Question: Is freedom of choice the sixth sense?

Answer: Yes, but you must realize that freedom of choice is something you must learn. You cannot simply tell a person, “You are free to choose, go ahead and choose!” First, you must teach them what that freedom actually entails. You face a thousand roads, but you cannot distinguish between them, or you may not even see them at all or see how they relate to one another. Yet you must choose the one path that truly leads to progress.

Choice involves selecting both the path and the method of advancing along it. It requires extensive knowledge and a precise method:, specifically the forces you must draw upon to move forward even though you are not yet connected to them.

Indeed, how can I move forward when all I see before me is a desert? There is an inner contradiction here. I must take the right step in this desert, but in which direction out of 360 degrees? How can I know? If I could see clearly, there would be no choice. That is why I have been placed in a state where I cannot see.

But if I cannot see, how can I choose? This situation seems illogical and nonsensical when viewed from the lens of our ordinary intellect. Yet through spiritual understanding, we immediately perceive that there is no contradiction at all. So how do I actually advance?

Here I must learn how to draw higher forces and use them, even though I do not yet sense them. Therefore, we must receive this method from an external source; it does not originate with us.

There are many people who say, “I will advance according to what my soul tells me; it will be fine; it will be the authentic me.” But if you follow only what you call your “soul,” you will remain on the level of an animal. You must acquire something new, something you do not yet have.

Thus, without receiving this wisdom (Hochma) from above, from an external source, from the spiritual world, it is impossible to advance. Even our study serves only one purpose: to draw these higher forces upon ourselves so that they influence us, help us make the right choice, and nothing more.

When this force comes from above, it creates what is called Chen de Kedusha (the charm or grace of holiness) within me. I do not know how it acts within me, nor do I know exactly what it does there. I know only the final, desired outcome I wish to attain through my study.

While studying, the surrounding light (Ohr Makif) shines upon the point in the heart, the root of the soul. Then I begin to feel a subtle attraction in the right direction, toward the very source from which that light emanated. It is this attraction, this small inner impulse, that determines my choice.

It appears as though something is hidden here. Without a doubt, I must summon the upper force. But how do I attract it? How do I acquire it? By what instrument can I measure it? In volts or kilograms? None of this can be known.

Yet a person is told that if, under specific conditions and after proper preparation, one reads the right book knowing exactly what they wish to demand from it and precisely what one desires to attain through it, and if this desire has been born of genuine effort, then the force that comes to the person is indeed the true spiritual force.

There are many additional subtleties involved, but the outcome of all our study and all our actions must be the arrival of a force from above that pulls us out. That is the choice.
[358847]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/26, Rabash, “When Should One Use Pride in the Work?”

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It is said: “Everyone who mourns for Jerusalem will merit seeing its joy.” This means that one must pray for the society. But what should one ask for? Does society even have a desire for spirituality? The point is that all the desires that exist in society belong to the person who is working on correction.

The desires are inside the people, and the intentions must be developed by the Kabbalist. Desire and intention are two distinct categories; they do not exist in the same place. When a Kabbalist works with the Masach (screen), Tzimtzum (restriction), and Ohr Hozer (reflected light), the desires start to become ordered and transformed in accordance with the intention with which he wants to use the desires.

Intention is called the “head,” and desire the “body.” We work on the “head,” on the intention, so that it will match the body, and then we can use the “body,” the desires. If such matching existed and then disappeared, this signifies the destruction (of the Temple). And if the matching between intention and desire is restored, that is the building of a spiritual Partzuf, its birth.

The Kli is the intention to bestow. The entire process of correction consists of attaining the right intention. The desires exist; they are simply not properly arranged, not supplied with the correct intention. No new desires appear.

The breaking, restriction, and concealment occur so that we can clarify the desires and begin to connect them. Just as an infant is born and begins to grow, so we correct the breaking and grow our soul.

We work on the intention to make it one of bestowal, directed toward giving pleasure to the Creator. In order to bestow to the Creator, we must concentrate the correct intention and select from the broken desires those that can work under its rule. From this we build a spiritual Partzuf, the measure of our bestowal.

Therefore, there were shatterings and preparations for correction , events that took place not through any fault of our own. The lower level played almost no part in this. The Egyptian exile, the desert, the destruction of the First Temple, the Babylonian exile, then the Second Temple, which was also destroyed, and the exit into this last exile–how could all of this happen?!

