Can One Force Oneself to Love?

231.01In the article “Concerning the Reward of the Receivers,” Rabash writes that there are prohibited things; permitted things that cannot be received for the sake of bestowal but are necessary; and also, things received through the fulfillment of commandments that cannot be received for the sake of bestowal.

In addition, there are permitted things and things received through commandments that can be received for the sake of bestowal. According to the level of performance, a person receives a reward.

And what is this reward? Reward means performing the action in the most optimal way, through which a person attains equivalence of form. Why, then, do they not say that equivalence of form is the goal, but rather say that the goal is reception for the sake of bestowal? Because the result does not depend on us. The result comes from the law of the Creator, whereas the action depends on us.

This is similar to how Rabash explains the question of love: How can one force oneself to love the Creator, or to “love your neighbor as yourself,” when we cannot interfere in this? How can I force my heart to love someone?

In our world, this can be achieved through effort—when I invest myself in someone, give to them, care for them. This is clearly seen in the example of people who take a child to raise, and the child becomes completely their own, because they invest in him.

Before they invested in him, they felt no love for him at all—neither natural, instinctive love, nor love above nature. But after they invested a part of themselves in him, he becomes very important to them, because it is that part of themselves in him that they love, and from this love for the child is born.

So, it is with us as well: When we are in the desire to receive and transfer it to someone else, a connection is created between us. And in spirituality, when we want to love someone who is completely foreign to us, for the sake of bestowal (not for the sake of receiving, for then we are speaking of an animal feeling), this is a different law, as it is said: “Love the Lord your God.”
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/26, Rabash “Concerning the Reward of the Receivers”

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To Accomplish The Spiritual Task?

938.07Our correction in relation to bestowal should be directed not toward our neighbor, but toward correcting our connection with the Creator. That is then it will become truly good for your neighbor, because in fact, what exists in the world comes from the Creator.

But if you want to change the state of this world, you must change what comes to them from the Creator. And that can be done only if you bestow to Him. And to the extent that you bestow better, He will not have to affect the world in a worse way.

You can come to this through society, when you bestow to your friends, and they bestow to you, you create a group, and just as at the end of correction on the spiritual level you unite in souls, so you try to unite here, in the spiritual task, that is, actually rise to that level.

By this you evoke the surrounding light into our world and thereby oblige the Creator to give more light to this world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/26, Rabash, “Concerning Fear and Joy”

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Independent Work

232.05The ordinary understanding of joy and awe stems from our natural qualities, those with which we are born. We are born with the quality of the desire to receive; that is, all our thoughts, intentions, desires, and passions are directed toward how to fill ourselves.

This is the very first form of the desire to receive. The true desire to receive that exists in each of us is far greater than what we currently feel. It has been reduced to a minimal level, called “our world,” or “this world” (Olam HaZeh), so that we may, by our own efforts, add a screen (Masach) to it, an intention for the sake of bestowal.

As soon as we are able to add a screen for the sake of bestowal to this small desire, greater desires will come. Therefore, each time we ascend from degree to degree, we find ourselves within a desire to receive for the sake of receiving. Then we discern the evil within it, wish to correct it for the sake of bestowal, ask for strength from above, add an intention for the sake of bestowal to it, and receive fulfillment.

There is no other path. Of course, one may ask why we weren’t born with an intention for the sake of bestowal? Why must we ourselves search for the way to attain it, and how to add it to the desire to receive? Why must we do this independently?

The answer is simple. Intention cannot come from above, because it concerns our attitude toward the giver; otherwise, it would not be for the sake of bestowal. It must originate from us.

Therefore, we are given only the desire to receive and, alongside it, the opposite intention, to fill ourselves. First, we must neutralize them, not use them at all, and then transform this into bestowal.

