that a person begins to understand that all the preceding states are within him. His present-day state is within his Partzuf, which is comprised of ten Sefirot and various parts. He also feels the Upper Partzuf, which is actually not the Upper Partzuf but his next state and manifests itself in this manner with respect to him.

While we are still found to be before and not after the Machsom, this picture inside of us is still missing. We are inside of egoistic properties and perceive the world in a completely opposite form. After the Machsom, everything becomes clear: here is my desire, here is the intention; I feel everything within it and everything I perceive (my friends, buddies, etc.) are all inside of me.

I am a single soul and the whole wide world, the Creator, is around it. I am responsible for this entire soul; it represents the desires that are cut off from me. “Cut off” means that I don’t perceive them to be my own because I am not corrected together with them. I must connect them to myself as one integral whole, and to the degree that I connect this entire system inside of myself, I turn into this creature called Adam and begin to understand that nothing except me exists.

Until all of this becomes apparent in us, at least on the first few degrees after the Machsom, when the first ten Sefirot are formed in the person, he passes the first few stages, and this is called “Mem Yamim Yetzirat ha Vlad” (forty days of creating the embryo). The way an embryo develops inside the mother in our world is obviously a copy of spiritual properties. It develops according to the properties “three days of the semen’s adaptation in the mother’s womb,” and it is particularly stated this way: “Shlosha Yamim Klitat a Zera” (absorption of the semen); and then “Arbaim Yamim Yetzirat ha Vlad” (forty days when all the organs of the future embryo are formed minimally from the point of semen, the point in the heart). Some of them might be formed even before this, but, in general, each and every one of them performed some minor action of conception inside themselves, and all this together occurs over the period of forty days.

Forty (Mem) is a property of Bina. Here, every point from all the desires that exist in this point, has received its altruistic intention of Bina and has thus evolved slightly from being a point to some minimal scope. And this sensation, when some minimal understanding of the world occurs for the first time, as in the form of Ubar (embryo), is called the fortieth day of development. Obviously, these are not forty days of our world but forty stages that are passed. It is a property, the attainment of such a property, which is called Mem, the letter “M,” a closed quadrangular letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which characterizes a mother’s womb, in which the Ubar exists.

So, everything becomes clear to the person at that point: where and what he is, in what way he attains everything; it becomes simpler. He finally understands that he needs to deal with the Creator.

The Creator is all of his states completely corrected. This is the Creator. Never and nowhere do we perceive Him in any other way. We do not perceive Him from the outside. It is only now that it falsely seems to us that He exists on the outside. We always perceive Him inside of the Kli; Light is only manifested inside a Kli, and only to the extent that we are similar to it. But then it is already clear to the person that his most corrected state (if this will happen, and it will definitely happen to everyone) of absolute bestowal is what will be called the Creator. In this state, I and this corrected property will be called “Adam,” who is fully corrected, or “Israel, Oraita, Kudshe Brichu Hadu:” Israel, the Torah (meaning, this Light), the Upper Light in its entirety, and various individual Lights in their entirety integrated as a whole.

How can we reach this state without getting entangled in the shortest and most direct degrees, making mistakes, losing sight of this picture, maybe—or maybe we would lose it, but so what? A child develops and he does not know for certain how. I too cannot constantly retain this picture of the real universe and my own attainment. To the extent that I can conceive it today, more or less, the picture exists in my other properties, and not the ones that I have today. If I artificially hold it inside all the time, I will live in a world that is not my own, in a way. After all, these are not my present properties. I must exist realistically in my present properties and make gradual steps from them to reach my true state, similarity to the Light, instead of it being as though I already exist in some advanced stages.

If I begin to imagine these stages, they will only make me what we call “out of this world.” And I actually will be “out of this world.” I will take something that is not in this world and imagine it, even though it does not yet exist in me. A world is what is revealed in the desire. In other words, it will be unrealistic and utterly ineffective.

