Question: What does a person’s choice actually consist of? After all, if one acts from the desire to receive for oneself, will he be able to make a real choice?

Answer: A person’s choice is not in calculating something and choosing between various options; rather, it lies in constantly forcing oneself to continue the spiritual work. Nothing more. You do not choose the path. You choose where to get more strength for the effort, in order to push yourself a little more, to advance just a little further. Choice is in accelerating time.

What path could you possibly choose? Do you understand anything about the corrections? Do you know what your next state is or what your present state is? How do you move from one to the other? What will come of it? Of course, we are not the ones who do this. If we try to proceed based solely on our own understanding, it is simply foolishness.

Yesterday I met a professor (a very intelligent, insightful person, a specialist in his field, and a senior executive and project manager in a large company. He kept saying, “I have to see, I have to understand…” This is very difficult to grasp. In general, theoretically, we might be able to see something, but regarding oneself, one’s next state, a person never sees anything in advance. After all, the most difficult thing is the recognition of one’s own evil.

We can only apply pressure in order to advance and catch a glimpse of the past. Truly seeing the present is impossible right now. Only after crossing  the Machsom can one see the degree that has been passed. But as long as we have not crossed the Machsom, we have not yet passed even the first degree. After all, everything we are going through now is merely a single degree of our world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/26, Rabash, “What Is the Work of Man, in the Work that Is Attributed to the Creator?”

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Comment: When a person passes the Machsom, they feel shame before the giver of pleasure. But there is also the act of looking back at everything one experienced up to that moment.

My Response: Even before crossing the Machsom, a person stops thinking about and looking at their past. There is no past. One who constantly looks back becomes like Lot’s wife who turned into a pillar of salt, into something that does not spoil. Salt itself cannot be used as food, only as an additive.

Why, then, do we need to justify everything that happened? Is it so that a person sees that he went through all of this in order to gather Kelim and inner definitions for the present? No one sits like an old man reminiscing about his past at the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).

If we continue, we will soon become convinced that the past in itself is absolutely unimportant and may be needed only for the present. You will not think about the past or regret something that you once did or did not do.

Such an attitude will disappear because it is incorrect. This is not you at all. You do not need to cross the Machsom for this, because the realization that one should not look back occurs long before it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/26, Rabash, “What Is ‘The Concealed Things Belong to the Lord, and the Revealed Things Belong to Us,’ in the Work?”

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A person’s Kli is defined as something from nothing and as a Lev HaEven (heart of stone). In other words, it is impossible to receive light, the revelation of the Creator, connection with Him, and adhesion into my “I” or my Yesh (something that exists) because my Yesh was created from Ayin, from nothing.

But if I make a restriction in my “self,” and this means that I don’t need anything beyond what is essential (and the essential is zero), and I start working for the common good by uniting with other souls, then I will be able to receive the light. Then their stony hearts will no longer be hearts of stone for me, because I nullify myself before them, and they turn into the Tet Rishonot (the first nine Sefirot) for me, into which I receive the light.

When I incorporate their Hisaron (needs), the desires of all other souls, to myself, they transform into my Kli for receiving the light. My own original Kli remains unfit for receiving the light until the end of correction.

What is the end of correction? It is when, by incorporating the 599,999 “stony hearts” that belong to other souls, by correcting the connection with them and nullifying myself (an act known as “love your neighbor as yourself”), I attain the revelation of the Creator. This state is described as being “above myself,” “above my desire to receive.”

It follows that unity with other souls is a means to achieve adhesion with the Creator.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 7/20/26, Rabash, Article 27, 1986 “The Creator and Israel Went into Exile”

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When a person realizes that they have no intention to bestow and that the Creator cannot unite with them, they begin to understand that they must correct themselves. Since they are not capable of correcting themselves on their own, they must turn to the Creator.

Then it is gradually revealed that the Creator initially prepared everything precisely in this way so that the very act of turning to Him initiates a connection with Him. This unification is the goal.

