Question: How do we differ from one another?

Answer: We differ in the proportions in which the four elements fire, water, air, and earth are mixed in us. We differ in the blend of these four elements both on the spiritual level and on the animate level.

Using them in correct form within the greatest desire to receive is called the attainment of the final correction. But even upon reaching it, all four elements of the animal nature will remain in the same form as they are now.

This means that the aspects of you that make you the most irritable, hot-tempered, or lazy will remain. But when it comes to your relationship with the Creator, all these qualities will manifest in their opposite form.

Question: So is what am I meant to become already embedded in me?

Answer: The final picture of how you should appear in the final correction already exists within you.
[359628]
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: What if I keep advancing, I reach a certain spiritual degree, and suddenly it disappears completely?

Answer: Then I begin everything anew. That is wonderful! In fact, that is the most correct way.

Question: But at that moment I feel despair.

Answer: No. Why despair?

Comment: How could I not? I have come such a long way. I have devoted so many years to it.

My Response: So what? I am like someone who has just been born. Doesn’t a child open its eyes even wider?

Comment: That is true. You often remind us of a child in that way. Sometimes something suddenly amazes you. You still have that quality.

My Response: I do not feel tired. Of course, I may look tired because of my age and the passing years. But…

Question: You do not?

Answer: No. Every day, every lesson, every morning, I am ready to begin everything anew.

Question: To be born again?

Answer: Yes.

Question: When does a person begin to feel tired? Since we have touched on the subject.

Answer: When he no longer has the excitement of new desires and new questions. Then, of course, he can no longer reveal the child within him. Then he has already become an old man.

Question: Is that already movement toward death?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: So, when you speak about eternal life, you mean these constant…

My Response: Constant renewal.

Question: When is such constant renewal possible? Under what conditions?

Answer: Always. It does not depend on the body. It is the desire, and desire does not depend on the body.

Question: So should we always begin again? Constantly renew ourselves?

Answer: Yes, and it is wonderful!

Question: And what would you say to an ordinary person who does not study Kabbalah?

Answer: Nothing. Find yourself a hobby and keep at it.

Question: And keep rejoicing in new discoveries?

Answer: Yes. Just as my teacher used to say about a stadium, that it is a place that should be respected because it brings enjoyment to so many people.

Comment: That is amazing! I was always surprised that a religious man would say that. Religious people did not go to stadiums.

My Response: It is not that he did not go there, he had never been there even once.

Comment: Yet he still respected the place.

My Response: He had never seen it, but he knew that it was a game watched by one or even two hundred thousand people at the same time.

Question: So he felt that they had become like children again?

Answer: Yes, of course. They rejoice in life. And joy comes from the Creator. Therefore, he rejoiced for them because they were receiving pleasure from the Creator. At that moment, they were not cursing Him.

Comment: Then there is no suffering.

My Response: That is why such a place should be respected.
[359935]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 7/17/26

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Question: What has sport turned into?

Answer: Sport has turned into a hunt for prey! You step out as if into a jungle to hunt down a medal.

Question: You have to defeat everyone else. But what should it be instead?

Answer: People should strive for achievements that they attain together. Suppose, in a certain stadium, in a particular sport, under certain conditions, they achieve the highest possible result. That result belongs to everyone.

In general, I am against awards.

Question: Then what should a person strive for? What does you get out of it?

Answer: That is exactly your answer: “If there is no award, then what should I do?” It means you do not love sport; you love the medal.

Comment: Yes, the medal, or the admiration, the applause, that is what people want.

My Response: No, you can wear some kind of badge of distinction. You and everyone else. But I would not rank people by place. It’s about participation!

Question: Just participation? Do you think people would still take part?

Answer: If they truly love sport, then yes.

Question: What about when an athlete helps another athlete? For example, a runner gets tangled up, and another competitor helps him. Where would you place that on the podium? What place would you give it?

Answer: That is the most important thing! That deserves the medal.

