Question: We constantly say that we must choose the best environment, one that gives us an awareness of the importance of spirituality. But if there are people in the group who come only once a week, what should we do with them? Should we support them? After all, don’t they weaken the group?

Answer: In the group there are people who come every day and give one hundred percent of themselves, and I see this. Naturally, I want to unite specifically with them. But there are also people who make less effort and come only once a week. Should I unite with them? What can I receive from them? Only weakness! Soon I myself will start coming once a week and become like them. Is that so?

What I receive from the friends, from the environment, from this world, and from the Creator depends on my attitude toward them, not on what they themselves are. Suppose I look at a friend who comes once a week, yet I value him for it, because this is what the Creator gives him. After all, he still comes; he has the readiness and the desire to be with us.

And if I value the little that exists in him (though perhaps it is not so little!), if I value everything positive in him and understand that this quality is the result of the Creator’s influence upon him, then I am regarding the part of the Creator that is within him, and I magnify that part.

This may be true even with respect to the weakest friend or a complete newcomer from whom I can still receive an impression. In other words, everything depends not on the person himself, but on my ability to make a correct assessment.

Nevertheless, everything begins with the fact that we see people who are making efforts, and then we naturally attach ourselves specifically to them and want to be closer to them. After all, this is much easier, clearer, and more reliable.

But this depends on the size of my Kli, not on the true greatness of the friend himself. If there is even the slightest spark of the Creator within the friend, if the Creator wishes to bring him closer and acts upon him, that is enough for me to receive an impression and inspiration from him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/26, Rabash, “The Difference between Charity and Gift”

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Question: It is said that the preparatory period is a time of awakening from above. What does this mean?

Answer: During the preparatory period, a person works on the basis of a desire received from the Creator.

We must process this aspiration that is embedded within us so that in the end it will transform into a desire called Lo Lishma through which one eventually arrives at Lishma.

Naturally, we work, act, and receive impressions due to an awakening from above. But gradually we must transform it into an awakening from below. This is our work.

For it is said: “If the male (the Creator) conceives first, a female (Nekeva) is born” (Nekeva, woman, Hisaron). That is, the Creator first awakens us from above. And then we must bring this female (Nekeva) to grow and become capable of giving birth to a male (Zakhar, the force of bestowal).
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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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Comment: If a person feels bad, of course, he prays for the bad to go away so he would feel good.

My Response: We have discussed this issue many times. A person always prays for their well-being. The question is, what is good for him? This all depends on how a person sets his priorities.

Either it is good for me to be in an egoistic form in this world or to belong to the future world in an egoistic form or to have at least a little bit of an attitude toward the Creator that can be called non-egoistic. This is called Lo Lishma, and it is within this state that a fundamental transformation takes place.

You are always looking for ways to make the transition from the material world to the spiritual world, from acting for yourself to acting for the Creator’s sake, and this is correct. You wonder how to arrange this entrance so that it is not a contradiction, but a bridge, a straight tunnel from one to the other. This is impossible!

Until the Final Sea (Yam Suf) opens, there will be no passage. Therefore, a person leaves studying Kabbalah. There are some who are really miraculously given from above to withstand it.

There are a hundred people sitting here, and there are several hundred more in the outer groups. The rest are unable to handle it. How many thousands have passed through us? They are not ready yet, they have tried and left because to hold this point, to be connected with it, to try to live in it, is to constantly be in an inner divide, where you are zero in both experience and knowledge, in everything.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/26, Rabash, “What Is Heaviness of the Head in the Work?”

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Question: How can I check whether I have deviated from the right path?

Answer: Rabash writes that we must constantly examine whether I, my action, and the Creator are  aligned on a single line.

That is, one must clarify whether what I am doing right now is directed toward drawing closer to the Creator, whether I can already begin to clarify what “closer” means and what “the Creator” means.

But even if I cannot, it is still necessary simply not to forget that this is connected with the Creator, that I want to be in adhesion with Him. And when I actually feel this, then I will not feel any mental strain whatsoever. It is similar to how I feel cold or heat. How could I forget it? It is impossible because I feel it. Here, I do not need memory.
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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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Question: How can I see bestowal in the desires I must work with daily?

Answer: It seems to us that our current desires to bestow will accompany us in the future. However, we may be mistaken.

It may be that desires that seem corrected to us are not really related to spirituality, that they are merely desires to bestow on the human level. In desires that seem completely remote from spirituality, we may actually reveal the Creator and use them to attain the upper world.

Question: What about the intention? How does one use a desire with the correct intention?

Answer: In any desire, there is nothing other than intention.

Question: What about the desires that are vital for survival: food, sleep, sex, etc.? Does this imply that there are desires that include something other than intention?

Answer: Desires that contain an element unrelated to intention are desires necessary to maintain our existence. Even in this world, why do I want to have more than bread and water? These are the natural needs of the body.

What does our body actually require? A room temperature above 20 degrees Celsius, a specific caloric intake, some additional flavors, and that is it. A wife, children, and everything that my body would naturally need. However, demands that exceed this basic level arise in me based on intention. These additional desires are formed in me, as a human being, relative to inanimate, vegetative, and animal level.

