Local Meeting # 23:

"There is None Else Besides Him"

We started discussing on Sunday the convention topic. We continue today to clarify "There Is None Else Besides Him" through the sources, video clips and workshops.

1. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 1, "There is None Else Besides Him":

"It is written, “There is none else besides Him.” This means that there is no other force in the world that has the ability to do anything against Him. And what one sees, that there are things in the world that deny the upper household, the reason is that this is His will.

This is deemed a correction called “the left rejects and the right pulls closer,” meaning that what the left rejects is considered a correction. This means that there are things in the world that, to begin with, aim to divert a person from the right way, and by which he is rejected from Kedusha [holiness].

The benefit from the rejections is that through them a person receives a complete need and desire for the Creator to help him since he sees that otherwise he is lost; not only is he not progressing in the work, he even sees that he regresses. That is, he lacks the strength to observe Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] even Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], for only by genuinely overcoming all the obstacles, above reason, can he observe the Torah and Mitzvot. But he does not always have the strength to overcome above reason; otherwise, he is forced to deviate, God forbid, from the way of the Creator, even from Lo Lishma."

Directing ourselves toward one goal

Watch Clip 1

Excerpt 2 - Baal HaSulam, Letter No. 16

"...Prior to making a Mitzva [commandment], one must not consider private Providence at all. On the contrary, one should say, “If I am not for me, who is for me?” But after the fact, one must reconsider and believe that it was not by “My power and the might of my hand” that I did the Mitzva, but only by the power of the Creator, who contemplated so about me in advance, and so I had to do.

It is likewise in worldly matters because spirituality and corporeality are equal. Therefore, before one goes out to make one’s daily bread, he should remove his thoughts from private Providence and say, “If I am not for me, who is?” He should do all the tactics applied in corporeality to earn his living as do others.

But in the evening, when he returns home with his earnings, he must never think that he has earned this profit by his own innovations. Rather, even if he stayed all day in the basement of his home, he would still have earned his pay, for so the Creator contemplated for him in advance, and so it had to be.

Although the matters look the contrary on the surface, and are unreasonable, one must believe that so the Creator has determined for him in His law, from authors and from books.

This is the meaning of the unification of HaVaYaH Elokim [God]. HaVaYaH means private Providence, where the Creator is everything, and He does not need dwellers of material houses to help Him. Elokim in Gematria is HaTeva [the nature], where man behaves according to the nature that He instilled in the systems of the corporeal heaven and earth, and he keeps those rules as do the rest of the corporeal beings. And yet, he also believes in HaVaYaH, meaning in private Providence.

By this he unites them with one another, and “they became as one in his hand.” In this way, he brings great contentment to his Maker and brings illumination in all the worlds..."

"If I Am Not for Myself, Who Is for Me?"

Watch Clip 2

Workshops

Workshop Question 1
How do we organize our group to aim us toward None Else Besides Him?

Workshop Question 2
After discussing how we organize ourselves in the group, share with the friends two new things that you're expecting to attain at the convention?

Convention Invitation

Clip from UK