Audio Version Of The Blog – 6/4/26
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Question: While reading Rabash’s articles, I come across concepts such as “excess,” “slave,” etc. What do all these definitions mean in spiritual work?
Answer: There is not as much difference between the spiritual and the material as we think. A material action is an action with the intention of receiving for oneself, and a spiritual one is an action with the intention of giving.
Rabash’s article “The Difference Between Charity and a Gift” refers to determining a state. If it is a person who is accustomed to a certain standard of living, as in Hillel’s example, then a lower level is considered suffering. If he lives at his level, then this is normal for him. Fulfillment within the framework of the usual state is not an excess, and is not yet called Hisaron.
Question: But I feel different, constantly changing states. How can I not make a mistake, and distinguish between the true Hisaron (need, unfulfilled desire) and excess?
Answer: A person is constantly changing. The upper light is in a state of absolute rest, but it influences the current Reshimo (spiritual gene). Each Reshimo is very rich, with a multitude of details. What is meant by a multitude of details?
The Reshimo represents information about the state before and after the shattering of the Kelim in all the properties of the spiritual Kli. The smallest adhesion (Zivug) on the weakest screen contains 25 Partzufim. That is, for each inner definition (Havchana), for each property of the Kli, you have five more Partzufim, as if there were five dimensions in each dimension.
This is such a perfect system that if you study it and analyze it, a full-fledged person with all body parts, organs, ligaments, and the entire complex, interconnected system should be born from it. It seems to you that you are analyzing some small Reshimo. No! You clarify the whole system and its behavior.
It seems to us that the entrance to spirituality is some point, some kind of embryo. But this embryo includes everything. Of course, you do not distinguish between all these internal definitions, but on a subconscious level, you must go through them all. That is why the period leading up to entering spirituality is so long.
You unconsciously go through all the definitions that the “body” of the soul contains, only not explicitly, but in a concealed form. But you go through them! It is like traveling on a train that passes through millions of stations along the way. Because it is dark outside, you cannot see the stops, but you keep moving and stopping, moving and stopping.
You do not know what is happening or where you are. You just feel like you are moving; you make an effort to move, but nothing gets any clearer. It seems to you there is still the same road outside the train window, and nothing has changed; there is still the same darkness, darkness, darkness. But you go through all the stops, all the details.
Question: What should a person tune himself to and direct himself toward?
Answer: At each moment, a person should direct himself toward the goal, and consider that he as if feels it more precisely. He does not know exactly, but he feels the goal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/26, Rabash, “The Difference between Charity and Gift”
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There is no true state in my attitude toward a friend that I can measure with some fixed, objective “ruler.” Everything is measured relative to me.
Who decreed that this is so and that is so? It is always a person who measures. Is there anyone other than a human who could tell me what things are and how they are? The units of measurement are always defined by me.
But when we enter spirituality, as I attain it, I already know what it is that I attain, where I am, what constitutes the place I find myself in, and what it encompasses. That is to say, as I sense, I know exactly what I am sensing. I receive definitions, an understanding of what these things are called. I perceive things that I had never seen before, yet I instantly recognize them: “Oh! This is this, and that is that!” I know what it is because attainment is also understanding.
And then the language of branches is revealed to me. I do not need a translator in the spiritual world to translate my new sensations of that world into the old language of the material world.
Question: Does this mean that I see the true picture of reality?
Answer: Truth is defined as the state in which I measure everything with my correct Kelim (vessels), but they are my own.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/26, Rabash, “The Difference between Charity and Gift”
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The idol worshipper that constantly awakens within us is actually for our benefit. Due to it, we come closer and closer to the goal. In truth there is no such thing as a distance between us and the Creator in the way we usually imagine it as a distance of 6,000 years or 125 degrees.
Distance is expressed in the precision with which I can discern the categories of “myself” and “the Creator,” that which separates us and what we have in common.
The distance between me and the Creator is measured by the depth of the qualities and inner definitions that I can discern. If I relate to reality in this way, it is more correct because I do not need to run anywhere, but simply to concentrate on what is within me in order to see how much more I understand who the Creator is, who I am, what it means to become equal to Him in qualities, to draw closer to Him, and to express these concepts in true spiritual categories.
It is important that I always remember the correct definitions. If in the middle of the day I encounter some confusion, I should reflect on it deeply, take The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and find the definitions of what the Creator is, what the creation is, what equivalence of form means, what it means to draw closer to Him, what “One, Unique, and Unified” means, and what “there is none else besides Him” means. If I clarify all these definitions for myself, then in this way I will correctly direct my “instrument” (my vessels, desires, Kelim) toward the goal.
