Audio Version Of The Blog – 6/30/26
Posted on June 30th, 2026
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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 155
If “There Is None Else Besides Him” and Everything Comes from Above, Where Are a Person’s Own Powers?
A person’s powers are found in the structure of their soul.
In what way is one person different from another? Both possess the same qualities, but in each individual they exist in different measures and interconnections with other qualities. Every person has a unique structure of animate qualities of this world that we call character; where one is spendthrift, another hot-tempered, another fearful, another kindhearted, and so on. The difference between people is in the degree to which they use these qualities to attain the goal. This determines their level. That is, the coarseness (Aviut) of the screen (Masach).
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When the Creator said to Abraham to circumcise himself, Abraham consulted with his friends (Rabash, “And the Lord Appeared to Him at the Oaks of Mamre”).
“Circumcision” in spiritual work means that a person no longer uses his desire to receive, and if he does use it, it is only for the sake of bestowal.
The circumcision of the foreskin (Orlah) signifies that a person passes from being a gentile (Goy) to becoming a Jew (Yehudi), one who works in unity with the Creator (beYechud). In other words, everything he does from that state onward will be solely for equivalence of form with Him.
Although this is performed from above by Aba ve Ima (father and mother), and is carried out upon a small person, from this state of Katnut (smallness) onward, as he grows into each greater state, he will develop as a Yehudi.
Question: But Abraham circumcised himself. Does that mean that everyone must perform the spiritual circumcision on themselves?
Answer: Abraham’s case is different because he was a patriarch, a soul of the highest order. As for the other souls, indeed, there were other such cases described in the Tanakh, where people circumcised themselves at a very advanced age, but this still requires further study.
After circumcision, a person no longer faces the same disturbances that existed before. Then an entirely different kind of work begins in which he uses his transgressions (both the intentional and unintentional mistakes) that he committed in the past. He uses what belonged to the past, but now those transgressions are no longer present in him.
Question: Then what was Abraham regretting?
Answer: The point is that it seems impossible to unite good and evil together. At any given moment, you are in one or the other, either in the bad or in the good. I say “it seems impossible” because later it actually becomes possible. But at this stage, you cannot yet connect the coarsest animalistic desire with the highest intention.
For example, while you are enjoying delicious food, try to begin thinking about spirituality. Or while you are completely absorbed in receiving an animalistic pleasure, suddenly begin thinking about the Creator. One seems to extinguish the other.
This is exactly what happens: a bitter regret arises from the fact that it is not yet possible to unite these two extremes. But later, they do indeed become united.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/26, Rabash, “And the Lord Appeared to Him at the Oaks of Mamre”
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The state in which a person acquires the ability to go by faith above reason is called Rosh HaShanah (New Year). This means that he reaches the peak of all his states and reveals the Creator’s name, Tzvaot (Lord of Hosts). That is, a person has gone through all the states of ascents and descents, called “Tze” and “Bo,” which together form the name Tzvaot (plural of Tzava [Hebrew], “host” or “army”).
When a person goes through these states, he becomes like a soldier: from “Tze” (a descent), he enters the state of “Bo” (an ascent). In this way, he builds an army (Tzava) within himself by overcoming disturbances through faith above reason.
These disturbances are called the Mount Esau. A mountain (Har) comes from the word “Hirurim” (thoughts, reflections), which arise according to the root of the soul and its structure. When a person overcomes these disturbances through faith above reason, he passes from Mount Esau to Mount Zion. This means that from descents he passes to ascents.
Through working with thoughts above reason, a person acquires the force of Bina. Therefore, he is called Israel (Yashar-El), straight to the Creator, because he receives this directness of intention in striving toward the Creator from Bina. Then, from the revelation of the Creator’s general governance (the king of the whole world), a person comes to the Creator’s personal governance (the king of Israel).
The king of the whole world he attains consciously, through the Creator’s actions that he sees. But the king of Israel he attains through the work of faith above reason. It is revealed to him that all the states he has gone through were given by the Creator. Then, from Mount Zion, he ascends to Jerusalem, from the Malchut of Zion to the Malchut of Jerusalem.
The completion of this state, in which he reveals that the Creator is the king of the entire earth, that is, of all his desires, both past and present, and verifies within all his desires that he is adhered to the Creator, is called Rosh Hashanah. Rosh (head) is the highest state among all those he has passed through within the desires of the soul.
This is the meaning of the holiday of Rosh HaShanah. On the one hand, it can be said that it is the beginning of something new, the beginning of an ascent, a state that stands above all corrections. On the other hand, it is the summary of what a person has gone through during the year, the result of correcting all the desires of the soul. When a person reaches such a state, it means that he has attained Rosh HaShanah.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/26, Rabash, “What Is Above Reason in the Work?”
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Comment: When a person who is thirsty finally receives water, he drinks and experiences pleasure without feeling any connection to the Creator. At that moment he has a great Aviut (coarseness of desire) because his enjoyment is so great.