It was simply all preparation carried out from above. And now we only need to perform the final correction. Only it is counted as the work of the human being, while everything else was preparation.
[250762]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/19, on topic “9th of Av (Tisha B’Av)”

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 185

What Should We Do If We Already Love Some of the Friends in the Group?

If we already love some of the friends in the group and we are still not at the end of correction, it is a sign that we are deceiving and lying to ourselves. It only seems to us that we love the friends, while in fact we are somehow evading it and calling it love.

Then we must invest more effort. From above we are shown that we are still not with the friends in the state of the end of correction and that we have not yet completely corrected our attitude toward them, which is called “the end of correction.”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 32 “What Does It Mean that Oil Is Called ‘Good Deeds’ in the Work?” (1989) (8.1.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 1

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Question: I understand that even if the Creator addresses someone and tells him, “Act,” he still has free choice whether to do it or not?

Answer: What does it mean that the Creator speaks to a person? Has anyone heard this?

The Creator speaking to a person means that the person feels an inner impulse; he wants to do something, to carry something out. If this is an impulse toward spirituality, then one can say that it is as though the Creator is speaking to him. It is as if someone else were speaking all the other things. But is there anyone else? He plans and pushes you toward everything—both the bad and the good.

If this general force called the Creator pushes all of reality in this way without giving any part of that reality free choice or the ability to feel it, then His attitude toward reality is as toward the still, vegetative, and animate. But His attitude toward the speaking level is such that a person feels what he wants. In addition to sensing what he wants like an animal, he can also evaluate and analyze this desire, and begin to change it.

In order to make a human being out of the created being (Adam, from Edameh le-Elyon, “similar to the Creator”), He must give him all the states opposite to Himself, so that the person will choose from among them, and prefer to be similar to the Creator.

This is the whole of free choice, the entire right of choice that we have. If a person simply carried out every command from above, he would be a puppet. It is the same as the still, vegetative, and animate levels, which carry out the commands of nature. There is nothing special or unique in that.

Of course, this does not mean that the still, vegetative, and animate are separate from the Creator; they are connected with Him one hundred percent. They carry out whatever nature (Teva) determines, the Creator (Elokim, whose Gematria is equal to HaTeva) without any problem, without any questions, without any choice. This is not a degree; it is the zero level.

A person is called a human being because, in accordance with his own choice and awareness, he understands that this is how he should act; he justifies the Creator, and from all the qualities opposite to the Creator, chooses to be like Him. By doing so, he builds himself into a human being.
[358750]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/26, Rabash, “When Should One Use Pride in the Work? ”

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Question: Does disconnection from godliness also come from the Creator?

Answer: Yes, any state comes from the Creator, but disconnection from godliness is received as punishment. How should a person respond to such a state? A person should bless the good as he blesses the bad, and the bad just as he blesses the good.

Disconnection from the ability to progress, from the ability to attain equivalence of form with the Creator, is truly the only punishment that exists in spiritual reality.

For us it becomes expressed even at the corporeal level through greater troubles, more negative experiences, diseases, and wars; it affects our physical bodies. Every good comes from the Creator, and every evil comes from His “Achoraim” (backside), from concealment. The problem is not with concealment itself, but how a person should accept it and relate to it.

Punishment is punishment, and there is no way around that. However, to the extent that a person feels the concealment, to that extent he does not agree with it. It is possible to correct the concealment through the quality of Hassadim to the extent that a person detaches from his personal sensations, rises above them, comes to the state of Hafetz Chesed, and thereby makes correction.

However, any rung less than the final correction is ultimately a punishment.
[358969]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘There Is None as Holy as the Lord, for There Is None besides You,’ in the Work?”

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Question: Is my wanting the light, and my needing it for correction the same thing?

Answer: The desire to enjoy the light, and the aspiration for the light for the sake of correction itself are not exactly the same, but they are stages of one path. At first, I simply want to enjoy.

Then I begin to discern more and more clearly what kind of pleasure it is that I am striving for until I reach a state where the correction itself becomes a pleasure for me. Ultimately, the result of the correction becomes my pleasure. And the result of the correction is already bestowal to the Creator.

The fact is that we have only one means by which to draw upon ourselves the surrounding light that will change us. That means are the books. We must build an intention during the study.