Once I spent two months at a military training range observing how people are taught to aim correctly. There are special charts explaining how to do it, how to account for the wind, the distance, head positioning, and how the weapon must be loaded. You do not see the target since it is 30 kilometers away from you, yet you must direct the projectile as accurately as you possibly can.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/26, Rabash, “The Severity of Teaching Idol Worshippers the Torah”
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Sometimes one comes to a state of such lowliness that he does not taste any taste in Torah and prayer. Although he is learning, he knows and feels the truth about himself—that the real cause he is continuing to learn Torah is not because of fear of heaven, but because of habit… To this there is a correction called “minister of forgetfulness” (Rabash, Letter 59).
Rabash writes that we must work against forgetting through corrections. There is a special governing angel, meaning a special force in creation, called the “minister of forgetting,” whose function is to cause us to lose the state, degree, or strength we have attained each time so that it disappears and does not leave us with a sensation of perfection.
Every degree in spirituality is a certain sensation of perfection. When we are on some degree and the light descends upon us, then however small it may be relative to all the subsequent degrees, we still do not yet feel a Hisaron (lack, deficiency). And if a person does not feel a Hisaron, he cannot move from his place, because all movement occurs only through the revelation of a Hisaron.
Therefore, a special force exists that expels the lights from the degree, from the Partzuf, from the soul, each time and compels a person to feel that his inner state has changed. In this way it obligates him to continue on the path. Otherwise, he would remain in the same state forever, which is called observing Torah and commandments out of habit, for the sake of society, or for various other purposes besides renewing contact with the Creator.
How can we make this force, the minister of forgetfulness, act upon us more effectively? This is our work. For when we forget the goal, we do not forget the perfect state itself, but rather feel instead an imperfect one. That is, only part of the state disappears.
Suppose we attained some good state, sensed some closeness to spirituality at a certain moment, and then from above a loss of that degree is induced. Yet we do not feel a Hisaron in it. In other words, although the illumination that existed in that state seemingly disappears, the Hisaronot (deficiencies), the new Reshimot, have not yet been revealed.
The fact is that in this action of the “minister of forgetfulness” a partnership exists between the Creator and the created being. In all his states, even in a great state (Gadlut), a person must work on attaining awareness of the greatness of the Creator. He must not be satisfied with the greatness of the attained state and turn it into self-enjoyment.
Therefore, in order to teach a person that one must never stop working on awareness of the greatness of the Creator, the Creator activates the force called the minister of forgetfulness. The greatness of the state departs, and the demand for the greatness of the Creator is not renewed. This means that suffering does not come to a person because he lost the degree, and then he enters a period of delaying time, stepping onto the path of suffering instead of the path of Torah.
And all this is because during the ascent he did not work on awareness of the greatness of the Creator; that is, he observed Torah and commandments either for himself or for his environment, out of habit, and not for the sake of the goal.
He forgot that all his actions for attaining the goal and correction, called Torah and commandments, are a wondrous force (Segula), the wondrous property of Torah. A person is not changed by the actions themselves, for there is no actual benefit or real influence in them, as those who received improper education believe. They think that through these actions they are accomplishing something and earning something.
It is no coincidence that these actions are called the “wondrous force of Torah and commandments.” Ultimately, all we must achieve through them is to draw the light that reforms, whose wondrous power lies in its ability to correct us. This light comes through study from the proper books, with the proper intention, in an ever more properly directed group striving toward the goal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/26, Rabash, Letter 59
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Question: What do we call a prayer for the friend, for society?
Answer: A prayer for the friend is defined as all my thoughts and desires directed toward what is outside of me. It does not matter to me what is outside of me—the Creator, or all of humanity.
Only in truly advanced states, those preceding the crossing of the Machsom (the barrier) and the formation of a proper prayer, do we begin to feel that the Creator and the surrounding world are one and the same. This is because we are unable to feel anything outside our vessels (Kelim).
So how can I nevertheless step outside of my own vessel (Kli) in my sensations and see who I am and who the Creator is? That which is sensed in the Kelim of the whole world and that which is revealed there to me therein, is essentially the manifestation of the Creator relative to me.
The Creator is revealed within the Kelim. If I reveal Him within my own Kli, this is called “this world.” But if I reveal Him in the Kelim of all the other souls, this is called the future world, the spiritual world, or the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘If a Woman Inseminates First, She Delivers a Male Child,’ in the Work?”
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Preparation to the Lesson
1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 10 “What Does It Mean that the Ladder Is Diagonal, in the Work?” (1989) (2.12.2002)
2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” (3.8.2001)
3rd part of the Lesson — Conversations with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman with His Students