Audio Version Of The Blog – 3/15/26
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Question: If it is written, “Buy yourself a friend,” why is one friend not enough for me? Why do I need many friends?
Answer: Because one is not enough. As Baal HaSulam writes in “The Giving of the Torah” and in “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar,” “In the multitude of the people is the King’s glory.” This means that I am not able to be inspired by one person.
I am able to be inspired by many who share the same opinion as I do and who can be my environment. Of course, it may also be one person, but still it will not influence me as much as needed.
I need as large an environment as possible, although within it I see different people. It does not matter; each time I can pay attention to those from whom I will receive inspiration.
I can be inspired by some, while I invest efforts—“buy for yourself a friend”—specifically in others. However, since all are connected into one society, it does not matter. This is how it works. The environment must be as large and as strong as possible.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/26, Rabash, “Make for Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 1”
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If a person is unable to draw inspiration from their friends, it means that the goal is still not important to them. Perhaps the goal is important to them, but they haven’t figured out what it is yet. The goal is adhesion with the Creator through equivalence of qualities, which I can achieve only if I gather strength from my environment; the Creator gave me the initial impetus.
For such a person, this entire process has not yet been fully understood and they don’t connect their goal with the true goal. They believe it lies in knowing a lot, in seeing the whole world from end to end, in feeling eternity, in being above the world. They haven’t yet deciphered the correct definition of the goal of creation. It isn’t yet completely connected to the giver with the understanding that they too must come to the force of bestowal. Then they replace the true goal with another goal, they dress it in a different garment that is more egoistic, more understandable to them. This is normal. What can they do? It is the result of his state.
Nevertheless, one must increasing focus on seeing the goal as clearly as possible in a form closer to the truth. And then, thanks to this, a person will see that indeed he or she lacks strength, knowledge, and understanding of where to begin, and will feel the need to turn to the group.
If a person truly, reveals time after time, an even more true goal, more directed toward bestowal, more distant from them by virtue of their nature, they will more clearly feel that they are unable to take a step toward it. Then they must remember that the forces for this exist only in the environment. And since they have already entered it, they turn to it out of desperation.
The absence of a way out is the stimulus that compels me to turn to the group, since otherwise I will not be able to find the strength to move forward. It is like the need to maintain life within yourself, and so I come and ask. It is only in this case, the request in itself does not help. You must invest effort and receive strength in return.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/26, Rabash, “Make for Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 1”
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The meaning of “forced the mountain on them like a vault” is that the reason that now they must receive the Torah and they have no other choice is the mountain, meaning the information they received in the thought and intellect that they are in a state of descent because they have evil in the hearts. This is like a vault, meaning that it is coercive and they have no choice (Rabash, Article “What Is Preparation for Reception of the Torah – 1”).
The state in which I realize my opposition to the Creator in all my qualities is called “standing at Mount Sinai.” I stand at the foot of the mountain and above me is a mountain of doubts, my bad qualities, that separate me from the Creator who is at the top of the mountain.
How do I know that He is at the top? Because that is where my point in the heart, called Moses, is. When I feel the difference between these two sensations, there is a need for me to receive the reforming light. Moreover, I feel that the Creator is forcing to do this. As it is written, forced the mountain on them like a vault is a sign of coercion.
The Creator descends to the top of the mountain where His qualities are. If I rise above all the doubts, above my nature, then I will meet Him there. It is not by chance that this state is revealed to me: either I accept the corrections and rise above all the doubts or this will be “my burial” place since I will bury myself under all my desires and doubts.
In such a case I truly need the Torah, which stands against the evil inclination, because I reveal that the evil inclination is my nature and I begin to hate Mount Sinai.
What is called hatred, as it is said: “Hatred descended upon the nations of the world”? This is explained as though we received the Torah, and then the nations of the world began to hate us. But it is I who hate the nations of the world within me, and therefore I receive the Torah after I determine that the evil is within me.
As long as I think that my inclination is good, since it is good, I desire it. And if I want to use it, then the Creator, who has a goal, the desire to raise me to the top of the mountain (“everyone must become like Moses”), gives the light, and in this light, I begin to enter the process of ascents and descents.
Thus, by defining my nature as good, I remain in a descent, so that each time I can see it in comparison with the light until I come to the decision that it is evil.
Until these constantly recurring descents accumulate into a mountain, after which I will need the Torah and be ready to receive it, I will not develop the need for the Torah (Hebrew: Torah means teaching, theory; “Horaah”—instruction) as a guide for correction. When I accept the Torah as correction, then I merit the desire for it as a source of fulfillment.
