“There Is No Assembly of Fewer Than Ten”
The ten must be in the synagogue at once, and not come one at a time, since all ten are as organs of one body, in which the Shechina resides (Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”).
All of reality includes the Creator and the creation. The creation must independently reveal the perfection and eternity of the Creator; otherwise, it will not have a Kli through which to enjoy this state.
Revealing the Kli is what we need, because the state already exists and we are in it. As Baal HaSulam writes, we are like a person sitting in a dark basement where all the treasures and all the pleasures he needs and even more than he could expect are present, but there is not enough light, not enough of a Kli, for him to see the state he is in.
This Kli can be revealed only on the condition that there is a Hisaron for it, a need for precisely this state. If the desire is for other things, a person will not be able to reveal the state that, in the Creator’s view, is “good and does good,” and fill himself with it. Therefore, in Kabbalah, a person who has attained equivalence of form with the Creator is called “one who does not follow the counsel of the wicked.” What does this mean?
“Wicked ones” and “evildoers” constantly come to a person; that is, his uncorrected desires awaken within him, and each time he examines, analyzes, and sorts them, and “does not follow their counsel.” His ego burns within him all the time, and it is precisely thanks to this “help against him” that he continually renews his state in relation to the Creator and thus grows.
This continues until he gathers all his desires into one great desire directed toward a single thing. Once he reaches the innermost part of all his desires and directs them toward acquiring Kelim of bestowal, he arrives at the prayer “from the depths of the heart.”
At that point, he already has a complete, perfect desire, which is called Beit Knesset (synagogue; literally, “house of assembly”). A “house” is a place of reception, while an “assembly” is a state in which he gathers all his desires into one, directed toward a single goal.
It is clear that the desires are diverse, ranging from animalistic and human to the spiritual, but they are all focused on one goal. This is the state described as a person being in a Beit Knesset. The Creator sees that there is someone in the Beit Knesset who is ready for prayer and demands correction from Him. Then the person receives correction for all his desires, and to the extent that they become similar to the Creator, he attains the Creator’s degree.
Where does he obtain the strength to descend into all his inner “wicked ones” and arrive at the decision that, with their help and on their basis, he wishes to attain adhesion and become similar to the Creator? How can he gather all his desires under a single intention for the sake of bestowal?
We learn that a person receives these desires from the upper one, through the surrounding light. But where will he obtain awareness of the importance of correcting them? From the environment. In proportion to the number of “wicked ones” that are revealed to him, which he feels within his body, he must strengthen himself with the help of the group and receive from it an awareness of the importance of the goal. Then he is assured of the ability, with the help of the surrounding light, to purify these “wicked ones” through the intention for the sake of bestowal.
This, in general, is the main idea of the article “There Is No Assembly of Fewer Than Ten.” We understand why it is written that there is no assembly of fewer than ten. This is a state in which the person examines the properties he has acquired from the Creator down to their very depths and directs and aligns them according to his desire to receive correction for them for the sake of bestowal, as in the ten original Sefirot.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/26, Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”




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