An intention is a deficiency, a need (Hisaron) in my heart. This Hisaron is artificial. That is, during the study I think as though I desire the light to come and correct me. If I truly had such a desire, then I would not need to exert effort and labor.

I am told: “You must make an effort.” What does that mean? If I already want something, then I must exert effort in order to bring myself to such a state that during the study the desire to absorb the surrounding light, to be corrected and changed by it, determines everything.

The fact that I study and reflect on the material being studied is only a means. The fact that I will know how, where, and what is written, the numbers, how everything takes place, Galgalta, AB, SAG—all of this is only to familiarize me with the subject, to connect me to it, so that I may find myself inside this film, and while at the center of the events, choose for myself what is most essential, what I want from this film.

I open the book, and I begin to study. I am told about various things that supposedly take place in the spiritual world, supposedly within me. But in the end, what do I need from all this? What do I want to derive from it? One must be prepared for such demands, and in the most correct form possible.

Thus, effort and persistent labor must take place both before the lesson, and during the lesson.
[359127]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that ‘Law and Ordinance’ Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”

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In spiritual work, there are two kinds of activity: the work in the mind (Mocha) and work in the heart (Liba), that is, the intention to bestow, and the action itself. It is very difficult to explain this until a person begins to experience it personally. Whenever Baal HaSulam writes about “the mind and the heart,” read it, but be aware that it is very easy to become confused.

Gradually a person begins to feel from where and what comes to him. In truth, both the work of the mind and the work of the heart originate in the heart. It is said, “The heart understands.” The heart has, as it were, two parts: one that simply feels, without analysis (Avchanot), and another that both feels and analyzes. Through this analysis, a person is to some extent able to detach himself from the feeling. Yet both of these aspects are contained within the heart.

The same principle can be seen in a spiritual Partzuf. The Creator created the desire, which then, after feeling both itself and the host, as well as shame and the purpose of creation, builds a Rosh (head), as though above the heart, above the feeling. Yet it builds this Rosh according to the feeling.

It is written that in the world of infinity, “Before the emanations were emanated, and the creatures were created, the simple upper light filled the whole of reality.” At that stage, there was neither Rosh (head) nor Sof (end); there was only the Toch, the inner part of the Kli, filled with the light.

“When it arose in His simple will to create the worlds, and emanate the emanated beings,” then, after the Tzimtzum (restriction) and the establishment of the Masach (screen), the Rosh came into being. The Rosh calculates how much can be received into the Toch. As a result, a portion of the desire remains that receives nothing. This part is called the Sof (end).

In other words, the feeling, or more precisely, the desire to receive that was created by the Creator, builds a Rosh for itself based on all the existing conditions. By means of this Rosh, the desire plans how to make its actions similar to those of the Creator. This is why we say, “The heart understands” and “the heart decides.”

There can be a state in which the heart contains only feeling, without a Masach and without Tzimtzum. But at a certain point, a person acquires an understanding heart. This means that the qualities of Bina appear within the desire to receive. Bina imparts understanding (Havana).

Then the desire to receive, Malchut, together with Bina, that is, together with the quality of bestowal, builds what is called the Rosh of the Partzuf. Only then can we truly speak about the work of the mind and the work of the heart, about how to acquire these two forms of work and unite them into one.
[358710]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/26, Rabash, “What Does, ‘Everything that Comes to Be a Burnt Offering Is Male,’ Mean in the Work? ”

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 184

Is Slander Toward a Friend in a Society Engaged in Kabbalah the Same as Toward the Creator?

A society engaged in spiritual work aspires to act according to spiritual laws. The entire benefit of the society is that at the root, in the soul of Adam HaRishon, in the place where everyone exists at the highest spiritual degree, where all souls are connected together, we can draw strength and surrounding light. We must try to act from a state in which we are below that highest spiritual degree, as if we were already in that state, the higher one, as if we were already in it. This means that we long for it, and this is called “effort.” Effort means resembling a higher state.

If each member of the group tries to build their relationships with their friends as if they were already at the end of correction, this is called “applying effort.” To the extent that we all long for the corrected state of the end of correction to dwell among us, as it appears to us at the moment, then from that perfect state we will invite a surrounding light upon ourselves that will take care of us and correct us, and it will indeed draw us to the state of the end of correction. Therefore, we must behave in our environment according to “Love your neighbor as yourself” as much as possible.

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