Question: How can a person in descent make use of the group?

Answer: Let us say I am in such a deep fall that the group repulses me, I cannot bear to look at their faces, nor do I believe there is anything special about my friends, and I absolutely have no desire to adopt anything from them at all. I am in despair, I have no strength, and no hope. This state is called “dead.” Where should I turn and from whom should I seek help?

There are states you go through simply by inertia, but even in these instances, we must rely on the group. There is a commandment to bury the dead. In other words, your friends should come and help you. “A prisoner cannot free himself from imprisonment.” It is impossible. This is a group task.

First of all, the group should have a schedule, a fixed routine. We must establish rotations in tasks, roles, work, in all kinds of activities.

If, for example, a meal is held twice a week or some other event is held once a week that gives everyone a spiritual jolt, it helps to change a friend’s state where it is not feasible to approach him directly, but it is clear he has fallen.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 4/11/26, Rabash, Article 10, 1988 “What Are the Four Qualities of Those Who Go to the Seminary, in the Work?”

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Question: How should one deal with the evil inclination if a person sits idly and does nothing?

Answer: If a person sits and does nothing, then the evil inclination, by awakening Hisaronot (unfulfilled desires) within them, begins to push them toward various actions. And if they carry out these actions together with the evil inclination, they come to such a state where they feel bad, that is, to such negative results that intensify and unite to such an extent that a person cannot endure them.

At that point they do not agree with such a trajectory and they carry out a kind of inner revolution, taking action to change themselves. However, afterward, gain and again, they continue along the path alongside the evil inclination.

And so it continues until we reveal in our present day that we are approaching a critical threshold: if we continue to develop in this way together with the evil inclination, then our life will become worse than death.

Despair and drugs are flooding the world. A person sinks either into despair or into drugs; there is no escape.

From this, we begin to understand that we must, through hatred toward the state in which we find ourselves, change our attitude to life, to reality, to ourselves. Then an inner revolution takes place in our perception of our entire system of calculation, of our entire nature, of how we develop.

We discover that already since the times of the destruction of the First and Second Temples, we have been developing incorrectly, that a flaw arose then, but it is only being revealed now; that we must not follow the advice of the evil inclination but act in the opposite way. We must take the form from it but in the precisely opposite direction: not in the direction of the desire to receive but in the direction of the Creator.

The evil inclination gives you advice on how to give pleasure to the desire to receive. And you must invert everything so that through this same form, you bring pleasure to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/26, Rabash, “It is Forbidden to Hear a Good Thing From a Bad Person”

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Being a giver is very difficult. First of all, we need to see who we are giving to and discover whether they have a desire to receive, to accept what you want to give them. Then you will really see whether you are giving and whether a person is receiving and enjoying your giving.

Furthermore, do you give because his pleasure gives you pleasure, or does your pleasure come from enjoying it yourself? In that case, you are not bestowing. The action may consist of giving, but for the purpose of self-gratification.

So there is a lot going on here. Being a giver is a status that needs to be gradually built along with all its bases and components.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/26, Rabash, “It is Forbidden to Hear a Good Thing From a Bad Person”

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Question: If I see flaws in my group, for example a lack of unity, and I want to correct this, should I raise these issues?

Answer: The rule is that it a person is forbidden to talk about anything that could bring down the entire group or any individual friend, or even the speaker himself.

One must not even awaken such thoughts internally or say things out loud that could cause the person himself or his friend, or the group, or the entire world to descend from the level they are at. No matter what state you are in, as it is said, “I will come to you and bless you.” You must strive only upward.

Therefore, if you are contemplating saying a few critical words, and before that you truly were in a good state for 23.5 hours a day and worked with inspiration, in ascent, did not descent from your level, but were constantly in tension, in striving forward, without allowing yourself to relax, then for half an hour you can engage in criticism.

You can express your comments to everyone else, since this criticism is based on the foundation laid by your elevated state, and you identify flaws only in order to rise even higher.