It is clear that all of this occurs under coercion. As it is said: He forced the mountain on them like a vault. That is, He imposed coercion upon us (“Kfiya” from the verb “kafa“—compelled, and also overturned, turned upside down). We can only become more sensitive to what is happening to us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/26, Rabash, “What Is Preparation for Reception of the Torah – 1”
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Question: How can I advance if the desire to receive dominates me?
Answer: Indeed, the Creator constantly activates the desire to receive in you to advance you, and then you feel that it dominates you again. It is not even that it dominates you, but that you are that desire to receive.
But to feel its power over you, you need the upper light that gives you the feeling that there is something besides the desire to receive—the desire to bestow. Then you realize that the desire to receive and you are not the same thing. There must be a third party.
If you have this separation between you and the desire to receive and the awareness of its power, this is salvation. Now something is up to you.
You have come out of unconsciousness and can act. You think “I am not my egoism, my hater, the one who prevents me from advancing. I would kill it, but how do I seize it? It is like a cancer in me.” You should start looking for some kind of cure. The cure from egoism can only be the light.
Your problem is that you do not really want this cure. Then you should go to a group that will strengthen your awareness of evil, so that you would see that this disease is killing you and separates you from eternal life to such an extent that you start to scream. It is the real scream that opens the heavens.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/26, Rabash, “What Is the Preparation to Receive the Torah in the Work?-2”
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Question: How can you determine what you must correct and how to correct it?
Answer: How can you determine your state, name it correctly, and measure it so that it becomes the cause for correction? I may be measuring my state, meaning my desire, since I have nothing else, but this does not compel me to make a decision.
I am in the desire to receive, which gives me either pleasure or suffering, and according to this I determine whether it is good or bad. Based on that, I use it or try to replace it (acquire a different desire to receive), and strive to enjoy something else. And if I cannot enjoy it, then let me not have the desire for it, I will suppress it.
A person always chooses what they can enjoy in the most useful and easiest form, so that there is as little effort as possible and as much pleasure as possible. This is our calculation. It is a natural calculation that everyone makes, from functioning on the still, vegetative, and animate levels to functioning on the speaking level within us. This is how it works on all levels of nature.
But if I want to learn how to enjoy more, I seek out systems, join various clubs, and learn from others. I develop the use of my desire to receive to the point where, legally or illegally, I can enjoy as much as society and the world allow. I simply constantly calculate what is beneficial and what is not; the maximum is always my goal.
According to this, we look at people and evaluate them. It is impossible to demand any other calculation because this is our nature.
Then why does a person receive blows from the upper governance, from the Creator? After all, the Creator created them in such a way that this is the only calculation they can make. You can ask scientists (biologists, psychologists, etc.) and they will say that this is our calculation. So why does the Creator, who made us this way, punish us? For what? For creating us like this?
The Creator does not punish us. What comes to us from Him is not in order to punish us, but in accordance with the law that says that there is not only the desire to receive in us. There is also another force that is in us at the preparatory stage—the desire to bestow.
Therefore we must begin to make calculations that take it into account. To do this we must begin to calculate between the desire to receive and the desire to bestow. To the extent that we do not make a calculation in accordance with the level of our development, we experience suffering.
If we would force ourselves to calculate not only about how much I want to enjoy, but also how much I should give enjoyment to others, and if I did this correctly in relation to myself and others according to my development, then I would be in a good state. I would not feel any suffering.
Suppose, according to my development, I should give 20 to 30% and receive 80%, this is my current level. It will increase and I will need to give more and receive less. If I knew this law, if I knew what is demanded of me and carried it out, I would always feel comfortable and good because this is, in essence, the law that affects me.
Why do we not see this law? We would make the calculation in order to feel good.
But the goal is not to feel good in the desire to receive. The calculation (how much for me and how much for others) must come, not only from the desire to receive, but from the desire to adhere to the Creator, to resemble Him. Bestowal itself is also not the goal. The goal is to resemble the Creator, to be like Him, so the law according to which I must bestow is not revealed to me.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/26, Rabash, “What Does It Mean That the Creation of the World Was by Largess?”
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1st part of the Lesson – Writings of Rabash, Article 19 “What Is, “Rise Up, O Lord, and Let Your Enemies Be Scattered, in the Work?” (1991) (5.6.2003)
2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”