Lesson #24 - Preparation for the World Kabbalah Convention "Connecting to There Is None Else Besides Him"- May 2025
Lesson #24 - Preparation for the World Kabbalah Convention "Connecting to There Is None Else Besides Him"- May 2025
Selected Excerpts from the Sources
Lesson #2: Believing that the Creator Is Good and Does Good
1. From - Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 34, "The Advantage of a Land":
"It is known from books and from authors that the Creator is benevolent. This means that His guidance appears to the lower ones as good and doing good, and this is what we must believe.
Therefore, when one examines the conducts of the world, and begins to examine himself or others, how they suffer under Providence instead of delighting, as is fitting for His Name—The Good Who Does Good—in that state, it is hard for him to say that Providence is behaving in a manner of good and doing good and imparts them with abundance.
However, we must know that in that state, when they cannot say that the Creator imparts only good, they are considered wicked because suffering makes them condemn their Maker. Only when they see that the Creator imparts them with pleasures do they justify the Creator. It is as our sages said, “Who is righteous? He who justifies his Maker,” meaning he who says that the Creator leads the world in a manner of righteousness."
2. From - RABASH, Article No. 44 (1990), "What Is an Optional War, in the work - 2?":
"A person must believe that this concealment, where a person does not feel that there is a King to the world, the Creator did this, and this is called “the correction of the Tzimtzum [restriction].” However, one must believe and make great efforts until he feels in his organs that the Creator is the leader of the world. And not just a leader! Rather, one must believe that His guidance is in the manner of good and doing good. A person must do all that he can to be able to attain this."
Lesson #3: If I Am Not for Me, Who Is for Me?
3. From - 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..."
4. From: Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 217, "If I Am Not for Me, Who Is for Me?":
“If I am not for me who is for me, and when I am for myself, what am I?” This is an inherent contradiction. The thing is that one should do all of one’s work by way of “If I am not for me, who is for me,” that no one can save him, but “by your mouth, and by your heart to do it,” that is, a discernment of reward and punishment. However, to oneself, in private, one should know that “when I am for myself, what am I?” This means that everything is in private Providence and no one can do anything.
If you say that if everything is in private Providence, why is there the issue of working in the form of “If I am not for me, who is for me?” Yet, through working in the form of “If I am not for me, who is for me,” one is awarded private Providence, meaning attains it. Thus, everything follows the path of correction, and the distribution of added fondness, called “children of the Creator,” is not revealed unless it is preceded by work in the form of “If I am not for me, who is for me.”
5. From: RABASH, Article No. 18 (1986), "Who Causes the Prayer":
One must not say, “I’m waiting for the Creator to give me an awakening from above, and then I will be able to work in the work of holiness.” Baal HaSulam said that in regard to the future, a person must believe in reward and punishment, meaning he must say (Avot, Chapter 1), “If I am not for me who is for me, and when I am for me, what am I, and if not now, then when?”
Thus, one mustn’t wait another moment. Instead, he should say, “If not now, then when?” And he must not wait for a better time, so “Then I will get up and do the work of holiness.” Rather, it is as our sages said (Avot, Chapter 2), “Do not say, ‘I will study when I have time,’ lest you will not have time.”
Texts of the Video Clips
Clip # 1 – "If I Am Not for Myself, Who Is for Me?"
Rav: We don’t know what spirituality is, what it means to be above our own mind and heart. I don’t know what the quality of bestowal is, what faith is. It’s something I can’t grasp — it’s not within me. I can’t see this result or phenomenon outside of myself, anywhere, because everything I perceive, I perceive through my will to receive.
And so, bestowal itself becomes the issue. I don’t know what true bestowal is. Even when I give, it’s still receiving — I’m receiving. We don't judge it by the form of giving something to someone, because in truth I’m receiving — I’m always receiving. Whatever I see or don’t see, whatever the action, the type, the context — it is always reception for myself, for myself, for myself. When I look at something, when I see something — how can I gain, how can I succeed, enjoy, be fulfilled — this is the approach of the will to receive that lives inside me and drives everything I do. Both in conscious and unconscious ways. My heart that beats, my body that sustains itself, the cells, the organs — everything operates from the desire to receive, constantly receiving.
So here’s the problem: how do we attain the quality of bestowal, which is the opposite?
It is said: You have a part called “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” — and that part, you must do. This includes actions to get closer to others, to build the group, build the ten, and to influence one another as much as possible.