My Response: You are speaking about an animal that is thirsty, and enjoys drinking when it receives water. This is not the subject of Kabbalah.
The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about intentions, not about receiving something in an animalistic way, without intention. Kabbalah explains how one works above the Machsom (spiritual barrier). What exists below the Machsom is called “nature,” and there is no need to discuss it. Leave that to psychologists. What concern is it of ours how the animal exists? It exists entirely under the dominion of nature, and there is no benefit in that for it, nor any possibility of change. And if at this moment I have no ability to change my nature, why should I occupy myself with it?
It is better not to dwell on my present nature in this world—how I am built, how my cells function, how my liver, brain, and other organs work—because I am unable to change these things. It is a waste of time. It is better to study how I can change myself, elevate myself, and bring myself to true fulfillment. That is far more worthwhile.
There are already eight billion people occupied with this life, who think that they can change something within it. If I am not like them, nothing terrible will happen.
This is what people spend their lives doing, believing that they can change something, until they are eventually buried. Why devote oneself to that? The real challenge is to stop and determine what can truly produce a result, what is useless, what is worth engaging in, and what is not.
There is no benefit in endlessly analyzing your present nature because you will only consume yourself with questions such as: “Why am I like this? Why is the world like this?” And then what? You will blame the Creator, and remain exactly as you are, except that now you will also have a headache, an ulcer, and other troubles.
In Kabbalistic terms, the focus should not be on what is governed entirely by nature, but on the one point where freedom exists: the possibility of acquiring an intention above the desire to receive. That is the place where spiritual work begins.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/26, Rabash, “Why Is the Torah Called ‘Middle Line’ in the Work? – 1”
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Question: What does it mean to draw closer to the Creator?
Answer: Drawing closer to the Creator means becoming included in an endless chain of caring for one another. We must feel that caring for one another is eternal.
Question: Is it eternal, or does it lead to eternity?
Answer: It leads to the sensation of eternity.
Question: So, when we are told, “You can live forever and feel eternity,” we become skeptical and say, “Well, that is fantasy.” Is that because we spend our lives caring only about ourselves?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And if we were able to direct ourselves toward someone else, then it would no longer seem like science fiction to us?
Answer: We will begin to sense that eternity. It is as though you transfer yourself into others, and in that you will feel infinity.
Question: Is the purpose of life contained in this? Is this precisely what it is?
Answer: Yes. Then, through your feelings, you draw closer to the Creator, time disappears, and leaves only sensation.
Question: But what is the Creator like? When I say, “Draw closer to the Creator,” what is it that I actually want?
Answer: To care absolutely for others. For another.
Question: Just like that, without thinking about myself?
Answer: If I am able to forget about myself and think about another, then I enter eternity.
Question: There is not even a tiny thought, a hidden calculation: “What will I get in return?” That doesn’t exist?
Answer: But that is precisely what you will receive. You will begin to feel eternity itself within your attitude toward another.
Question: So, to sum it all up, the main goal is to draw closer to the Creator, and everything around us is given precisely so that we can draw closer to the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Even wars, suffering, tragedies, and illnesses?
Answer: Without them, we would not be able to feel any of this. They too are necessary. The evil inclination was created specifically so that we would feel ourselves rising above it.
Question: Our task is to rise above all of it?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: I see. Thank you. You have shed light on that as well. For people, these things mean such pain, such suffering, and yet you say, “This too serves that purpose.”
My Response: It is necessary.
Question: And is there no way without it? Is it impossible to pass through life smoothly and effortlessly?
Answer: No. A person is incapable of it. One must pass through malice, through the evil inclination; otherwise, one will not feel the good.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 6/13/26
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You cannot live in a world of absolute goodness. You must gradually come to it and understand how evil participates in creation and how it helps us become completely good.
Question: Are saying that evil must not be destroyed?
Answer: It must not. It has to exist alongside good and constantly help the good to reveal its unique quality.
Question: And what allows good to keep growing?
Answer: Evil.
Question: So, as soon as evil grows, good will grow as well, and this is how we advance?
Answer: Yes.
Question: To what heights can good rise?
Answer: To complete freedom of will.
Question: What does that mean? What lies behind it?
Answer: It is a state in which a person becomes absolutely good, completely corrected, entirely bestowing, and yet this does not hinder his further development.
Question: And this is all thanks to evil?
Answer: Yes. That is precisely why evil was created as the fundamental force of nature.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 6/17/26
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 31 “What ‘There Is No Blessing in That Which Is Counted’ Means in the Work” (1990) (6.28.2002)
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” (4.19.2001)
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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 154
How Can We Exert Effort If We Know We Cannot Attain the Creator?
In Kabbalah, we learn that we are entirely a will to receive, that we want only to enjoy. By our very structure, we already know from the outset what we want to enjoy. So how can we change our nature? We cannot change it. How can we desire something that does not exist in us? We cannot.
It follows that we have no power to change anything. We can only discern what we want, feel, and long for. This is the advantage of the human over the animal: We can examine our desires, but we cannot replace, change, or even want to change them.