In every state, you have to clarify your attitude toward your own desire. The best thing you can do is to connect the unfolding reality (the picture of what is happening) directly to the Creator. This will bring some measure of clarity to the situation for you.
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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

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 6 “What Is, ‘The Herdsmen of Abram’s Cattle and the Herdsmen of Lot’s Cattle,’ in the Work?” (1991) (1.16.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” (3.1.2001)

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Comment: We say that a person should annul himself like an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load.

My Response: Working “like an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load” does not mean seeing oneself as inferior to the Creator and wanting to change one’s nature to the nature of the Creator. I resolve this issue based on my egoism, that I should act like this.

True free choice lies in wanting to receive advice on how to accomplish this through faith above reason. After all since you do not know how to bring this about! We supposedly have freedom of choice in this. That is exactly what is meant by: “Strengthen yourself on the path.”

In the “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” it is written that the Creator puts a person’s hand on a good fate and says: “Take this for yourself.” He is not telling you to change the bad for the good. A person naturally chooses the good; there is no room for a choice here.

Every creation, whether inanimate, vegetative, animal, or human, chooses good instead of the bad. But this is not called a choice because nature forces him to do so even before he thinks or says anything. This happens automatically. There is no place for any decision-making.

For example, a chemist checks the interaction of two materials, how they connect to each other and what happens as a result of the reaction between them. Egoism is at the heart of all these interactions. When two materials interact, eventually a third one is produced. Is there any room for free choice in this? The chemist simply states the laws that already exist in the nature of the materials themselves.

The same laws apply to our material, the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human parts of us. This means that the same laws apply to thoughts, desires, properties, and sensations—absolutely everything that relates to the human part in us.

So is it worth even mentioning it? After all, it is predetermined. You just feel it, but there is nothing you can do. It works with no connection to you. Pay attention to the position you are sitting in right now. Now you suddenly decide to change your position. Who decides this? Based on what data?

All this is already included within the system, within you. Why would you suddenly start doing something? The biological body acts all the time, or chooses how to act based on the data and materials it consists of.

You are also influenced by the external environment, by a general law that forces materials, thoughts, and desires to connect in a certain way. This law determines how data is processed.

This whole structure is called the desire to enjoy. You can call it “man or animal.” Our nature is not taken into account at all. Stop paying attention to it. We must finally understand that this is all our nature, and there is no need to analyze it at all.

These are exact laws the Creator initially established. If you want to get into these laws, you will gather in your baggage only various sciences of our world: psychology, medicine, chemistry, etc.

At all levels we explore our nature, the structure of the desire to receive. With the help of science we can accurately and correctly verify it. But what does it give us? This does not change anything, but we only see that the Creator created this desire this way. He created it! And then what? By these actions, we cannot get out of the desire to receive nor correct it.

There is nothing we can do except to state the facts as there is a desire to receive in all its manifestations, properties, and variations. Cooling produces one reaction, heating another, and creating pressure makes a third reaction.

The same law applies to thought processes and desires. Leave this desire to receive alone. It is not in our power to change it. We can only trace its laws.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/26, Rabash, “What Is Heaviness of the Head in the Work? ”

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Question: How can I unite with an external Kli, one that lies outside of me? What do we experience when we do this?

Answer: We are not able to connect with the Creator because of His concealment. Even if His presence were not concealed from us, we still would not be able to do this because the nature of our will to receive will not allow us to perform actions with an intention for the sake of bestowal.

However, I have the possibility to unite with my friends. We do not even understand how skillfully this world is arranged and adapted precisely for work in society. The structure of our world is such that from the root we are led to this work.

I have the inclinations called envy, lust, and the pursuit of honor. Through these inherent traits I come to a true clarification of desire and intention. That is, the will to receive has three forces: envy, lust, and thirst for honor. With the help of these forces, relationships arise between a person and those around him; he begins to unite with those outside of him, to receive from them.

These same channels allow a person to determine where he himself and his friends are relative to his ego. I strive for the spiritual, and that is precisely why I should place myself into a society of like‑minded people, to remain in close proximity to other people.

This realization penetrates our consciousness very slowly. Years can pass before a person begins to understand that the solution to the problem lies in this, that this is where the stumbling block is. For years I heard and read about the importance of the group, and despite this, I perceived the work in society as something secondary. I simply could not do anything about it. Now I understand that in fact this really is important, that it is precisely the group that is the key to the spiritual.

I can write a thousand times: “The key to the spiritual is the friend; the key to the spiritual is the friend.” It will not help. It simply will not help. Only after many events and states pass will the feeling of the importance of the group begin to manifest not only in the mind, but also in the heart.
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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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What is prayer? My desire must become included in the upper one. But for now, I am not yet within Him. I can be heard by Him if I raise my Hisaron to Him. The raising of one’s need to the Creator is called performing an action in faith above reason.

I take my desire from the degree I presently stand on and raise it to the higher degree. How is this action performed? It is completely opposite to how we imagine it.

To the extent that my state appears absolutely hopeless to me, I must see only one conclusion in it —that only the Creator can help me.

This is not a logical transition. Through logic, our intellect cannot transfer us from the corporeal world into the spiritual world.

There is a gap between these two worlds. Only when we receive a Masach (screen), a spiritual vessel, an intention for the sake of bestowal, and complete detachment from our own feelings and reason, can my desire become included in the higher degree as a prayer.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/26, Rabash, “What Is Heaviness of the Head in the Work?”

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