This means that the proper realization of a person exists after he has understood and accepted that his realization is reduced to purely mechanical actions. It is when, like a child, he understands that it is his picture of the future, and he will still be confused by it. In a second, he will perceive it incorrectly, in a distorted way, and it is all artificial for him. One should not live in this illusion. After one has more or less imagined this, he should make it a point of conviction for himself. “Now, I need to execute clearly-defined actions to correct my desire to greater equivalence to the Upper Light.” That’s it. After this, a person turns to the articles, letters, and, in general, to the counsels that Kabbalists describe to us.

After this warm-up, we are proceeding to the first article written by Rabash. After I brought new students to him, he needed to explain something to them. After he explained what a human being and the outside world was (and they understood none of that, of course, and, in addition, they all came from studying with Berg at that time and had a certain understanding that needed to be refined), this was the first article that he wrote. It is a practical article.

In other words, your view of the world can be one way today and then different tomorrow; this is irrelevant. Meanwhile, you are performing some kind of precise action on yourself. Philosophy is one thing and realization is another. If you wait to become smart, it will never happen. Only the degree of your self-realization will determine how much smarter you will become. You can’t obtain reason first and only then begin to realize it.

A child grows without understanding who he should be when he grows up—tomorrow or the day after. He simply performs actions under the influence, or the pressure, of nature. He is continuously in the state of development. However, in this case, he is under the pressure of nature, while we need to be under the pressure of ourselves. And we do not understand the next step; it is impossible to ever understand it. The proper development, if it really is from below upward, if it is actual growth rather than a pure aging of the body, as is the case with the existence in our regular life, growth indicates that the next step is always higher than the present. And, naturally, it cannot be understood, conceived, or sensed by us; it is always hidden from us, from our sensations and our abilities to understand and perceive it.

Therefore, this is a clear case of the instruction to “do and then you shall hear.” To hear means to obtain a property of Bina, Ozen (ear), and to the degree that you obtain this property in accordance with your similarity to the Upper Light, you will begin to understand what is happening to you and how everything is arranged. This too will occur according to your attainment of this similarity of properties.

Hence, all these theories, the proper picture of the attainment of reality, should be aroused in us all the time, from time to time. By properly placing this picture before ourselves, in a certain chain, it should produce a sense of “what I should do now;” and it should direct us to the conclusion that “I need to change myself, my qualities, rather than changing those around me.” The illusionary picture of the people that surround me and exist instead of me are these with respect to which I must reach the feeling of “love as yourself”—“love thy neighbor as yourself.”

The Purpose of the Association

Man is born with a drive to receive called self-love. Wherever he cannot see a benefit for himself [that something will fulfill him], he has not fuel enough for the slightest movement…

This is because future fulfillment acts as the energy for him to perform some action. In other words, he can always only perform actions directed at some fulfillment. But if we can only perform actions that are directed towards fulfillment, egoistic fulfillment, how can we perform an action that would be opposite to this, meaning one that would be directed at correcting egoism, decreasing one’s egoistic desire and developing the altruistic desire for bestowal? If we are not created as such, then how can we invert ourselves and make use of ourselves in this manner?

How to do this is still unknown to us, but it should be clearly understood from perceiving the universe that without the similarity to the Creator, or without the suppressing of the egoistic desire to receive for oneself and the utilizing of my desire to give pleasure properly for bestowing to others, it is impossible to enter a different state, to enter an eternal sensation, an eternal and genuine fulfillment and the similarity to the Upper Force.

And here we must clearly separate our perceptions. There is my desire, the will to receive, which is neither good nor bad, as it is neutral; it is simply the material. There is the intention to receive pleasure for oneself. What does “for oneself” mean? Due to the fact that I was created to be the only one with respect to this Upper Light, the Creator, and I have shattered into a multitude of parts, I have an illusionary perception of myself with respect to all these parts as “me with respect to everything else: all of nature and all of mankind.”

