From an article by Rabash, “What is Half a Shekel in the Work”: There are two factors that make a person escape the work, even when he begins the work in order to adhere to the Creator, since after a person begins to follow the path of the truth, his lowliness is revealed to him from Above, which means that the more he overcomes the more he receives the hardening of the heart from Above, so that there will be room for the Light of the Torah, called letters, which helps him reform, to be revealed.

This means that there is no Light without a vessel, and so by the hardening of the heart, the deficiency is revealed to the fullest. And the Creator knows when it is to the fullest and when the vessel is complete. So sometimes a person escapes the work, when he sees that he has already prayed enough as he sees it, and the Creator does not pay attention to him. It says “and the poor will not diminish,” which means that a person should not diminish himself, and say that the Creator cannot help a lowly person like him. It says “the Lord is sublime and He will see the lowly.

Sometimes a person leaves the work because he knows that he is rich, which means that he has a lot of Torah, a lot of good deeds, and he knows that he is above others. So when he asks the Creator to help him do everything in order to bestow, why doesn’t the Creator turn to him? He knows that he has already prayed so much for that, so he says that the Creator doesn’t want to answer him and so he escapes, but “a person must always overcome.”

“A person must always overcome” means that in every direction, in every sense, he has to keep the straight line which he should follow in order to reach the goal.

This line is like a route that is limited on both sides. On one side towards his ego, there is the feeling of self-lowliness, his self-submission. On the other side, there is his adhesion to the group, in faith above reason, above his small animal mind, which doesn’t let him see the next state, the upper level. Thus a person advances.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, “Conversation About the Group”

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