Then it is not criticism, but the revelation of a lack of fulfillment together with the light, together with the Kli. Being inside the right line, you turn to the left in order to return to the right. But this return to the right will already build the middle line.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/26, Rabash, “The Connection between Passover, Matza, and Maror”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 36 “What Is, ‘Peace, Peace, to the Far and to the Near,’ in the Work?” (1991) (7.23.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Article 36 “What Is, ‘Peace, Peace, to the Far and to the Near,’ in the Work?” (1991)

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3rd part of the Lesson — Recording of Rabash, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 5, Item 46

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In Baal HaSulam’s article “The Concealment and Revelation of the Creator,” he describes the extent a person’s attitude toward reality alters the entire picture, from hell to heaven. He explains that in truth nothing actually changes. You are in Malchut of the world of infinity, in the final state. You are merely being guided through various impressions so that you may change your attitude toward them.

Nothing changes! You must change your attitude within the very reality in you currently exist. You cannot accomplish this in one go; therefore, you are led through various states, one after another, so that each time you will be able to deliberately change your attitude toward them, until you reach the final state in which you understand with absolute clarity that you have always been in it, you simply failed to perceive it due to your attitude, you did not realize where you were.

In principle, what we feel and call our world is not where we are, but rather where our attitude is. Our attitude reveals a specific segment of reality to us, presenting a picture of it solely in accordance with our attitude toward it. It is this perception that we designate as “worlds.”

There are no distinct worlds, no separate degrees, and no discrete states; rather, my ever-changing attitude toward the environment in which I am immersed is what alters this picture for me. It is this shifting picture that I refer to as degrees or worlds.

Therefore, if we try to relate to reality in a more correct way, we will return to the true reality and discover it as it really is. What follows from this? If we do not work on improving our attitude to the state we are in, the state remains inert, it is dead. This implies that I am failing to consciously define my attitude to my world and my state. However, the moment I begin to define my attitude, seeking to evaluate it differently, from a new perspective, I embark on the process of inner development.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/26, Rabash, “What It Means that the Generations of the Righteous are Good Deeds, in the Work”

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Question: Who is the Hasid about whom it is said that he “goes and does”?

Answer: In Kabbalah, the word “Hasid” is not someone who belongs to a religious community, but to the quality of Bina, specifically Hesed (loving kindness) or the light of Hassadim. From this the word “Hasidism” originated.

If a person performs actions in order to advance himself toward the quality of bestowal and to acquire it through his own efforts, he is called a “Hasid.” This applies both to the intention and to the action.

Question: Is there any connection here with the washing of the hands with water, “Netilat Yadayim”? In Rabash’s article “What Do the Four Types Who Go to the House of Study Mean in the Spiritual Work” it is said that the Hasid has no hands. And since water symbolizes the quality of Hassadim, can this be connected with the washing of the hands?

Answer: “Hands” (Yadayim) here are called the vessel (Kli) of reception. A person does not want his vessels to be received for his own sake. He wishes to correct them so that they will be holy. This correction, called “washing of the hands” (Netilat Yadayim), is carried out by the fact that he takes the light of Hassadim, corrects the receiving Kelim with its help, and then he is ready to receive for the sake of bestowal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/26, Rabash, “What Are the Four Qualities of Those Who Go to the Seminary, in the Work?”

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Question: What does it mean that if I change my attitude to reality, the world is revealed to me? How does this happen?

Answer: The world being revealed to you means that you have succeeded in perceiving the picture you are in with a different understanding of the connections between things. You suddenly see that people and laws that exist in the world have different connections, different intentions, different goals. You manage to discover a more inner layer of reality. This means that your attitude to all of reality has changed and you see another world.

To do this you must constantly strive for an ever more inner perception, try to see what is behind the outer facade. What does “beyond the Machsom,” the spiritual world, mean? It means that beyond this world you begin to reveal the connections between things, the plan of creation, which connects all the details in this world.

Then you see that there is a completely different intention there, not the one that seems to you from this side. And the connections are determined by completely different formulas, not at all what appeared to you before. You see that everyone bestows to one another, everyone loves one another, and there is nothing bad in the world, provided you look at it from the other side, in accordance with the true connections between things.

Rabash gives the following example: a person is given a desire for money. Suppose you see that a taxi driver whom you perceive as dull-witted as his car’s engine, as someone who is driven only to earn as much money as possible, who never turns on the meter, who overcharges you double the fare, and so on.