Therefore, my desire or my attitude to them is not merely the desire to receive pleasure, but rather it is already called an egoistic desire. Why is this so? It is because I desire to use them for my own pleasure or fulfillment. In other words, simply the desire to receive pleasure is not called egoistic. An egoistic desire is when you are clearly relating to an opposite object, one that exists in your place, with the intention to use it for your own sake (to harm him and to benefit yourself). This is called the intention, and this is what places us in contrast to the Upper Light.

The desire itself is not opposite to the Upper Light. The desire of a person can be filled completely with the Upper Light, meaning that it can be completely similar to the Upper Light. In the beginning, it was created as simply a desire (without any similarity or any lack of similarity) by the Creator, this Upper Light. And naturally it was filled with the sensation that it is one whole with the Upper Light, due to the fact that there was no opposition in the desire itself. And then egoistic inner intentions with respect to one another purposefully arose in this desire. The desire broke into a multitude of pieces.

In my lecture in Düsseldorf, I spoke of the fact that in the beginning mankind was one nation and perceived itself completely as one whole. There was no need for language or any means of communication—nothing at all. Then egoism, antagonism, and the desire to use another for one’s own benefit began to emerge. It is not only the desire which grows, and the desire is not what’s of the greatest importance. The intention to use another for one’s own sake grows, and it is this intention that is called egoistic. We simply use this term improperly: we say “an egoistic desire.” We don’t understand that there is the intention, which we call egoistic, and the desire, which is neither egoistic nor altruistic; it is simply a desire.

We need to constantly control the intention: what it is, in relation to whom, and in what manner we should correct it (correct only the intention and nothing else). When we say egoism here, we mean our consumer-like attitude to others. If I simply wish to fill myself without any relation to others, it is not called egoism. If I want to have a good time with my friend, and I enjoy being with him and he does with me, this is not that we are supposedly called egoists. But as soon as I want to fulfill myself on his account, there is already the emergence of egoism.

In other words, egoism is a very strictly-directed appointed attitude to others for one’s own sake. It consists of only this and should be understood by us in a very elemental way. Our desires, if they are not egoistic, absolutely do not require correction; leave them alone. Only those desires that are aimed at the society, at the environment, due to being egoistic, require correction.

For this reason, no other appeal is written except that of “Love thy neighbor as yourself.” Ecology is not spoken of, nor is it said: “use less,” “breathe less,” “sit in the lotus position,” “don’t breathe at all,” “think only of the white elephant,” etc. None of this is stated. It is only stated that we should correct our intention, which is aimed at others in a vector-like and egoistic manner. When you can imagine all of them in you, in the corrected form, as your integral parts of your one large integral Kli, you will then reach a state called “Adam” and will be completely equal, or equivalent, to the Upper Force, the Upper Light.

This work of ours on the egoistic treatment of others consists of two parts or two stages. The first stage is the suppression of this egoistic treatment, and this is called Tzimtzum (restriction). Here, it is not the desire that we are hiding or “closing,” but the intention. After we can transform the intention to one of bestowal to others, placing ourselves in the position to supposedly serve them, we pull out all of our desires and use them for the sake of others.

The desire itself is irrelevant here; it is simply the engine for you, with the help of which you can work. If the desire works to the detriment of others, you stop it from being used this way, and then, gradually, to the degree that you are capable of doing so, you direct this engine, this intention and this desire, to the benefit of others. The equivalence of properties is the only criteria of that which we must achieve: the equivalence of properties to the Upper Light. We don’t know where the Upper Light is and in what manner we can evaluate ourselves with respect to It. I can do this only with respect to the people that surround me.

The suppression of egoism is in direct opposition to our nature, to our entire being. Therefore the association must be made up of individuals, all of whom are of the same worldview, that is, that the will to receive must be subdued.

Here we already face the question concerning realization. How can we simply treat all of mankind well? Well, I’ll try, but how can I check whether or not I am doing it correctly and whether or not it is an illusion? Where can I find the strength to act in this manner?

