The group is my mirror. To the extent that I build it, it builds me. Both my attitude toward it and its attitude toward me are detached from my desire to receive, which helps me build relationships of bestowal rather than expand and fulfill vessels of reception.

If I were working directly with the Creator, I would certainly use the vessels of reception. Baal HaSulam writes that if the Creator were revealed, I would rush toward Him shouting, “Stop the thief!” The desire to receive itself would tell me how wonderful it is to work for the Creator; I would want to be close to Him, to do something for Him.

After all, if He fills me with a sense of confidence and pleasures, then why not work? Why not perceive Him as good and great? We always want to be near greatness.

Thus, the desire to receive would strive toward the Creator for personal benefit. But if instead of the Creator I have a group in which I do not find great personal benefit, power, confidence, or a strong influence on me, then within it, there are conditions that allow me to work not with my desire to receive, but in the direction of bestowal. I want to grow vessels of bestowal within myself, and therefore, I turn to the group.

It turns out that the shattering of the vessels is the opportunity to work with the desire to receive of others, those external to me, as though with the Creator. That the Creator placed before me someone else, someone “other,” aside from Himself is truly my salvation.

In this case, I can genuinely practice how to be a giver and not a receiver. I can determine whether I am giving or receiving. I can perform exercises that later will allow me to enter into a relationship with the Creator in which my attitude toward Him will truly be one of bestowal.

The group helps me exit my desire to receive because it is not a supplier of pleasures for me. Whereas, if I were working with the Creator, I would only work with Him as the source of pleasures and would never be able to exit my desire to receive.
[353596]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Saboteur Was in the Flood, and Was Putting to Death,’ in the Work?”

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So far the world has been busy figuring out how to dodge the next blow from nature to protect itself. But one way or another, the blow comes. The question is how to resist this blow within ourselves. We have the opportunity to make it so that we do not even feel that we were hit or that there was a tsunami.

If we succeed in controlling our inner world, we will see a completely different reality, one that supposedly exists outside of us. Then we will understand that in fact nothing changes on the outside. All tsunamis and earthquakes occur only within us, in our perception.

The future is a law that exists within us, and is realized through the general force of nature within which we find ourselves. This force is constant and unchanging, and we are constantly changing within it. That is why it seems to us that the world is changing. But in reality, it is not. The only ones who change are us.

In that case we can turn to our own changes, and try to take control of them in order to determine our future, not only whether there will be a tsunami or not, but ultimately life and death.

We can make our lives beautiful and comfortable. We will not need air conditioning or heating; we will feel what we want to feel. There will be no sense of the slightest inconvenience or discomfort. One can create a truly heavenly life for oneself.

Question: What is “time” anyway?

Answer: In order to bring us to the correct perception of reality and teach us to manage the concept of time, that is, our own changes, we are placed in two systems: giving and receiving. We find ourselves sometimes in one system and sometimes in the other, one good and one bad, an altruistic system of giving and love and an egoistic system of receiving and hatred.

This alternating transition from the rule of one system to the rule of the other is what we feel as the flow of time. This is what gives rise to the concept of time in this world.

Time is our sensation, not the rotation of the sun, the moon, or the Earth, which also take place within us.

Question: Does the solar system also exist within us?

Answer: Of course, because nothing exists except the human being who imagines the universe this way.

One moment I fall under the governance of the altruistic system of giving, and at another under the governance of the egoistic system of receiving. And these oscillations between the two systems, like a pendulum—tick-tock, tick-tock—create the sensation of time.
[220072]
From KabTV’s  New Life 934 – What Is “The Future?”, 12/19/17

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Question: When should we work on recognizing the greatness of the group and when should we work on recognizing the greatness of the Creator?

Answer: In essence, I should work on recognizing the greatness of the Creator. After all, I have business precisely with the Creator. He is my beginning, He is the provider of strength, and He is my goal.

However, I travel this path against the backdrop of my desire to receive. I must recognize and cultivate the Creator within myself starting from the opposite state. Therefore, in order to turn off my “I,” my ego, my interest in Him when I appear as the one who receives, uses, and enjoys, I obviously set Him as my goal, but I cannot use Him.

