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Preparing to Attack at the Congress – Selected Excerpts from the Sources
1. RABASH, Letter 24
You must always stand guard, all day and all night, when you feel a state of day or feel a state of night.
We say to the Creator, “Yours is the day, and Yours is also the night.” Thus, the night, too, the darkness of night, comes from the Creator to man’s favor, too, as it is written, “Day to day utters speech, and night to night expresses knowledge” […].
It follows that you must awaken the heart of the friends until the flame rises by itself, […] By that, you will be rewarded with awakening the love of the Creator upon us.
Q : if one feels awakened by the Friends, and, in fact that now the “flame rises by itself”; is this an appropriate time to “build” a prayer which demands of the Creator awakening of His Heart- that this reward to be given to the Friends-?
And the structure of the prayer would be:
A) praising the Creator for the Light that Reforms and the Gift of Desire
B)a demand for the Friends to be “rewarded” with the awakening of His Heart
C) gratitude that this is so and in fact for the perfect plan that Creator put in motion- all that went into awakening one person’s heart to the Purpose of Creation.
Is this appropriate? There is such a strong desire present here to Praise, Demand and be Grateful to the Creator because what has been written has come to pass.. is this a good way and time to “demand of” the Creator in prayer?
Thank you very much
Feelings/Sensation
I always have difficulties in describing how I feel. I said so because, we are often ask to describe how we feel? Is there any method to describe that? Is feeling describable?
And Why is it that when something haven’t yet become so clear to us, we also have difficulty to pray with full force?
I’ve noticed a common thread in the questions posed by various students, all converging on a central theme: our current stage in the spiritual journey. This leads me to ponder the following questions.
Is our desire to pinpoint our spiritual stage inherently egotistical, or is it a necessary and integral aspect of our journey? Could there be drawbacks to this desire, and should we perhaps shift our focus entirely towards bestowing to my friend, especially my friend in the group of ten? Or is this intense desire for the study simply the yearning and the purpose is unconscious drawing of the reforming light?
In this initial preparatory phase do we engage with a provisional, ‘training wheels’ type of Screen during our ‘Lo Lishma’ phase. Does this initial Screen, fueled by our own efforts and aspirations, serve as a preparatory stage before we receive the ‘real’ Screen from the Creator?
Does our spiritual journey progress out of preparation to a stage where our longing for The Creator intensifies to such an extent that it leads us to self-restraint (a conscious restriction)? At this transformative juncture, are we bestowed with an authentic Screen, signifying the maturation of our heart’s point into a true spiritual form (a Partzuf), thereby marking our genuine entry into spirituality? Is this understanding broadly accurate? Also, great job on your Q&A session!
Thank you, brother. I’m going to both do as our teacher does in relation to questions related to what specific degree we’re on, and leave that for students to determine, as well as say that wanting to determine one’s state is a healthy inclination – though you’re right in that all my inclinations prior to Lishma are egoistic. But there’s a relative egoism that is spirituality-inclined – like how I’m able to do certain actions toward the friends and it’s certain there must be egoistic motivation since my Will to Receive will not run on an empty fuel tank. The healthy aspect of wanting to determine one’s degree is that I should always find myself, where I stand, in relation to what the Kabbalists describe. That way I’ll feel the gap and pray about it, that they talk about Upper Worlds, Lishma, loving others, bestowal – while I remain in such lowliness that an alternative computer tab can draw me away from these matters for who knows how long.
Of course I know you mean the question regarding specifically where in relation to the Upper Worlds I stand, and that I can’t answer. It is really quite complex. You can’t even really put it into a diagram. There are also degrees before the Barrier, which Kabbalists don’t write about because it won’t help us beyond that which Rabash writes – and even those have behind them spiritual degrees that are beyond our world. But at least those I can do something about, on the level I’m on.
I’ve been diving into Lesson 11 of Pticha with KabU past lessons, where a humorous yet insightful analogy caught my attention. Daniel raised a question about the concept of free choice. You responded with a clever parable: imagine fish debating the nature of dryness—a condition entirely alien to their underwater existence.
These fish enthusiastically try to convince each other about the wonders of dryness, despite having no real grasp of it: “dryness?! yeah, it’s great!”. They even muse about what it might be like under a rock or at the water’s surface, all the while circling around the concept of dryness as if it was something within their reach. This analogy was a humorous way to show how we, much like the fish, grapple with the abstract idea of free choice. You explained that true free choice exists in a perfect balance of giving and receiving, in a specific state known as the middle third of Tifferet, and that while this concept is complex, we approach it through our environment.
The story and the discussion were not only amusing but also illuminated the nuanced path to understanding free choice. It’s these moments that make the educational journey at KabU so fantastic. Thank you!
Please, I have these questions. I have noticed that Rav Laitman always talks about the love of others. And even reading the writings of Rabash. I wish to ask, what is love and who are these others? Are the others the points in the heart or an individual, as in flesh and blood? I asked those questions because in order for me to know how to love others, I must recognise what is it and how to do it? Thank you.
Others are those outside myself. Except love means bringing them closer to the goal of life, the Creator’s goal. Meaning I need to become similar in thought to Him. Now I have a problem: I need to go according to people’s desire because you can’t love me by giving me kale if I hate kale. Therefore you can work on loving specifically those who have a desire for Kabbalah already. You help them, you come closer to love. That’s not love yet exactly, we’ll find out what love is later. But you demonstrate in the system of forces that you’d like to be like the Creator, you agree with His Plan, and you wish to serve Him.
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