The correction in which I neutralize my desires and reach a state where I do not want to use them at all is called “correction by restriction” (Tzimtzum). After that, I begin to work truly, for the sake of bestowal to the Creator. And if I had not done this independently, it would not be called bestowal and I would not feel it. Then the pleasure received would remain merely the smallest pleasure, the one that in our world is called a tiny candle (Ner Dakik), which can be received for the sake of receiving.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/26, Rabash, “Concerning Fear and Joy”

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Unraveling the Riddle of Nature

765.1The mechanism of entering the upper world is the mechanism where a person builds a screen for oneself, explores oneself, studies one’s egoistic nature, and gradually changes it into an altruistic one. At the same time, they do not disconnect from others; on the contrary, they draw them to themselves, and include them within themselves, just as a mother includes the desires and the entire essence of her child within herself.

In the same way, each of us must include all of humanity within ourselves because this is how we expand ourselves.

I only have a point, an embryo of contact with everyone else, and I can expand like a womb expands when a fetus develops inside it. In its normal state, the womb is, say, the size of a small pear, and as it expands it becomes like a huge soccer ball.

That is how my embryonic soul represents a point, called “the point in the heart.” As I accept others into myself, they enter this point, and it begins to expand, to swell, and turn into a womb, into my AHP, which includes everyone, up to all of humanity, or at least the small group of like‑minded people with whom we work in this way, each relative to the others like a womb.

Thus I begin to perceive all of humanity within myself (not somewhere outside, abstractly, but precisely inside myself) and to relate to it as to the most precious thing within me, like the organism of a mother that is set up to devote itself solely to the development of the fetus.

This is the basis of correcting egoism—including all others within yourself as your most precious integral part, and working on it. In doing so, you completely replace the introverted perception of the world with an extroverted one. In truth, it is not really extroverted, but it is called so because it is connected with others. But these “others” are no longer others. They are already the closest, most precious part of you.

When we reach such a state, we see that all of creation, all of nature, is absolutely one single whole, and there is no life and death, no transition from one state to another, everything is eternal and perfect. A person rises above all limitations of time, space, movement, life, and death; everything disappears. He clearly enters an entirely different dimension.

At the same time, until the very last moment, this world does not disappear; you continue to exist in it physically. And only when absolutely all souls, that is, all people, change their attitude, their nature, to a single love, a single inclusion in each other, then all the worlds and our world as well, that is, the entire illusion of existence in our egoistic dimension, will gradually disappear because it is given to us only so that we would perform this work upon ourselves.

We were deliberately, artificially pulled out of a unified state, separated, given an awareness of “self,” so that now, through our own efforts, we could gather again. Today humanity is entering a stage in which our nature, our earthly existence, this little world and our sensation in it will push us out, like labor pains, into the higher dimension, and force us to enter it through our problems.

We have no idea at all what is happening in the world. The ecological upheavals will be such! And you cannot do anything against them. It is they that will bring humanity to the necessity of uniting against a common enemy, nature.

This nature will reveal itself when we all must unite. There are no Arabs and Jews here, no Russians and Americans, no Africans and Europeans! Here all of us are tiny little humans against a huge nature.

And then we will see that this nature has its own form, its own plan, its own intention, its own brain, its own mind. And therefore it addresses us in this way on purpose and teaches us to become wiser. In this way it will force us to become connected with one another and to unravel the riddle of why it acts this way. We will discover in it a cause‑and‑effect influence upon us, a sense of rationality. Let’s not place ourselves above it. Who are we? Little bugs. We will see that we exist within a vast mind that compels us to grow gradually.

Therefore all environmental shifts inspire great hope for imminent positive changes in human society.
The Creator will force us to come closer through the pressure of the surrounding nature, and will compel us in some way to seek interaction and mutual assistance.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah and LSD” 10/1/10

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 1/21/26

Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 2, “What Is a Great or a Small Sin in the Work?” (1989) (2.4.2003)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, “Table of Answers for Topics,” Item 111

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3rd part of the Lesson — Preparation for “Connecting in the Ten, Adhering to the Creator,” Lesson 2

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