I cannot maintain connection with Him if my desire to receive reveals pleasure, support, and fulfillment in Him. Then instead of Him, I need someone to work with and to be able to use this work to advance my intention for the sake of bestowal. In essence this means a group instead of the Creator.

Why? A group can provide criticism of my work. By itself it does not initially satisfy my desire to receive. As I get to know the group, I do not feel pleasure, confidence, eternity, or perfection. But if I work on this and want to reveal these properties within the group, then I begin to sense them.
[353575]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Saboteur Was in the Flood, and Was Putting to Death,’ in the Work?”

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Question: I still don’t understand where our world is, where the spiritual, higher world is in relation to it, and where the Creator is.

Answer: It’s all very simple! Everything that was created is a desire to be fulfilled, to enjoy. It senses everything it can sense within itself, through its own sensations. As long as the desire is egoistic, what it senses is called “this world.” When it becomes altruistic, what it senses is called “the upper or spiritual world.”

The desire consists of five parts, 0-1-2-3-4 levels, the magnitude of the desire, by quantity and quality. Moreover, the greater the quality, the lesser the quantity, just as in our world there are many ordinary stones but few precious ones. Within these four types of desires, a person perceives the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels. The zero part is “me,” the point of reference.

At the very center of the desire is the “I,” from which a person senses the world, their own desire, but it is perceived as existing outside of that “I.” Ordinary perception of the world is called egoistic (consumeristic).

Where is the Creator? Wherever the “I” makes room for Him!
[101134]

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Question: What if the same obstacle returns again and again, constantly intensifying?

Answer: The same obstacle cannot return each time anew. It only seems to us that it is the same obstacle.

For example, a court case may last two or three years, and a person feels as though he is constantly trapped in the same closed circle. But it is not the same obstacle. It is the same external circumstance, yet each time the size of the desires and their form are changed; it is just that we do not perceive it.

In fact, it is very good when it comes this way. It is a very clear sign from the Creator, who wishes to strengthen His connection with the created being. He sends him fear of seemingly terrible things and even intensifies it.

It is similar to a small child who becomes frightened when told, “There is a bear behind the door, be careful!” A person looks at the whole world with fear, thinking, “What will happen?” And although intellectually he understands, he can do nothing with his feelings. He is very afraid.

Only connection with the Creator can sweeten this animal sensation of fear and shift it onto different rails. But this is still not at the human level, not yet for true scrutiny of the connection.
[353476]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/26, Rabash, “According to What Is Explained Concerning ‘Love Thy Friend as Thyself’”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 17-1 “Concerning the Importance of Friends” (1984) (5.23.2003)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 5, Item 40

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3rd part of the Lesson — Principles of Spiritual Work in the Ten

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Question: Are there different feelings of evil with respect to the Creator and with respect to the friend?

Answer: For our will to receive it makes no difference whether it is dealing with the Creator or with a friend. There is no distinction because it always forms its attitude from its own uncorrected vessels.

If a person directs his attention to something outside his will to receive, whether it is the Creator or the friend, the measure of correction and the magnitude and quality of the will to receive, determine his attitude toward that object. There is no difference.

Therefore, we can use the group and according to our reaction to it and according to our mutual relations with it, examine and critically analyze our will to receive, demand correction, and carry them out. After all, if something has a direction aimed outside the will to receive and stands beyond it, then it is the same with respect to the group and with respect to the Creator.

However, when it concerns my attitude toward myself, then of course it matters whether we are speaking about the group or about the Creator. What pleasures can the group give me compared to the Creator?

Everything depends on the degree on which I stand. It may be that I perform a restriction with respect to the Creator and say, “What is the Creator to me? What matters to me is the respect of the group.” Or, on the contrary, I may already restrict my attitude toward the group: “What do I need the group for? I want the divine.” But it is me who wants.

When a person tries to work without turning to himself at all, he discovers that if it is not for himself, but outside himself, then it does not matter to him for whose sake it is done or to whom exactly it will bring benefit. If it is outside of me, if neither at the beginning, nor during the action, nor afterward do I receive any response within myself, then what difference does it make which of a thousand possible factors I am now bestowing to if the results remain there and do not return to me?