A person does not perceive everyone else in the form of some kind of robots, animated objects or protein beings that walk in an upright position. A person is created in such a manner that he perceives those who surround him as himself, understands that they are egoists like him and that they also require correction like him.

We are talking about those who have begun this journey. Why do we perceive those that surround us in this manner? This is so that we would receive the power of correction from them. If we could find the power of correction in ourselves: to suppress our desire at first, our intention and our treatment of others (perform a Tzimtzum), and then begin to develop it and correct it, then it would be enough to place a doll in front of me, what’s the difference what or who it is? It could be any abstract or specific picture or object.

The thing is that I cannot correct myself on my own. I will always make mistakes. I can’t escape my only property on my own as it is egoistic, but this is irrelevant; I can’t escape it on my own. Why can’t I? I can’t do this because I will err; I need some other property besides egoism in my field of vision, in my sensations. Then I would be able to compare them and thus understand how I should act. I need two points in order to possess the vector of my development, in order to somehow direct myself.

For this reason, our perception of reality is made in a way that we perceive the people that surround us to be the same as us: egoists who also wish to correct themselves, who have also found the same idea, the same goal and the same level of development. Now we are meeting in one group in order to aspire to this one goal that has now become apparent to us. Our inner egoistic development has brought us here.

Why do we gather together? We do this due to the law of similarity of properties. It is very simple. We are all in an empty inter-cosmic, inter-planetary space of a sort. Imagine this: we are drawn to each other due to the similarity of our properties. We are egoists who have generally received the same egoistic development and are therefore drawn to each other according to our similarity of properties. And we find ourselves gathering around some book, some teacher, or some idea. How this occurs is irrelevant because it is created inside of us in this manner. What is it for? It is because each person can determine what egoism is and what its opposite is with respect to others.

Everyone else is actually an illusion; it is actually me, my properties, and the projection of my properties onto the world. This egoism is called Olam ha Medume (an imaginary world). It doesn’t actually exist. It is in our inner properties, which are supposedly uncorrected.

We will later discover that even these uncorrected properties are illusionary and we actually exist in the World of Infinity. We have simply lost consciousness and are gradually resuming consciousness, like a person who has become unconscious and consciousness is very gradually being awakened in him: he begins to perceive himself and those who surround him. Hence the breaking of one sole desire into an enormous amount of parts is purposefully created to enable this desire to see each of its parts with respect to the other parts inside itself as “I with respect to all of mankind,” and to treat them all in an egoistic manner in order to be fulfilled, or supposedly fulfilled. In other words, all of this is completely opposite to its primary state.

“Then, the association of such individuals…” says Rabash,

[inaudible] is essential for us because it gives us strength. Only from the outside can we receive the strength to suppress our egoistic intention and to even obtain an altruistic intention. In other words, any remedial force can be received only from the outside. Man is incapable of generating anything from within, and, for this reason, we need the environment and the proper interaction with it.

When this group of egoists uncovers evil together (evil is our mutual treatment of each other), evil then begins to be recognized by us as that which pushes us away from one another, does not allow us to unite and to receive these altruistic forces from each other. Evil is the veil over our eyes and feelings, when we don’t understand how dependent we are on each other, and don’t understand that any future state of mine depends on the people that surround me and their thoughts regarding me. Their thoughts, or to put it differently, their intentions, are that which give me the strength to correct my own intentions.

In other words, I don’t correct myself on my own. I merely need to attune myself in such a way that the others in the group would treat me well, so that they would think of me and wish for me to be similar to the Creator. To the degree that they will pray for me, plead for this and desire it, I will be corrected. However, if they don’t want this, I will remain the way I am now and nothing will help me.

When a person begins to understand all this, he understands what an enormous egoism lies between him and each of the other members of the group. It is this egoism that is called evil. In other words, when you feel that you are entirely dependent on the others, and they are incapable of leaving their egoism to the extent that you are not allowing them to do this, and you are incapable of leaving your egoism to the extent that they don’t allow you this, this state of absolute dependence on one another is what is called a Kabbalistic group.