Question: What should be the fundamental principle of sports?

Answer: Friendship and mutual help! To show all of us, and ourselves as well, what kind of potential is hidden within us. That is all.

Comment: But in soccer, one team plays against another. Where is the friendship in that? We have to win. We have to score in the other team’s net.

My Response: They should enjoy that. It all depends on one’s upbringing.

Comment: I enjoy scoring a goal. I enjoy seeing my team win.

My Response: And the others should enjoy it as well. It depends on the beauty of the game.

Let soccer be an art form: the way they keep the ball in the air, how beautifully they pass it. Rather than shoving and tripping each other.

Question: How should the spectators perceive it? After all, I am a fan of one club. How should I look at all this?

Answer: So what? You will support your club. You will feel the sting of defeat or the joy of victory. So what?

Question: But if the other team wins, what should I, as a spectator, do?

Answer: Then you will experience those emotions. That is what sports are for.

Question: What about combat sports? When it isn’t a team competition, like wrestlers or boxers, what should the mindset be there?

Answer: There, it is even simpler. It is all right there to be seen. You are fighting, and he is fighting.

Question: What should our intention be? What should we want?

Answer: To show beauty.

Question: Then what is beauty, in your opinion? What is the beauty they should demonstrate?

Answer: They need to find a way to demonstrate a benevolent kind of strength.

Question: Benevolent strength is still a force. How can it be benevolent?

Answer: Yes, there is benevolent strength and malevolent strength. The benevolent kind is when we demonstrate our good attitude toward one another. like the idea, “friendship wins.”

Question: So you really believe in that simple, childish slogan?

Answer: Without it, nothing good will come out of a sport. There will be drugs, doping, and corruption, people will do anything. Heaven knows what already exists in sports.

Question: If we do not put “friendship wins” at the center?

Answer: Exactly.

Question: I reminded of my early childhood, when I used to be told, “Friendship wins.” They would comfort me when I was a five or six-year-old by raising both my hand and the other child’s hand. Do you think that should apply to professional sports as well?

Answer: Yes. From a spectator’s perspective, I wouldn’t want sports presented in any other way, unless they demonstrated kindness and brought people closer together. The competition between them should demonstrate their struggle against their egoism.

Comment: That is beautiful! In other words, so they realize that they are egoists…

My Response: They demonstrate the struggle against their egoism.
[359568]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 7/10/26

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 204

What Kind of Demand Should We Direct to the Creator?

To what extent should we be involved in our correction? Should we simply demand, “Give me the end of correction,” or turn to the Creator and say, “You did this and that to me, this isn’t right, and this doesn’t seem quite right to me,” and so on? Should we speak with Him meticulously about every single detail? Or perhaps even suggest improvements, like: “Here, change this for me, do this for me, adjust this for me,” and so on? Perhaps even more so, after we correct our “machine,” we check how it should work, recognize its perfect functions, and after examining it, say to the Creator: “Good, You did a good job.” Is this called the work of the Creator?

How should we relate to reality? Reality is what we feel. It consists of three things: me, Him—the Creator, the upper force that is initially concealed from me and later revealed—and my world—the relations between us through the world, the way He brings me all my surrounding and inner reality, through which I connect to Him.

From where will we know what we need? From where will we know the extent to which we should recognize, understand, investigate, demand, and ask? We will know this from the Kabbalists’ words, and later it will indeed be revealed to us. Baal HaSulam says that the state we must reach is precisely defined by the name, “adhesion” (“Dvekut“). In spirituality, adhesion is complete equivalence between me and Him. What is “complete equivalence between me and Him”? It is when I know all His qualities, His desires, His longings, and all His good and bad attitudes toward me, down to the deepest level. It means knowing them, their causes and their consequences, to know what He wants and how He wants it.