We see how much effort and time it takes to change habits in this world. For example, a person with diabetes who needs to stop consuming sugar reads extensively on the subject, hears advice from others, and watches videos about the severe effects of diabetes until they convince themselves to stop consuming sugar and build a system against their craving for sweets.
This shows what people do, what an entire industry has been built for, and how much persuasion people must undergo just to see the evil on the animate level and understand that something is bad for them. In other words, we must restrain our desire and balance it with intellect and reason. The intellect tells us sugar is bad, but the desire signals that sweetness is good.
Sometimes an entire lifetime passes before we improve something in ourselves. This concerns improvement on the animate level where it is clear that it is for our own good, that is, where we are in the presence of examples and where we see the negative and positive outcomes with our own eyes, yet we still cannot change. This shows how strong desire is, since it is our nature. Despite the myriad intellectual systems we build and all the self-persuasion, it is hard to resist desire.
We only refrain after we see, before our very eyes, the bitterness and the punishment alongside the desire and the sweetness. In other words, we only refrain when intellect and desire stand face to face. Even then, we calculate according to the measure of suffering, just as we are willing to suffer working all day in order to have something to eat in the evening. However, in such a case, the calculation is revealed.
Therefore, Baal HaSulam says in the Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot that if the Creator were revealed, and His entire system and His attitude toward us were revealed, the whole world would be completely righteous. Everyone would see what brings good and evil. There would be disclosure of reward and punishment, and we would have no choice but to choose the good. Even if we wanted to follow our desire, we would see the blow that we would receive and that it would not be worthwhile.
Even in our current state, we restrain many impulses so as not to suffer, be ashamed, imprisoned, or beaten. This tendency exists in everyone.
But how do we convince ourselves that spirituality is a necessity? We read in books that there is reward for certain actions, for various uses of desire, and punishment for the opposite, but since we do not immediately see reward and punishment, since they are not revealed, this does not help us become convinced.
How can we build an auxiliary system through which we relate to them as though they were revealed?
RABASH says that we must learn from our friends on the spiritual path, listen to their words, observe their actions, learn how they yearn, and thus receive strength to cope with natural desires, and present an image of correct effort and work and yearning for the correct result to those friends.
We cannot decide in advance that our strength is gone and that we must cry out to the Creator. Even in the face of visible punishment, we need to persuade the desire to let go so as not to activate it. Certainly, when we say that all of our desires are worthless, that everything we see in this world is of no importance, which includes the spirituality we long to attain through desires operating in that direction, from this alone we cannot arrive at a plea to the Creator.
We need to let go of all these desires, set aside their nature, and then turn to the Creator, precisely when we have no drive to do so, no connection with Him, since He is concealed.
Can we leap over the concealment and create an alternative channel through which to feel the Creator and then turn to Him? Can we relinquish all actions that will lead to disappointment, which in turn will lead to turning to the Creator? This could take many years. Is it possible to turn to the Creator even before becoming disappointed in working with our desires?
Where can we draw the disappointment destined to come in ten years and bring it into the present moment? Is it possible to accelerate the process?
We can try to mingle with depressed people or ask society to provide feelings of life’s insignificance, the worthlessness of our work and ourselves, and our lack of strength for anything. Perhaps people will gladly supply this, but will it impress us enough to ask the Creator for help?
Apparently not, because turning to the Creator is above nature. We turn to the Creator to change our nature, rather than simply crying out, “Help me profit!” or placing a note in the Western Wall. It is a request for an inversion within ourselves, for a change of one’s very nature.
Therefore, we need to act according to our nature and, time and again, see how our own nature obstructs us from reaching the true thing, so that we see that we cannot attain it, and only then can we ask for our nature to be changed.
Still, we must accelerate time. We need to shorten the duration of the process. What does “shortening the duration” mean? It means realizing all possible actions and desires one after another, and then quickly becoming disappointed. That is, the more vigorously we go through all the possibilities available in our egoistic nature, trying every action, desire, and approach that we think might bring us to the goal, the faster we see failure.
There are people who study slowly, act lazily, and say to themselves, “It’s all right, another ten or fifteen years.” There are also those who invest themselves completely, and after only a few months feel countless descents and disappointments, and already grasp something. The others, still happy and good-hearted, will wait a long time before they understand.
Indeed, we should rejoice in states of disappointment. Disappointment from what? From our own powers, that is, from realizing that we cannot attain the goal by our own strength. The point is not to rejoice in other kinds of things, unless we are connected to the goal.
Only disappointments carry us from one discernment to another until we determine that we are incapable. Only through this experience do more and more facts accumulate, proving our helplessness to us, until a true urge builds within us to turn to the Creator.
There is no choice. The more we become disappointed, the more we will exert at attaining the goal. The goal becomes increasingly important as we are disappointed in our own strength. In the end, we desire the goal so intensely and ascertain that we cannot attain it; this is called revolving all day around that pole “until it does not let one sleep.” This is like someone with an enormous craving who cannot fulfill it, until they cry out to the Creator.
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