A Kabbalistic group is not an assortment of heads sitting with books in hands, and it isn’t a bunch of sweaty men hugging and dancing together (or other ways that it can be pictured). A Kabbalistic group that perceives itself to be egoistic is, in essence, spiritual Kelim (desires, intentions), which desire so much to connect with each other but discover that this is possible only in the case that they’ll have a mutual prayer, which will occur simultaneously and jointly. It is a prayer of every person with regard to everyone else, which is like a mother taking care of a child and not thinking of anything else, only of the newborn.

If every person directs his intention, his attention, and his hopes on others, there will emerge a state called Arvut, a mutual guarantee. This will be the quality in which a property of Light, bestowal, will immediately, instantly, be reflected. And then this group will turn from being egoistic to Kabbalistic, from the word Kabbalah (to receive), and the participants of this group will become real Kabbalists (will cross the Machsom). The Creator, as we call it, will be revealed in them.

All of our laws, actions, ways of behavior, regulations, and everything that we need spring from this. And in accordance to this, everything else that we build around ourselves in order to sense to what extent we need to be interconnected and how much our egoism interferes with this comes about. This occurs even on the purely animal level when we want to organize, create, or do something. We see how inconsiderate we are of each other and how difficult it is for us to interact.

Obviously, we will constantly forget that we must fully understand our dependence on each other. However, if we create some type of movement, dissemination, or enterprise (some type of mutual connection), we will gradually be pushed in this direction. Besides, these actions that we perform concerning others will help us connect with each other on the inside. In other words, everything else (what we do in the group, in the enterprise, and so on) springs from this principle.

Why is it necessary for us to disseminate in the world? It is necessary in order to attract the forces of the world, so that they won’t be so opposite to us and will gradually begin to understand and adapt this principle of similarity into themselves and take part in this process along with us in this manner. This would happen on different, lower levels, but it needs to happen nonetheless.

For this reason, a group is necessary in order to unite the people who have one desire to reach the Goal. [meaning, similarity to the highest property of bestowal.] Then, the association of such individuals will establish a great power that will be able to overcome its collective self-love.

This is because the slight preliminary initial intention of every person to rise up somewhere will merge with the powers of others and a multiplication of power will occur. This is what Rabash wrote. This is the very first article addressed to the students.

As it turns out, a great desire to reach the Goal will emerge in every person. But in order for this to occur, it is essential that every member of the group lowers his “I” slightly with respect to the others (meaning that he begins this movement with respect to the others). This can be done mechanically by disregarding (supposedly disregarding) the shortcomings of the friends. In other words, to transfer what you see in others onto yourself according to the principle: the negative aspects that I see in others are seen by me due to the fact that I have the same properties inside.

Perhaps these properties aren’t actively manifested in me and I have other properties that are actively manifested, and I see different active properties in others. However, they are in me nonetheless or I would not have noticed them. This is because, once again, we see only what exists in us according to the principle of similarity. If it is absent in us then this phenomenon is nonexistent for us altogether.

He, who considers himself even slightly above his friends, will not be able to fully join them or assimilate with them.

And he is no longer in the group. In other words, a group is when everyone exists entirely on one level because a group does not depend on how long one has been studying, how much he knows, or even how much he desires; this cannot be measured. A group is only evaluated by the aspiration to move forward, be it the least possible. And if this aspiration is present, we don’t measure how great it is: smaller in one person or larger in another. First of all, by mutually joining with each other, we annul all of this and complete each other in the same manner that the brain, the liver, the heart, the kidneys, and the lungs are such important organs in comparison to the others but, in the end, they only serve the whole body.

Therefore, we must take into account any desires, even the smaller ones. If the desire is directed to the Goal, this person is equal to us and he is a full member of the group. There is no place for bullying here. On the contrary, there should be rotation in the group from time to time and we should generally try to mechanically emulate the level that we should be on with our intentions.