What difference does it make what these factors are? From the perspective of the will to receive, I cannot analyze them; I have no connection with them. It turns out as though I throw something out of myself into space, and that is all.

But how do I evaluate my bestowal? Is it great or small? Of high quality? The fact is that I measure only the extent to which it is detached from me. As Rabash writes, there is an awareness of the greatness of the Creator before a person disconnects from himself, and there is an awareness of the greatness of the Creator after he disconnects from himself.

In the second case, I work in a state where I do not feel my acts of bestowal at all. I detach them from my “I” as though casting them into space.

Why do I do this? Because society gives me the sense of the importance of such actions. In other words, I acquire a feeling of the importance of something that is outside my will to receive, a Kli, an unfulfilled desire, and suddenly I feel that I must fill it by bestowing outward from myself. Thus, a certain desire outside of me becomes filled.

If a person works on this, he gradually passes into a state in which he can truly touch what it means to act not for himself, above reason. And this comes gradually.
[353558]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Saboteur Was in the Flood, and Was Putting to Death,’ in the Work?”

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Question: Can a person keep the Creator in mind in a state of greatest darkness, in a feeling of falling lower than anything there is?

Answer: One cannot maintain the sensation of the Creator’s presence or the sense of the goal in every state. And not just in every state; you can say in none because we learn from mistakes, From the negative, we come to know the positive.

This means that each time I must try and fail, try again and fail again. But that does not mean that my goal is to fail. My goal is to achieve success, and then a failure is not a failure at all, but a way of showing me another unfulfilled desire that I must fulfill.

Therefore, our path includes two kinds of states, two kinds of sensations, that are constantly in contradiction to one another. A person is always between them like between a hammer and an anvil.

One can hold on only with the help of the environment. I cannot imagine a person who truly perseveres and advances alone. Perhaps he studies. For example, recently, an Israeli man from Oslo called me; he has been living there for seventeen years: “I read your website, I participate in the Hebrew forum.” But he is not advancing! He does not feel that he lacks strength.

Baal HaSulam wrote about this hundreds of times: “A person does not feel a lack of strength when he falls and cannot emerge from the fall, and this means he is not advancing. The true sign of progress is when he begins to need an external force.”
[352909]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/26, Rabash, “What Does It Mean that Before the Egyptian Minister Fell, Their Outcry Was Not Answered, in the Work?”

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Question: How can we neutralize things that accompany any of our purposeful actions during the preparation period: ego, the desire to receive, the need for self-respect, and pride? How do we choose the force of bestowal, the Creator?

Answer: I have a thousand desires, all sorts of aspirations. I do not even know what is inside of me. If I want to work as a good psychologist, I begin to delve into myself, analyze every factor and its mode of action, and look for an opportunity to influence or correct something.

Perhaps the fruit of these efforts will be a doctorate degree in psychology. Correction will not come from this because I am not correcting myself or seeing or “reading” myself with my mind. Only the light, which brings a change in my desire to receive, explains to me who I am in a different way each time.

Therefore, I do not need to immerse into myself, but to turn outward, that is, to constantly strive toward the Creator or the group. I must acquire these qualities, understanding that greatness lies within them.

To correct the desire to receive, we cannot stay in it. The light builds the vessel, and the light corrects the vessel. If we do not attract it, we will only get entangled in our animal nature and never break free from it. Then we will be scientists dealing with our animal part, like psychologists, and no more.

Even they know nothing about the inner part of a person, especially about those qualities that are a little closer to spirituality. In the field of human-level qualities, they have no understanding, and they admit it.

All our work is not about internal scrutiny: “Who or what am I?” It should be aimed at attaining the giver, the one and only, “there is none else besides Him,” the Good that Does good.

You need to constantly work outside yourself toward Him. That should be my main task. And all my desires to turn inside myself and explore myself are a real Klipa, a hindrance that comes as a result of the Creator enlarging my vessels, and each time they seem more important to me than attaining the Creator as the only one, the benevolent one.
[353571]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Saboteur Was in the Flood, and Was Putting to Death,’ in the Work?”

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