Audio Version Of The Blog – 2/5/26
Posted on February 5th, 2026
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Question: We study that freewill consists of choosing one’s society. Is this, essentially, our only choice?
Answer: We are not precise when we say that our only choice is the society we need. It is more correct to say not society, but environment, because it is a broader concept.
The environment includes the books, the sages who wrote those books, friends, the teacher, and everything except the Creator and me (if a person believes there is something in him).
Thus, I must say that the forces of the Creator and the force within me are the same Creator, only manifested from different sides. Therefore, if I decide something, or it seems to me that the Creator decides, it is, in fact, the same source.
If I want to acquire some force other than the Creator who, according to my perception, is outside of me, or other than the Creator that is in me, meaning apart from the nature He created and with which He endowed me, then I need something external, something outside. Everything outside is called the environment.
As Baal HaSulam writes about a wheat seed that is place it in the soil in the article “The Freedom.” What do you have besides that seed and the environment in which it is placed?
It is the same with us. If we want to arm ourselves with any additional forces—forces that, as Baal HaSulam explains, we choose—and our independent choice entirely constitutes our individuality, the expression of our own “I,” then it turns out that nothing else remains.
I should not turn to my own nature, because all of it is the Creator, and I should not turn to the Creator. Do you understand the paradox? I should not turn to Him! Because every turning to Him is planned by Him; He programs it.
So, what am I supposed to do?! If I have the power to turn to the Creator, then it turns out that He is turning to Himself?! Then who am I here?! A puppet?! By fulfilling what the Creator placed in me, I turn to Him.
The point is that I must turn to the Creator with what I acquire from the outside, through my own free choice. Outside of me, the Creator intentionally creates several sources of inspiration, and I am impressed by each of them in different ways. For me, the main inspiration is the one that directs me toward the Creator. In principle, the result of that inspiration does not matter; what matters is what I choose.
Now the question arises: “So what exactly am I choosing?” After all, the Creator placed all my inner nature within me, so where does choice begin? Again, from the very force that He placed in me.
As Baal HaSulam said: “The Creator places a person’s hand upon a good fate and says: Take it.’”
Meaning: choose this environment and not another. And a person must strengthen himself in that choice. Ultimately, the choice is not in the environment itself (the Creator also points me to the environment), but in strengthening and in holding on to what He has shown.
You must not have the slightest doubt about whether free choice exists! It does! However, you attain it not by your own power, and the discernments are also not yours. Free choice is not attained by searching for new continents. But the moment when you feel something that directs you toward the Creator, you must apply all the forces of your soul to strengthen yourself, to remain on the right path, and to hold on to the inspiration you already have.
The result, of course, does not depend on you; that is clear. How much you hold on to the group will be the result.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/26, Rabash “Lishma and Lo Lishma”
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It is written, Be careful with the sons of the poor… from them, Torah will emerge. A person who feels poor, who does not have real Kelim (vessels) to receive the light of the Creator’s revelation, is called a poor man. For example, “poor in knowledge.”
What does “be careful” mean? The fact is, a person neglects such states, does not want them, and flees from the feeling of poverty when he has nothing. After all, the desire to receive, egoism, is unwilling to suffer, such is its nature.
A person always calms himself down and glosses over the feeling that he lacks something, that something is wrong with him. He does not feel ready to reveal his true desires.
Egoism is ready and likes to give him the opportunity to feel sorry for himself and to “gnaw” at himself, but this is not called a feeling of poverty.
Here, the feeling of poverty is a lack of strength to bestow, and here the desire to receive leaves us no opportunity, it always leads us away from it. Therefore, it is written: “Be careful with the sons of the poor,” that is, we must pay attention precisely to the consequences of feeling poor, to what I demand as a result of this. After all, it is precisely from this demand that the Torah comes through, and it is from here that the light that returns to the source comes. The Kli for receiving correction is called “the poor.”
[352117]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/18-19/26, Rabash “What Are Torah and Work in the Way of the Creator?”
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Question: How can a person look at others and see them as flawed, see their desire to receive in an uncorrected form, but not see it in oneself?
Answer: How is it that a person looks at others and sees they are all in the desire to receive, but he is not?
Rabash gives a very simple example: I have a child, and the neighbor has a child. My child is cute, adorable, smart, and well-behaved. I look at him and see a small man. But when I look at the neighbor’s child, he looks dirty, ignorant, neglected, rude, and loud. Why? It is all in the attitude.
Is my child unlike the neighbor’s? They are both children, there is no difference, but in my child, I see the good half, and in the neighbor’s the bad half. That is, both you and your friends are the same. It is only that I can justify myself, I know why I am like this. But why is the friend so? That is the difference.