During the gathering of the group, we must be serious and not lean away from the Goal for the sake of which we have gathered. As it was stated earlier, the Goal is the unification with the Creator. Other people who are not members of this group should not be aware of this Goal. For this reason, one should not stand out from the environment he is in.

There is a difference between the way I act in the group and the way I act while out in the world. There, I behave in a way that would not make me stand out from the rest wherever it is that I may be. Accordingly, I should assimilate myself to the environment that I am in. If I move from one environment to another, I should become like the people in that environment. I should purposely and artificially become lost in them. However, in my group, I should, in contrast, stand out from them and set an example for the rest because by doing so I effect a positive reaction upon everyone.

Members of the group that unite with each other should have similarity in their desire for the Goal. Every member should be able to lower himself with respect to the others.

If our desires and goals are not similar, how can we lower ourselves in order to receive from the others? I receive from others. I receive their goal and their aim toward the same goal as me. Therefore, we should speak of and discuss our desires and our goals. In this way I’ll be able to perceive the strengths of others.

This association must take care not to be encroached upon by lightheadedness, which would destroy everything.

This is the worst possible evil. It isn’t even egoism but its manifestation: when it constantly urges us to relax.

However, if, by chance, a stranger has come in during the gathering of the group, we should not show that this group is different from the other associations, circles, groups, clubs, etc. And the people that have gathered there should appear to be on the same level as their uninvited guest.

These seem like unnecessary things, but they are actually the fundamentals out of which we then build many of our rules of conduct. And going back to the beginning, they all proceed from the fact that man was created alone and perceives everyone else as existing outside of himself. And if I wish to equalize to the Upper Force, I must reach a state where all of those who are equal to me, lower than me, higher than me (who they are and how this occurs is irrelevant) will be my integral part; they will be me, the same exact me. The purpose of creating a group is to begin to carry out this task.

Question: I didn’t understand. Should I imagine others to be integral parts of myself or should I only imagine them this way sometimes from a distance in order to perform some comparison, evaluation, check or inspection?

We just spoke about a few ways to relate to the world in general—the people that surround me and I. The people that surround me are my integral part; they are me and none of this exists at all—it is all me. This is the way that a person perceives his surroundings when he enters even the most minor spiritual degree.

Let’s perform an exercise: try to relate to others this way. You want to be in them; you want everything to be permeated with the feeling of mutual responsibility and mutual help, otherwise, what you want to occur will not happen. Meanwhile, you will begin to feel that you and everyone else really are one whole. The perception of being separated into bodies will vanish. This illusion will melt away because a higher desire and a higher perception will suppress the lower. You will no longer see people as having one face or another. You will stop recognizing your friends based on their appearances. Instead of them, you will see the actual desires. The image will be in the form of a desire. But their externalities will not be seen by you.

When we live with someone for a long time, we also stop seeing his externality in a way. We see him from the inside somehow, his inner part more than his external part. But here it occurs in an absolutely amazing way. The outward form of a person completely disappears; it becomes transparent. This is what we should strive for.

Question: On the one hand, we need to lower ourselves before our friends, and on the other hand, we should imagine each other to be equal to ourselves.

We are absolutely equal to each other in that we all lower ourselves with respect to everyone else. There is absolutely no contradiction between the two. We are equal in our intention, our goal, our aspiration, and the fact that we lower ourselves with respect to others. If I won’t lower myself with respect to others, I won’t receive from them any possibility to bestow, to influence, to love, and to relate from the outside of myself.

We need to understand that altruistic forces of correction and everything that could arouse positive changes in us—except the egoistic Reshimot that constantly arise in us—everything positive is received by us from the outside and not from within ourselves. We don’t have this capability within ourselves. Where would it come from? On the inside, I have only an egoistic desire and a point in the heart, which urges this desire on. This point in the heart is also egoistic, even though it is called “a spark of the Creator from Above.” This is a spark that is under the control of my egoistic desire; I egoistically want a higher state. This is why my aspiration is called “Lo Lishma.”

