Audio Version Of The Blog – 6/14/26
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Question: What does it mean to not work on awareness of the Creator’s greatness during an ascent”?
Answer: Rabash writes that an action by which a person causes a break in contact with the Creator is called a transgression. Even if it concerns the smallest state, the smallest degree of the contact with the Creator, if this state disappears, we say that it disappears because of a transgression.
On the other hand, this is necessary, because without a descent there can be no new ascent to a higher degree. There are no ascents without descents. Just as we say that Adam HaRishon committed a sin and caused a transgression, so it is here.
The reason for a descent is always that during an ascent, at some point a person ceases to enjoy adhesion with the Creator and begins to enjoy what he receives as a result of that adhesion: a feeling of perfection, eternity, and belonging to spirituality.
In other words, the person is already enjoying what is felt in the Kelim rather than the sensation of the Creator caused by adhesion with Him. The moment he ceases to experience this state in his connection with the Creator and turns it toward himself is called a transgression.
Although he enjoys spirituality, the feeling of belonging to eternity and bestowal to the Creator, these pleasures should be for the sake of the Creator and not for his own sake. Therefore, this leads to the loss of the degree; the light departs, as though the person has once again returned to his desire to receive. The light, sensing a desire to receive in front of it, withdraws as a result of the restriction that has existed since the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph).
Therefore a state of forgetfulness is induced in such a way that not the entire degree is lost, but only the light on that degree. The degree itself remains, and only the light of Mochin disappears. The person becomes dull and continues to drift unconsciously, as though his head has descended to the level of the body, like an animal.
He may continue to observe the Torah, study, and participate in the activities of the group, but without any goal, like an animal. Therefore, we term the aimless life of people whose heads are not higher than their bodies the animate level; their minds serve only the body. This means that the force responsible for governing forgetfulness is not acting with the person in its intended way. After all, the Creator wants a person to complete a degree in such a state that his descent is immediately connected to the feeling of a new Hisaron and to a new ascent.
Can it be done differently? In truth, no. We speak of Adam HaRishon as having committed a transgression, a sinner who sinned. Yet just as this was beyond his control, it also beyond ours. At the final stage of realizing a Reshimo (spiritual record), at its highest point, we pause for a single moment to think of ourselves; it is a mandatory state. Then we fall, and that too is a mandatory state.
However, the real question is not about the person himself and not about the fact that he stopped thinking about the Creator and began to think about himself and thereby loses awareness of the Creator’s greatness. The issue is that he lacks a crucial preparatory foundation: the foundation of the environment.
If a person has the proper environment, one immediately senses that they cannot continue to relate to the group in an ordinary way, as one relates to their family, the world at large, or as a religious person might. If a person has prepared the right environment (a group working for the Creator), they instantly perceive that their descent represents a shift from the direction toward the Creator to the direction of the self. This, in essence, is what is called sin.
Thus, the sin lies not in a person falls, but in failing to prepare oneself and being unable to rise immediately after descending.
As Baal HaSulam writes, the Creator puts a person’s hand on a good fate: He brings him to a group, to the correct state, and says: “Take this for yourself.”
“Take” means: “Now choose a stronger group,” so that you will be surrounded by an environment that will obligate you to constantly develop an intention for bestowal and to strive for adhesion with the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/26, Rabash, Letter 59
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Comment: An ordinary person, even when suffering, cannot rise to a spiritual level until they are “hit over the head.”
My Response: Even when a person is suffering, they still do not hear us. If you take a stick and hit an animal, it runs away. It does not understand what you want from it. Likewise, when troubles fall upon a simple person, they do not understand what is being asked of them. “Just tell me what to do, and I will do it!”
And you tell them: “No, you need to think about the meaning of life.” They are completely bewildered. They do not understand what you want from them. Some instinct immediately kicks in to prevent them from going crazy, and they stop hearing you because your language sounds like that of an alien to them.
I understand this very well, and I do not address them directly. I have no complaints about them. That is why I always say to explain to the whole world in very simple language that such a method exists. “If you ever need it, here is the address. You do not have to run anywhere, or search for anything.”
And those in whom something has been ignited are welcome. For them there is real contact, help, and communication with us. There is no other way.
There is also a third approach that I very much want to bring to life: children’s education. Through this, I can show the world that it has no future. If there is no future for your children in the form that you are giving them, then there is no future for you either, not for your civilization, your family, or your marriage.
That is, you—mothers, fathers, grandparents—are unhappy because when you look at the younger generation, you see how it is “heading to the ground.” Seeing this happening to your own children makes life not seem worth living at all. It is incredibly hard for any person to watch children using drugs, engaging in prostitution, doing all kinds of things, the blurring of genders—all just to survive, and all of it empty.
When we see that the younger generation pays no attention to us, and we begin to feel almost the same toward them, something like rejection or aversion arises, and the question appears: “What should we do?”
And then you show them: “Look, it can be completely different” because it is in our hands. When a child is born, they lie in our arms; they are entirely ours. And while they are with us, we can shape them so that they will not drift away; they will remain connected to us, and no one will be able to take them away.
