Question: Recently, I was in a state of darkness, and the thought that this was sent to me from above and that I must oppose it with my own efforts helped me. How can this approach be explained to people who are truly suffering?

Answer: You are touching on two different things here. Right now, we are going through a difficult period: the Creator is distancing Himself from us.

When the Creator hides from us, terrible troubles fall upon us, intense suffering that we constantly have to overcome. And to the extent that we fail to move forward, that we do not want it and do not seek a path that will lead us to the light, our suffering increases. This is because the purpose of suffering is to awaken us to search for its source.

If I receive a single blow, it is not so bad. But if I am struck again and again, I begin to reflect: Why is this happening, where is it coming from, who is causing me pain, and how can I resist it? All these blows somehow affect my desire to receive, which wants to enjoy. Through this, I become wiser, I gain understanding, and I come to recognize the evil of the egoism. The awareness of evil is the mind standing beside the heart.

I begin to learn, gain experience, and study what these blows are, why I received them, and what they change within me. I become like a patient studying his illness.

There are patients who know their illness better than their doctor. A doctor must specialize in thousands of diseases, most of which he has never experienced. But a patient has only one illness and may read thousands of books about it. Such a person can sometimes advise you better than any doctor.

What can be done? It is impossible to help a random person off the street. At the moment, he is under the fire of suffering. This fire must strike him more than once until it forms not only the desire to escape suffering, but also the desire to seek a way out of pain and blows.

At first, I am not capable of this; I only want to run away from suffering, to hide from the blows. But then I begin to see that I cannot escape them, that there is no way to retreat. And so, during periods of suffering, and especially during moments of relief, I begin to search for how to avoid these situations in the future.

Alongside the terrible feeling of suffering, I begin to grow wiser. It is as if I acquire a mind through which I search for ways to free myself from suffering so as not to experience such torment again. The blows intensify, and each one is heavier than the last. It is like the Ten Plagues of Egypt, where each plague was worse than the previous one.

This continues until I uncover the true cause behind the blows themselves. And in suffering, I begin to feel the one who sends them. This is a connection with the divine.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/31/26, Rabash, “Show Me Your Glory”

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