The second part — is given by the Creator.
Clip #2 >>
Student: It's unclear — where is the boundary between "If I am not for me, who is for me?" and "There is none else besides Him"?
Rav: Wherever the person places it. There’s no law, boundary, or barrier like: "This is the Creator's side, and this is the creature’s side." The person defines it — until he attributes everything to the Creator. That’s how he reaches complete adhesion.
Student: Where does a person’s work begin and end, and where does the Creator’s work begin?
Rav: A person acts, and then he must hand everything over to the Creator. And later, to the extent that he can, as if, take from the Creator and perform and sustain it himself, he reaches a state where everything happening between them — on one hand, he attributes it to the Creator, and on the other, he is ready to carry out everything himself. That is called complete adhesion. We still need to explain the essence of it, but that’s the idea.
Student: Are "If I am not for me, who is for me?" and "There is none else besides Him" sequential, one after the other? Or are these two parallel states?
Rav: "If I am not for me, who is for me?" comes first — when I truly want to see myself arranging and upholding the laws of nature as one, as a single law. I set everything in a way that the Creator is the one unique force standing at the center of all reality. And as I arrange and observe this, I gradually reveal "There is none else besides Him" — that everything I did, I acted only to reveal that One Force, which from the beginning was acting as One. To such an extent He acted as One — that He placed all the obstacles before me, confused me, did all these things, and taught me like a good teacher — so I would know how uniquely that One Force permeates every place, in every corner of my mind and emotions.
Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Convention in Vilnius
Outside the car window, the rain doesn’t stop.
We pass endless forests. But here, at the convention, you feel such warmth, such hearts, that you forget the cold and feel like you’ve come home.
Bright Kate (UK):
“This is a congress that brings people from all walks of life together. There’s nothing like it in the world.”
Representatives from 31 countries have arrived — from Europe, America, and a large delegation from Israel.
This is the World Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Convention.
Višnja Marušić (Croatia):
“What I feel here, I don’t feel anywhere else in the world.”
That explains the joyful faces, the hugs, the happiness in their eyes.
Said Gahhar (Iran/Norway):
“When I was born in Iran, there was war. I came to Europe and was placed in ghettos — it was chaos. But now, after finding Kabbalah four years ago, it gave me balance in life and I’m full of hope for the future.”
Suddenly, you feel there are no separate countries here, no borders between people — this is how they want to live.
For three days, the magic continues. It’s not just the lectures — it’s the shared work, where the answers come from the connection and collective search of the participants. Rav Laitman only guides them to the goal. This is called "the workshop."
Yerganat Alimkulov (Kazakhstan):
“You can be Christian, you can be Muslim — the main thing is human nature itself, and this connection between people brings solutions to everything.”
Roi Taub (Croatia):
“It's precisely the method from Israel — ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ You see how it’s realized here. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you are, whether you live in Israel or not, whether you are Jewish or not — it doesn’t matter.”
Helena Garcia (Spain):
“I know this method comes from Israel — a country with a special heart.”
Bernd Brecht (Germany):
“I feel like I’m part of Israel.”
Rav Laitman begins. Forty years of experience teaching the wisdom of Kabbalah.
Andrei Alekseevich (Russia):
“What Dr. Laitman gives — I have not experienced anywhere else.”
Bernd Brecht (Germany):
“He feels the audience, the connection between people, and the forces at work here.”
His teachers, the great Kabbalists, could not have imagined that this could happen.
Such a group of students from all over the world, rising and establishing a new society — a new humanity, one based on connection instead of division.
Roi Taub (Croatia):
“This Europe — so cold, so many countries, so many languages… but look at what’s happening here! So many nations sitting together, connecting above all differences — and in Europe, the differences are huge. You cross a border and it’s a whole different world.”
And precisely now, this is what Europe so desperately needs — as it divides into parts, so different in mentality, character, and color. But here, you feel a united Europe. This is the true wisdom of Kabbalah — coming to unite the world.
Barbara Fraone (Italy):
“I feel that we need this — in Europe and in the world. We all need to find the human part within ourselves.”
Here, everything works in a practical way and shows that it’s possible to build a different reality — one based on true unity and connection between people.
Rav Laitman:
“I don’t remember a convention so warm — it truly felt like one heart. I think we really can live like this, all the time, all over the world — all over Europe.”