Audio Version Of The Blog – 8/17/26
Posted on August 17th, 2026
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Question: How does the process of inner scrutiny take place? How do we implement it in order to understand a state more quickly?
Answer: If you still do not understand how scrutinies are done, then proceed according to your reason, and we will see if you can construct a process that can be called clarification.
“The end of the action is in the preliminary thought.” If you are talking about inner scrutinies, decide for yourself what you need to clarify in order to cross over into spirituality. We are currently discussing how to cross the Machsom. What will happen afterward, we do not know, but that is all we are interested in right now. So how does crossing the Machsom happen, what do you think?
Comment: When you reach despair.
My Response: But I do not know if I have reached despair or not. Under what condition do I cross the Machsom? What do I need for this?
Comment: Prayer.
My Response: Do you cross the Machsom by the power of prayer, or by the power of despair? No, it is the Creator who brings you across! So start from the end! The Creator gives you strength. He does not take you by the hand, but He gives you strength within your desires, and as a result, such a transformation takes place in them such that you begin to perceive the spiritual and to live within it.
[359774]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/26, Rabash, “What Does It Mean that Oil Is Called ‘Good Deeds’ in the Work?”
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Pride is one of the four animalistic qualities of our world. It is written that we do not need to work directly with these qualities.
There are four types of animalistic foundations within us, which are projections of fire, water, air, and earth onto our matter. They also exist on spiritual levels.
In relation to the Creator, I have a measure of laziness, a measure of passion, a measure of pride, and so on. But this is only in relation to the Creator when I use these properties to bring myself closer to Him.
All four types of properties are then transformed into the four Behinot (phases): Hochma, Bina, Tifferet, and Malchut. And what is written about a proud person, “He and I cannot dwell in the same abode,” refers to the most pronounced form of the desire to receive.
What is pride? It is when I feel that it is my entire essence and I cannot refuse it. My “I” is more important than everything else, more important than any other person, and more important than the Creator. This is what is called the “Pharaoh” within a person. “Who is the Creator that I should obey His voice?” It is me who rules, not Him, and not anyone else.
If a person possesses this quality, and it has not yet been corrected, that is, if the Pharaoh within him has not yet returned to faith, then that person cannot be connected with the Creator and adhere to Him. How can there be equivalence of qualities? How can there be bestowal? If the Pharaoh were to use his desire to receive for the sake of bestowal, he would become the holiest of all, and the final correction would come. The Pharaoh is all of our matter, our entire nature.
At the same time that you are the greatest egoist, you may also feel like the greatest nobody, a complete zero, utterly contemptible. One does not negate the other.
The question is why am I able to perceive these things. Because if I look only at my pride and do not examine it using a principle taken from the upper world, then I will not see that pride is something protruding, something interfering, and I will not realize that it is not me, but rather some quality that has clothed itself on me.
However, if, at the same time, the upper light comes to me and illuminates me, then I acquire several discernments. First, I see that I am a proud in comparison to His qualities. Second, I see that the quality of the light is the opposite of pride. Then I have these two points of reference in my hands.
This also does not prevent me from gaining an understanding of my other qualities. One must understand that these are forms of the desire to receive that exist within me and they cannot disappear.
[359430]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/26, Rabash, “What Should One Do If He Was Born with Bad Qualities?”
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Question: How can the group attract a person from outside or foster a deeper connection with those already within it?
Answer: The most important thing is to help a person feel the importance of the group. The group must answer the questions that he raises. The problem is that we are not certain that we will find the answers to our questions within the group, in our connection with it, and therefore we tend to treat it dismissively. The group must help a person see and understand this.
The main thing is to demonstrate that the group has the answers to the questions that concern a person, that it can show him the goal, and how the group is moving toward it. Then he will feel how much he lacks it, and will become convinced that the group stands far above him.
Therefore we must strengthen the group, increase our love for the friends, and not be ashamed of it. Our group should be above everything else. It is the very best one, and we can receive everything from it.
But we should not present life in the group through rose-colored glasses. The main emphasis should be on the group’s ability to give a person spiritual life, and draw him forward toward the goal. The group itself cannot do this. The force comes from the Creator, but it passes through the group.
[359374]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/26, Rabash, “What Is ‘Do Not Slight the Blessing of a Layperson’ in the Work?”
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In the article “What ‘Israel Do the Creator’s Will’ Means in the Work,” Rabash explains that the path of the Torah is opposite to the opinion of the masses, the opinion of an ordinary person. An ordinary person is one who follows his nature directly according to the desire to receive that the Creator created within him. Such a person works in a very simple way, according to the principle of reward and punishment, understanding that to the extent he invests effort, he will receive a reward.
However, in this way one can reveal only very small pleasures within the desire to receive, only what can be received in the desire “to receive for the sake of receiving.” These are limited pleasures, called corporeal or animalistic pleasures.
They are called “corporeal” because of the intention for reception. This is how the whole world advances, it pursues these pleasures and receives rewards according to the effort invested.