Later, you will discover something different, you will see negative things in yourself, and positive things in your friend, and then you will start to envy him. This will be a good envy. At first, it is bad, and then maybe good, when you want to be closer to him to learn from him and grow stronger with his help. You will bestow on him, and he will reciprocate.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/26, Rabash “What Are Torah and Work in the Way of the Creator?”
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Question: When we speak about an integral state, do we mean society, or according to Kabbalah is it a single spiritual organism?
Answer: It is one and the same. We are speaking about a society that begins to sense itself as one common whole. Within it, a collective mind, a collective feeling, collective needs, and a collective outlook on everything emerge. That is, the entire society becomes one unified whole and begins to feel all levels of nature as fully interconnected. And when a person includes this vast nature within himself, sees it and feels it inside himself, he begins to internalize its program.
As part of this program, he starts to perceive it in its entirety. It is as if he sees himself as having originated billions of years ago and as continuing his development billions of years into the future because he begins to be included in this immense organism of integral nature. He starts to feel all the forces he exists within, and understands how this works, how it influences him, and how he can influence himself, his destiny, and his future, as the only active element in nature, not instinctively, but consciously.
However, he will attain this only when he is integrally included in all levels of nature. Then he rises to the highest level of nature, to the level of the Creator, so to speak. There is no Creator as such; nature itself is the Creator. But a person reaches such a level.
Question: How can we define the very concept of society, since society and an organism are perceived as different things? Society is sometimes compared to an organism, but this is a metaphor, an image.
Answer: These concepts are perceived as different in a society where all the elements are not interconnected. If it is an organism broken into parts, into fragments, like a sick person in a dreadful state, when all the systems are out of balance, then you are right. That is the state of today’s society that we are trying somehow to save from destruction, from the complete disintegration of all its systems. But when all systems are in mutual support and balance, each one and all together, like the human body, then this is simply an integral society.
Comment: So we must draw a clear line between the notions of society that prevail in sociology. There everything is very simple: there is a simple society, a primitive community, a tribe, and there is a complex society, which must be highly differentiated.
My Response: Primitive communities, by the way, were practically integral communities. For them this was based on an instinctive level, as in the animal world.
But we differ from the animal world in that egoism has grown in us. And now we begin to unite on a different level.
Animals are instinctively united in an integral community. Nature holds them together through its general law. Then, above our animal body, egoism grows, and we must begin to integrate above it, together with it. That is, egoism itself gives us a new level of integration.
[96031]
From KabTV’s “Integral World,” 11/26/12
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Why did the Kabbalists choose the “language of branches” for their explanations?
Let us assume that I have attained the connection between the root and branch at the very first degree, and someone else understands it at a higher degree, and a third person at an even higher one. It does not matte; the branch remains the same branch.
A child knows that if you put a plug into an electrical outlet, the toy will work. I know that there is electricity in the outlet that comes into the house through wires. And a person who is even more technically educated knows that there is a power station somewhere, and so on. But we are all speaking about the very same process regardless of how much each of us understands it and how far each one “looks into the root.”
The roots continue in the same direction toward their upper source, but the branch, in our world, remains a branch. The “language of branches” is taken from reality itself; it is impossible to invent another language. And this one does not need to be invented. It turns out that this language is prepared for us by nature for communication within ourselves, between us, and with the Creator.
Moses, in his book The Torah, was the first to describe the entire path of spiritual ascent, at all degrees, in this language. The Book of Zohar gives commentary and supplements the language of Moses with its own language.
Rabbi Shimon passed through the same degrees as Moses, which every person must pass, and in his description, he added a greater connection between branch and root. Therefore, The Book of Zohar is so effective in drawing the light (the surrounding light, Ohr Makif) from the root to its branch (to us).
Baal HaSulam described the connection between the root and the branch even further by adding Kabbalistic definitions and the connection in the three lines.
All of them speak about the same visible picture and its roots, but each Kabbalist adds the description of the connection in his own way, thereby increasing the power of ascent (the descending surrounding light, Ohr Makif), and also paving a path for us to pass through the degrees of the upper world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/10, Rashbi, Zohar for All, Vol. 6, “Shmini”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 21, “Concerning Above Reason,” (1986) (1.31.2003)
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2nd part of the Lesson — Recording of Rabash, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 5, Item 22
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3rd part of the Lesson — Preparation for the Congress “Connecting in the Ten, Adhering to the Creator,” Lesson 5: “A Prayer From Within the Ten”
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