Therefore we will continue to develop together—children, parents, and grandparents—as one family. Children will not distance themselves from their parents, not because of insecurity or difficulty in exploring life, but because they will see entirely different possibilities that come from mutual connection with us.
Can you imagine what happiness is? Simple, earthly happiness for an ordinary person—this is what we need to show them. All the intellectualizing and endless proofs, none of that is needed. No one is interested in it.
We offer what no one else has or will have because only the light that you give a child during their upbringing shapes them into a human being somewhat similar to the Creator. The child does not even understand it, yet it is already within them and developing.
These children will become the light of humanity.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah for Children” 10/12/10
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A correct Hisaron (deficiency, lack) is a purposeful aspiration to acquire the power of bestowal.
Suppose I have a healthy desire to receive all kinds of pleasures of this world, and in addition, I have received a point in the heart, that is, a desire to enjoy the future world. I do not know what the future world is, but I feel a need for additional pleasures, I need more than what this world can offer. Then a question arises: how can I give this desire for the future world the correct form?
If I simply increase this desire, then what emerges is a “Pharaoh,” enlarged egoism: “I want spirituality!!!” How can such an egoistic aspiration give rise to a desire of Lishma, that is, a desire directed toward the Creator?
The state of Lo Lishma implies that two desires exist within me simultaneously: I want spirituality, I want to acquire the power to bestow upon the Creator, and at the same time I want to receive for my own sake. In other words, in the state of Lo Lishma I consist of two desires—one toward the Creator and one toward myself.
Where do I, through working with my point in the heart, acquire the desire to bestow to the Creator? The desire to bestow appears within me even before the Machsom; it begins to manifest itself and grow within me.
But where does this desire come from? How is it born within me? That is the question.
I begin my spiritual development from the point in the heart, and gradually, two desires develop from this initial state: 1) A desire directed toward myself; that is, I enlarge my point in the heart and desire spirituality for my own sake. 2) A desire directed toward the Creator.
How does this happen? The reason is that the development of the point in the heart occurs under the influence of the surrounding light (Ohr Makif), which brings us the “charm of holiness” (Chen deKedusha).
Without the influence of the surrounding light, the point in the heart would simply grow in size while remaining at the level of a desire to absorb the entire spiritual world:
“I want the upper world! Give it to me, and that is all!” And its development would stop at this point. How does an aspiration toward the Creator arise within this egoistic desire for spirituality?
It is the result of the influence of the surrounding light. But under what conditions does the surrounding light actually influence me? Only if I seek ways to return to the source, to the root of bestowal. And the aspiration to return to the source arises within me as a result of working in the group.
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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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A person’s actions in spiritual work are called: “Demand, and you shall receive reward.”
This is because a person does not actively participate in the correction itself; he does not correct anything on his own. Rather, he only brings about a state in which the Reshimo that is felt within him as having just been born, and the light that is meant to correct this Reshimo (spiritual record) can perform their work through him so that he becomes the one who evokes and initiates the correction.
To “demand” means to strive to reach correction so that the light will prevail over the Reshimo, and correct it to an intention for the sake of bestowal. And to “receive reward” means that a person aspires only to this state. What helps him, of course, is not the action itself, but solely his intention.
Thus, everything we do is aimed at attaining the receiving of the Torah in a small state (Katnut), which is called the counting of the Omer, in the animate state, when we eat “barley,” until we come to the “food of man.” The “food of man” is “bread,” faith, the degree of Shavuot. “And they went both of them together” refers to Bina and Malchut.
Therefore our work takes place even before the state of “demand and receive reward.” It is work above reason, work of drawing the light that performs within us the wondrous property of correction.
This is work against the “minister of forgetfulness,” who, as an effective force, helps us forget the previous state, and awaken a deficiency (Hisaron) for the next one.
These are the actions of preparation for the receiving of the Torah, for the festival of Shavuot.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/26, Rabash, Letter 59
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In the Study of the Ten Sefirot, we study how the development of the rungs takes place from above downward, from the Creator to this world. We see that each rung gives birth to a lower one by inverting itself, and by completely ceasing to be what it is.
It is like a seed planted in the ground that must completely decompose and rot so that a tree, something new, can grow from it. Therefore, moving from one rung to another is like crossing an abyss, like jumping over something that does not have a smooth transition from one state to the next.
The means of making this transition is called “above reason”; it is when what I see, know, and think about now on my current rung, I must, as it were, trample underfoot, cross out, and want to receive a higher fulfillment. How is this possible?
The means of acquiring higher reason is called Bina, the quality of Chafetz Hesed, where a person completely ceases to be a receiver and stops feeling and measuring himself within the Kelim of reception. This means that he does not use his nature and adheres to the upper one as an embryo (Ubar), that is, he neutralizes his receiving Kelim, and wants simply to be connected with the upper one.
These are leaps from the reason of the lower one to the quality of Bina, and then to the reason of the upper one, where he works with the receiving Kelim of a higher degree, and receives fulfillment accordingly. In essence, these are the stages of advancement.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/26, Rabash, “What Is a Flood of Water in the Work?”
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Preparation to the Lesson
1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 11 “What It Means that the Good Inclination and the Evil Inclination Guard a Person in the Work” (1991) (2.15.2002)
2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”