And suddenly, from the other side, you see that this person wants to bestow and to help his neighbor. He is constantly thinking about whom to take where and how to make it so that everyone will be as comfortable as possible. It only seems to him that he wants to earn money. In fact, he simply “reads” his state in the wrong way. His attitude is incorrect. But you already see this picture from the other side, from beyond the Machsom.

It is like looking at embroidery. On the reverse side there are always various knots and connections in which it is impossible to make sense. A person sees the front side, but he does not see all the true connections on the reverse. And when he is given the possibility to see the reverse side of the embroidery, he discovers the correct relations between things.

This is what we lack. But we acquire it by rising along the degrees and reaching the best possible state. This means that you see this world, which does not change (“the world continues to live by its own laws”), and at the same time the second side, all the connections that exist between the parts of reality. And then you can justify the Creator, see that it was always so from the outset, it is just that your vision was not ready to see it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/26, Rabash, “What It Means that the Generations of the Righteous are Good Deeds, in the Work”

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From between man and man one learns how to behave between man and the Creator.

…you have to keep awakening the love of the Creator in this way, that you must always stand guard, all day and all night, when you feel a state of day or feel a state of night.

We say to the Creator, “Yours is the day, and Yours is also the night.” Thus, the night, too, the darkness of night, comes from the Creator… (Rabash, Letter 24).

We have all already felt what “day” and “night” mean. “Night” means that suddenly the desire disappears, indifference comes, and the taste is lost. It becomes difficult for us to listen about a person’s work on their correction; we grow tired of repeatedly speaking about love of friends and connection.

Then “day” returns: enthusiasm, upliftment of spirit, and a person absorbs every word under a powerful impression, moved to tears. He burns with desire and rushes forward ready to move mountains.

All of this depends on some tiny measure of the light that influences us a little more or a little less. Our whole life and death, our entire mood, good or bad, depends on this small measure of light.

These states come to us so that we will understand that we must rise above them and not take them into account at all. Just imagine, is such a thing possible? Notice how much you fall under the control of these states when they take hold of you, and you can do nothing: neither in a good state nor in a bad one, you cannot cope with your joy nor with your sorrow.

So how is it possible to rise above them? Does it mean being above the influence of the light? Of course, I cannot be above the light, but I can be above my reaction to it. After all, this reaction arises in my egoistic desires. I must hold myself above this pleasant or unpleasant sensation.

At times, I am drawn to spirituality and am ready to do anything for it, dreaming of attaining bestowal. And at other times, nothing moves me, I am as if dead and want only to fall asleep and forget everything. How can I rise above such states?

I must ask the light for help. But not to ask for a pleasant sensation, we are always ready for that, even in the most difficult situation. Although there are such difficult states when we can no longer even ask, and only want to disconnect from the state and distract ourselves with some corporeal goals, just to forget and not feel the suffering.

But if it is not such a completely suppressed state, then we are able to ask. And usually, we ask the light to correct the problems and make us feel good. We expect a pleasant state, a sensation, but this is not correct. We need to seek a force that will allow us to remain above the bad state. We must ask the light for correction, so that these states will not influence us and we will perceive the bad states as good.

We must feel that the bad state comes in order to advance us, and no less, but even more than the good state. This means that a person must bless the Creator for the bad just as for the good. Then we will rejoice at every change of states, because we will be able to be impressed by them and ask the light to give us a screen that allows us to be above the reaction of our will to receive. I will always remain above the impression of good and evil, adhering to the Creator and striving to bring Him contentment.

Then all these unpleasant and pleasant states will determine the height, the level above which I can rise and establish contact with the Creator with a request for love and connection. It follows that the stronger the darkness and the light, and I do not react to them within my egoism, but only determine the height of my screen above them, the more it will grow. There will come ever brighter “days” and ever darker “nights,” ever higher states, and thus I will ascend.

Therefore, always, both in light and in darkness, we must strengthen the love between the friends with all our might, so that neither darkness nor light will influence us or change our attitude toward our constant duty: to strive only for unity and love.
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From preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/28/13, Baal HaSulam, Letter 13

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