But there are people who begin the true work. This means that they do not work according to desire and the pleasure corresponding to it. Rather, they make efforts to acquire a screen that separates the desire to receive from the pleasure. The screen operates according to the principle of bestowal through the desire to receive, that is, contrary to the original nature that exists in reality. On this path, everything is different.
A person who works like the rest of the world invests effort, and the more effort he makes, the more he acquires within his desire to receive. But a person who develops the desire to bestow and wishes to receive the reward within it must evaluate what he receives through the “eyes” of the desire to bestow. If he begins to develop the Kli of the desire to bestow, then he must examine himself and his progress according to the principles of bestowal.
The problem is that we are confused. On one hand, I am in the right environment, studying according to the correct method, and I am being directed to develop the Kli called the desire to bestow. Yet how much I expect to receive in that Kli, I still measure according to my original nature. As a result, it seems to me that I have nothing. Worse still, the more I study, the emptier I feel.
And this is indeed so. We build one Kli, the desire to bestow, but we measure its fulfillment by the standards of another Kli, the desire to receive. That cannot work. Therefore, one who is advancing toward spirituality, that is, toward the intention to bestow, must view it as an opportunity to bestow even more, rather than as a means of receiving greater pleasure.
Such a person reveals his own nature as evil, sees himself as increasingly egoistic, and feels that he is moving farther away from the desire to bestow. Yet he must relate to this as an ever-greater revelation of the Kli, his reward, and rejoice in it.
Until he has fully revealed the Kli of his desire to receive, until he regrets and is pained that everything he does is with the intention for self-reception, until he has examined himself and become convinced that he is incapable of correcting himself, and begins to cry out for help, asking to be given a screen, saying, “I want to become different!”, until this work has been done on the entire Kli of the desire to receive, he will not enter spirituality, will not cross the Machsom, and will not receive the light.
Therefore, the more he advances, the more he discovers his own emptiness, how weak he is and how opposite he is to spirituality. Yet he should rejoice in this, because if he examines himself through the new Kli “for the sake of bestowal,” he will see that he is constantly gaining.
He should not examine himself through the Kli “for the sake of receiving,” because advancing toward spirituality and measuring oneself according to the receiving Kelim cannot take place simultaneously. Here the work consists of making efforts to acquire the Kelim of bestowal while, at the same time, examining and measuring everything correctly, according to the Kelim of bestowal.
Therefore, there is the work of the mind and the work of the heart. There is an inner fracture, an inner duality, where a person still exists within the Kli of the desire to receive, yet must look at everything as though he were already within the Kli of bestowal. Naturally, such a state creates an inner contradiction. And this continues until he crosses the Machsom.
As Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” only the heroes among those whose measure of patience endured truly overcame the guards standing at the entrance and entered the King’s palace. Only by patiently revealing more and more evil, feeling ever more unpleasant states, yet seeing in them a good result, an addition to the Kelim of bestowal, does the work cease to be difficult.
[359874]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/26, Rabash, “What ‘Israel Do the Creator’s Will’ Means in the Work”
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The Kabbalists tell us about free choice. They do not conceal the fact that we are animals. What does “animals” mean? It means having no free choice and acting according to a predetermined program. They say that our free choice lies only in the choice of environment. But even this choice, although concealed from us, is the result of our internal and external conditions.
Nevertheless, it seems to us that we choose for ourselves, and we must make use of this. You cannot simply take a law of a higher degree and say that there is no free choice, that nothing matters and that you live like an animal, so come what may.
But if it is truly “come what may,” then do not breathe, do not eat, and do not do anything at all. Are you capable of that? No. Therefore you must conduct yourself according to the concept of free choice according to the degree at which you are. Previously, nothing was said to you about free choice. Now you are told that you have no other choice except the choice of environment. Live within this contradiction!
This is what is meant by “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” on the one hand, and “There is none else besides Him” on the other. If “There is none else besides Him,” then is there no free choice? But if “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” there is free choice, is there something that I do?
Use them both! The Kabbalists do not hide this from you. They are preparing you for the true free choice, which you do not yet know. It will come.
But do not be a philosopher. Do not say that now everything is already clear, that you know “There is none else besides Him,” and that is the end of it. Have you attained this? What does it mean that you know? You have not attained it; you have simply read about it. The Kabbalists are there, not you.
Therefore a person must conduct himself according to the state in which he finds himself. And if he does not make use of it, then he is not making use of his Kelim. About this it is written: “His wisdom is greater than his deeds,” and because of this he becomes a fool, for he takes some slogan that he heard somewhere, and steps outside reality. Such things do not come from wisdom.
[359869]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/26, Rabash, “What Are ‘A Layperson’s Vessels,’ in the Work?”
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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 203
Where Do We Begin?
We begin with the question: “What is the meaning of our lives?” And the answer is: “Taste and see that the Creator is good.” Between the question and the answer lies the entire wisdom, how to get from one to the other.
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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 200
Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 33 “What Are Commandments that a Person Tramples with His Feet” (1986) (9.29.2002)
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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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