In Kabbalah, this is called the attainment of the first nine Sefirot. The first nine Sefirot are the Creator’s attitude toward Malchut. From this, we learn about ourselves. If the Creator wants something from me, He built qualities within me that can give an answer, a response, to what He expects from me. For example, if the Creator brings me pleasure in drinking a cup of tea, He wants me to enjoy the tea. Through the pleasure that I feel, He creates the vessel in me that will long for tea.

From recognizing the Creator, we actually begin to recognize ourselves, and begin to recognize the gap between ourselves and the Creator, and how much the Creator has influences to which we have corresponding deficiencies. Meanwhile, we learn how to make adjustments between the influences and the deficiencies. If we knew all the influences of the Creator and all our own deficiencies, we would see that the Creator’s influences come and are ready to fill all of our desires. For every pleasure, there is a corresponding vessel in us.

The first problem in this matter is that the vessels need to be updated to bestow, otherwise we will not receive pleasure in them. Another problem is that if we receive these pleasures directly, we are not similar to the Creator and do not reach adhesion. We can receive these pleasures in the will to receive, but then we do not enjoy the will to receive because the pleasure immediately extinguishes the desire and we remain empty.

However, if we acquire a screen, install a screen over our will to receive, we enjoy without limitation of quantity or time, and we also acquire something special, we become similar to the Creator, align ourselves with Him, and are in adhesion. The Creator and the person begin to resemble each other. In other words, we not only acquire pleasure from the Creator, but also acquire the Creator’s status, become like Him with all that this implies, which cannot be explained. There are secrets of the Torah and many other things in this.

From this, the correction of the screen lets us be at the level of the Creator, and not at the level of the created being. What is our part in all this work? This work is called “the work of the Creator” and not the work of any person, because as Kabbalists who attained the correct reception of these pleasures explain, all the actions on the vessels—scrutinies, corrections, fillings, and so on—can only be done by the lights. That is, the Creator, the upper light, is the one who can perform corrections and fillings on the vessels.

And what about the “I”? Baal HaSulam explains in “The Freedom” that out of all actions available to a person in this world and in the spiritual world, we have only one action of choice by which we determine our individuality; it is an action that we ourselves perform. What is it? It is our desire for the Creator to perform a certain action. That is, we need to recognize ourselves in our current state, how opposite we are to Him, how much we need correction, and ask Him to perform the action while we are present in it and as if know it in all its details. However, the action itself is performed by the light.

How is this expressed in this world? It is that we must desire it. We naturally desire, but it is said that this is not enough. We desire according to our ability in our current state, and we must desire a little more, want the Creator to correct us and fill us, and want to be in a slightly higher state. How can we be in a certain state and want to rise from it if this desire is not within us? We acquire this desire from the environment.

Since we are all included together as one soul in Ein Sof, in the end of correction, if we create some form of equivalence with the state of Ein Sof among the friends in this world, we create conditions that let us acquire qualities or an additional desire from others that exists there. What is the corrected upper world made of? It is made of each soul annulling itself, and all souls joining together, and their connection creates the infinite fulfillment within each and every soul. Each soul receives the fulfillments that exist in the other 599,999 souls (there are a total of 600,000 souls).

The act of equivalence in this world gives us an additional desire. Therefore, in “The Freedom,” Baal HaSulam writes that a person must seek and find a society with a better, greater, and stronger desire for spirituality, and acquire that desire through connection and the desire to connect with the friends who are in that society. The society gives us that upward push that obligates the Creator to perform the action of scrutiny, correction, and fulfillment.

Therefore it is impossible to do anything with regard to the Creator before we prepare the conditions called “society.” That is why Rabbi Shimon in The Book of Zohar and Baal HaSulam and other Kabbalists dealt so much with the matter of society.

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 27 “What Are ‘Blessing’ and ‘Curse’ in the Work?” (1987) (10.6.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 1, Item 5 (8.16.2007)

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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.
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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.
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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.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/26, Rabash, “What ‘Israel Do the Creator’s Will’ Means in the Work”

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