In other words, the more our state feels opposite to holiness and distant from it, the more worthy it is of connection, adhesion, and attainment of the goal.

The entire path is divided into many degrees because we are unable to immediately grasp the magnitude of the gap between us and infinity. We cannot bridge this chasm at once. Even when the desire to receive is first revealed to us at any given level, it seems to us like a “Final Sea” that cannot be crossed. Yet, gradually we begin to see that this is normal and that it is possible to somehow overcome it.

How does this become possible? In spirituality, there are no habits; there are only inner determinations, forces, and the interplay of forces. So, what does “possible” mean? It simply means that the surrounding light shines upon us from afar and creates the sensation that there are forces and fulfillments capable of bridging this gap between degrees.

Some people, upon sensing this chasm, run away, others persevere, and through the study and persistence, come to see that it is not so daunting after all
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/26, Rabash, “What Is “The Concealed Things Belong to the Lord, and the Revealed Things Belong to Us,” in the Work?”

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Question: What difference does it make how one receives pleasures?

Answer: The difference is the following. The Creator created only one Kli (vessel), a desire to receive. He did not create different Kelim for this world and “that” world. No, there is only one Kli. What changes is only how you feel yourself within this Kli.

If you feel yourself as you do now, it means that you are at some degree of this world, since this world also contains a certain sequence of degrees. If you come to spiritual states, you will still feel this world, but in addition to it, you will also feel the spiritual world.

What is the difference? The center of pleasure remains the same. Now you can experience several strictly defined types of pleasure. And when you enter the spiritual world, you will likewise receive impressions from certain types of pleasure, both spiritual and corporeal. These are different garments of the same source.

It is precisely the corporeal garments that clothe themselves over the light that make our world appear to be illusory, or imaginary. What does “imaginary” mean? The pleasure found in this world is not imaginary.

What is imaginary are the garments, because it seems to us that we receive pleasure from the garment itself, rather than from the light within it. This is what is called an illusion or imagination. It seems to me that I enjoy, for example, looking at your beautiful face. But this is not so: in reality, there is some spark of the Creator within you. It is this spark that I enjoy, and not your beautiful external appearance.

In other words, the problem lies only within me. If I connect the pleasure with the spark that is within you, everything is in order. In that case, I am connected with the spiritual. But if I connect the pleasure with your beautiful face, then I am connected with the animalistic garment, with the corporeal world, and this is called the imaginary or illusory state.

“Imaginary,” “illusory” means an error in identifying the source of pleasure. In other words, there is nothing actually imaginary, it is simply what we call a spiritual “error,” when I mistakenly identify the source of pleasure.

This does not mean that this world disappears when one attains the spiritual. Does a Kabbalist who perceives the spiritual world cease to feel this world? He lives in it! The five senses remain. And believe me, Kabbalists experience very clearly through these senses: they eat, drink, and so on. Nothing disappears.

But through all this, the Kabbalist connects himself with the source of all pleasures, which exists only in the Creator, and all these intermediate garments no longer hinder him or mislead him. One can say that they no longer occupy the Kabbalist’s attention, he sees through them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/4/26, Rabash, “The Klipa [Shell/Peel] that Precedes the Fruit”

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 233

What Determines Whether We Are in an Ascent or a Descent?

A descent and an ascent are determined by the person, according to either the state we are in or our attitude toward that state. For example, we forget that we are sitting in a lesson and start daydreaming about the card game we played yesterday with our friends. We drank beer, felt good, and had an enjoyable time. The time we are dreaming about is called an “ascent” for us. We felt good. Suddenly we wake up and notice what we are thinking about and where we are now, what we are immersed in, and then we begin to feel that this is a descent.

In other words, ascents and descents can be evaluated solely according to equivalence with the surrounding light, and only due to that equivalence with the light. A true discernment of the place we are in can be made only in relation to the light.

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