Question: If two people can’t find a way to get along over the course of a year and a half, and it is obviously expressed in a negative way…

If over the course of a long time, two people can’t find a way to get along, this is a very good state that the whole group can benefit from. Period. Now, you think.

Question: I have a similar question about strong feelings that I can experience…

The best feeling of hatred directed at another person is a great find for the group. But this is in the case that these two people are active and truly have a desire but simply can’t be with each other, as they can’t get along.

I couldn’t get along with a friend because of personality differences, our external personalities. It was very difficult. Despite the fact that Rabash told me to try, to make an attempt, I couldn’t do it. He (that friend) was better at it than me. He could do it, while I couldn’t; I remember this. However, this is an opportunity for action. Of course, this is theoretical today. However, when something doesn’t work out, it could serve as an example. This way, I’ll know today that it might not work out. In general, this is a good condition that is given to you.

Question: Can we say that everything has already been manifested…

This is more of the same thing. Everything has been manifested. Everything exists and nothing exists. Baal Shem Tov wrote about this very well. “If you want to feel the Creator, then you should know that the Creator is your reflection, your shadow.”

There is this thing called the checking of the shadow. Do you know about this? On the seventh day of Sukkot (it is called Hashana Raba, the great redemption) a person sees his goal, the shadow in the moonlight, and checks, supposedly, if everything is fine with his soul according to this moonlight. But it is described this way by Kabbalists, of course. In the world, it is customary to view this as fortune-telling: if it suddenly seems to me that I don’t have an arm, it means that my arm will be cut off, or leg, etc. As if this has any effect on the soul; in actuality, all of this is foolishness, of course. A person is a shadow of the Creator. In other words, the extent that we build our Kli is the reflection of the Creator.

Question: If everything is inside of me as integral parts, it follows that the whole world depends on me.

Obviously, it does. The whole world is you. It doesn’t depend on you; it is you.

Question (cont.): Then how does this world, and more importantly, the group, influence me?

This is because they are outside of you in your perceptions and therefore in this game that the Creator has created for us, in an illusionary manner, in this state called Olam ha Medume (imaginary, made-up world), which exists only in your perceptions and is imagined by you to be such.

He gave you an opportunity to correct yourselves. You are one sole creature. But how can you correct yourselves on your own: pull yourselves out by the hair? How can you change yourselves from the egoism that you are in? For this reason, He created you as being seemingly comprised of His opposites, among other things. So, correct yourselves here, inside yourselves! If you will be corrected, if these opposites will fit together, then you will thus be similar to the Creator.

It is a game that we learn by and work on within ourselves in our equivalence with the Upper Light. To the extent that I become similar to Him in my inner relations (myself with respect to others), I become similar to the Upper Light, and it is revealed in me. What does it mean that it is revealed in me? I feel my Higher property inside of myself and this property is perceived by me to be the Upper Light. How else can we feel the Light?

Rabash gives the following example: A person is standing next to a cow, slapping its side, and saying “I’m going to slaughter you soon! I’ll receive so much pleasure! There will be so many steaks: a whole five hundred kilos.” And the cow replies: “I have these five hundred kilos. Why am I not receiving pleasure?” The person says: “I am going to take a piece of you, put it in between these two things in my throat, and I’ll enjoooy it.” A cow doesn’t understand this.

In other words, we are made this way on purpose: we perceive ourselves in interaction with others particularly in this manner. It is an illusionary feeling, but it helps us to come to equivalence with the Light. The Light Itself is unperceivable. The Light Itself is like that cow that does not perceive itself; it does not feel that it epitomizes pleasure. Only the opposite is perceived.

