What Does the Intention Depend On?
Our sages (RASHI, Tavo 3 (Deuteronomy 26:16), in Yitro 13:10) said about the verse, “This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and ordinances. You shall be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul,” “Each day, they will be as new in your eyes, as though you received them today from Mt. Sinai, as though on this day you were commanded them” (Rabash “What Is, ‘Every Day They Will Be as New in Your Eyes,’ in the Work?”).
What does it mean that each day, they will be as new in your eyes? The desire to receive is not new. It has existed in the same form from the beginning of creation and forever. Rather, they will be as new in your eyes means that the renewal relates only to the intention for the sake of bestowal.
With regard to intention, a person is always either in an ascent or in a descent and is constantly making clarifications. It is precisely by the intention that we evaluate a person.
Initially, a person has no intention at all. He simply becomes accustomed to performing actions that he was taught through his upbringing, whether religious or secular. This is called performing learned actions or behaving as a trained person.
Obviously, there is no intention here. Habit simply becomes second nature, both for those who received a religious upbringing and for those who received a secular one. This has nothing to do with what we call intention, because there is still nothing here of the one we call a human.
Anyone can be raised in any manner, and that is how he will remain. There is not yet a man here. A man is one who, through free choice, forms within himself the image of Adam, one who is similar to the Creator. In this process, there is first the intention for one’s own sake (Lo Lishma), and afterward for the sake of the Creator (Lishma).
Lo Lishma includes all of a person’s efforts from the moment he begins working with the point in the heart and receives some awakening toward coming closer to the Creator. Although this may take many years, ten or fifteen, depending on the quantity and, above all, the quality of his efforts, even if he has worked for all those years while experiencing descents and ascents, sometimes moving away and sometimes drawing closer, passing through various states, then, when he is rewarded with the correct intention for the sake of the Creator, all his efforts throughout all the reincarnations (since he may not be able to complete everything in a single reincarnation) become included in the intention for the sake of bestowal that he has acquired and enter his work forever.
Everything else that he received through his upbringing does not belong to the degree of a man and is not taken into account. And so, he advances with regard to intention, constantly adding to it, while passing through descents and ascents.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘Every Day They Will Be as New in Your Eyes,’ in the Work?”
Related Material:
Renew the Intention
Set the Intention
What Precedes Our Intentions




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