Therefore, I perceive a trait in myself that is opposite to me, and I perceive the corrected me as Light and the uncorrected with respect to myself as darkness. That’s it. This is why man is a shadow of the Creator. However, the Creator Himself, or the Upper Light Itself, is not attained by us; it is called Atzmuto (His Essence).

Question: If all the members of a group see some distinctive trait in one of the friends…

This is all useless. This is all long and tedious. I would just like to hear briefly: are you or are you not happy with the specialized workshops that are being held with you? They are very good [Rav repeats a comment from the audience].

If you have any concerns, you need to immediately inform us of them. We need constantly to develop all these courses of learning. We will then need to put them on the Internet. We need to perfect them because it will then go further, wider into the world (I consider these to be your future occupations). I think that in another year or two the world will need us to such an extent that it will simply be forced to sustain this huge world group for its own sake. In turn, this world group will provide it with a media product because no one else can do this. So, I am asking you, when you are studying according to your specific occupation, do you understand that you can only give the right product to the world if you have the right intention with respect to the group, first with respect to the friends, and with respect to correction?

With this message, you go to turn on the computer and you begin to glue something together and do something. Inside of yourselves, with this aspiration to the Higher Goal, you generate some kind of production: some graphs, drawings, workings with the text, dissemination, lectures, etc. In other words, this inner message lives within you, together with others, in a single whole, as one group toward a united world. The attitude to the whole world should be the same, and then you will feel that your attitude to the world, this message, is beginning to transform the world. All of this comes back to you through the world, like through a great amplifier. They are possibly not even aware of this. Your action will cause this response reaction on us. For this reason, how you treat the world and what you want to occur in it is very important because it will come back at you multiplied by a multitude.

Therefore, it is very important to approach dissemination, the creation of our media, with “clean hands” because you can harm yourselves. If you treat all of this with aversion and disdain for the world, no good child will grow from this. It will come back at you. It will mutilate you. You won’t even know where it is all coming from.

There should be love and everything you want to happen with you, the group, and all of us, the Creator, in your every product. This thought is precisely that which has an effect. Otherwise, they can read, see, hear, and nothing will come out of it. And nothing will happen with you either. It is work done in vain. The most important thing is the inner intention. So, I am asking you, during these courses of yours (and they can be better or worse; this is irrelevant), you should think: in what way can I absorb this specialization, this occupation, so that I can influence the world through it in such a way that our group will receive spiritual elevation, and the world will enter this loop of interrelations as well, respectively.

Question: This question has been bothering me for some time. If in this life, a person works as a chauffer, technician, or electrician, and he is forty years old…

There was a great and famous Kabbalist who was called Rabbi Yochanan Ha Sandler (Rabbi Yochanan the shoe-maker). There was another one called Chayat…[Rav tries to remember the name]

Comment from the audience: The Tailor.

I know that he was a tailor, but I forgot his name. Rabbi, Rabbi… Well, that’s what they were called. The occupation was added to the name, and these Kabbalists were on the level of Rabbi Shimon. They are in the Talmud and in all the books. Their spiritual attainments are the foundation for us; they are counsels. However, one worked as a shoemaker, another worked as a tailor, a third as something else. They had completely normal jobs. And they knew what they had to do when they were fixing shoes for others. Do you know what shoes were like before? Do you know what they looked like? To fuss around with these shoes wasn’t easy. He knew what he was doing meanwhile.

Question (cont.): So should one study a new trade, learn or do something? Or should he put more effort into that half an hour that he studies?

One should choose an occupation which is closer to what he has in order to give the maximum benefit. We have people who say: “I work with computers all day at work; now, I want to work in the kitchen.” Or, “Teach me to impose books.” This is egoism. I understand that he wants to… But where will he give the most benefit? In other words, this approach is completely egoistic and we have the right to disagree with it. We should explain it to a person, and if not, force him. Otherwise, he should be kicked out. Don’t worry; let there be few of us. The quality is important in the spiritual, not the quantity. The account is according to the quality and not the number of heads. The quantity matters for the masses.

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