Writings of Rabash, Igrot, Letter 66: So, even if a person deals with the Torah and Mitzvot, if it is not for Heaven’s sake, it is like a person who has no God because, if he did have a feeling of Godliness, he would surely do it for Heaven’s sake. So, a person should do his best to find the power to overcome his attributes in order to turn them in favor of others.

When a person is in trouble, he tries to find a way out. There are different kinds of troubles, both corporeal and spiritual. One way or another, a person feels pain and sorrow.

However, if, at the same time, he begins to study the Torah and even the wisdom of Kabbalah, he is in great danger because the Torah can be the “potion of life” or the “potion of death.” The snake reveals this tool to us, which eventually will either destroy the person or help him escape it and control it.

Baal HaSulam says that it is possible to catch the snake by the head or by the tail. When we study, we encounter several dangers.

First, we can be satisfied in studying the text technically and dryly in order to understand all the detail about the spiritual worlds that Kabbalists describe. This is very appealing because while you read the book you seem to understand and feel these details. You come to know the material; you have a “map” and a list of definitions. This false feeling of control is the first danger. There are those who are satisfied in the study itself, even without any real understanding.

Later, if we study in order to reach correction, there are more dangers along the way. I may want to acquire the power of bestowal to adhere to the Creator. There are other options, but a wrong direction may divert a person. If we go off the track of “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator,” we will draw further away from the goal with every step we take.

Therefore, the principle of “first think, then act” is very important here. I feel the entire world as part of me, and I lead it toward adhesion with the Creator.

Our world cannot be perfect if we do not want to include all of humanity, all of reality, within us. It is only then that we will attain the true attribute of bestowal in the correct intention of in order to bestow, and not in any other manner.

In contrast to the ten discernments of holiness, there are ten discernments of the “shell,” and they are very different. In every form of bestowal and in every form of receiving there is a special method, a special philosophy.

There is an entire world concealed in every attribute of holiness and in every attribute of the shell that is opposite to it. This is the origin of all religions and beliefs, all confusions, and all the justifications that a person finds in life,

We should understand that the love of others should be based on the principle of unity: Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. There are no separate “others.” Everything is one; everything is part of the upper force.

We must pay attention to everything, including dissemination and the necessity to reach the most remote parts of humanity. If we implement selection, the general vessel will not be whole, and we will lack the intention of “in order to bestow.”
[R75418]
From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/16/12, Writings of Rabash

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Rabash, “What is Because of Impatience and Hard Work in the Work”: We need to work hard because it is only the sufferings of hard work that make us cry out to the Creator with a whole desire that the Creator will save us from the dominance of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. This means that it is from a state of lowliness that a person senses that he feels worse than all the other people and this pushes him to cry out to the Creator with all his heart so that He will help him. But he believes that the Creator hears his prayer since He has revealed his evil to him and so He will surely help him and take him out of the evil too, which is called redemption. This means that he believes that the Creator let him understand that he is in exile and He will surely take him out of exile afterward.

We advance by two forces, but for those who don’t know where to go, there is only one force that pushes them from behind and forces them to move forward. They are constantly trying to escape from it, trying to be saved from the “roller of development” that catches up with them from behind and pushes them to advance.

But the path of the Torah is different from the path of suffering. A person is given the wisdom of Kabbalah so that he will build up the force that will illuminate before him and will pull him, in the hope for a better future, with great hopes, positive examples, a feeling of awe that is felt by the connection and spiritual elation.

The goal must be as glowing and as attractive as possible, and depicted as wonderful and good. Although the advancement is by the ego, which we must constantly reject, we have to try to use this method: to draw the light that reforms, so that it will do all the work. The approach here requires subtlety, like in anything. If you know how to enter it, then it is very easy for you to do it. Someone who doesn’t know this feels great difficulties and constantly runs into a wall.

We have to arrange the right environment in which you will soon begin to suffer because of the lack of connection and because of your envy, lust, and desire for respect. You will see that others are more successful than you. You will envy others that succeed in connecting so strongly and you will also want to attain that.

The envy forces you to demand your change. You already know how to evoke the reforming light, you begin to change under the influence of the light, and thus advance. The main thing is to develop the drawing force that is called “I shall hasten it.” It is because the troubles, the sufferings, the natural force of evolution “in its time,” is not up to you. We should understand that the sufferings come to a person in order to wake him up; we need to develop the pangs of love by ourselves instead of corporeal sufferings so that instead of the evil that catches up with us, the goodness will illuminate in front of us.

Instead of the natural course in the grip of time, we should rise above time in order to determine the pace of our advancement by ourselves. This means that it is all in your hands! We have to feel elation and a sense of awakening since it all depends only on us! If we want it today, it will be today! If we really want it now, it will be now! Everything that we want to attain by the path of the Torah can be promoted and achieved.

It is very important to emphasize this in the work: to operate and integrate all the components, all the means that we have in the way of “I shall hasten it” that will help us advance. We have to develop all the means and to connect them correctly in order to see that there is certain method here instead of following the path of suffering by developing under the pressure of our nature. A person can advance by rising above nature in order to advance before it and to open the gates for it.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/13

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 109

Does a Person Who Is Already in Spirituality Still Forget the Creator?

Even in spirituality, at every level, we must work through several opposing states, within two lines that deny each other’s existence. However, this is where the real work begins, when we experience our true emotions and pass through them, when our feelings are no longer vague or unclear. Beyond the barrier (Machsom), the states become very vivid.

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Question: Now is the period when the lights of Pesach (Passover) influence everyone. But if there is no Kli, you may miss this opportunity. The fear that I will miss it, is this the Kli for the light of faith?

Answer: This is one of the components of the desire to attain the light of Pesach, the light of the Creator.

Question: How can you become that maximum component so that on one hand it does not interfere with the influence of the light, and manage in this short period to become necessary to the Creator?

Answer: For this, you need to study together with us, not necessarily physically, to understand what is written in the articles that turn us correctly toward the Creator.

And then it will turn out that all of us are standing before Him with open hearts.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 4/14/25, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith?”

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From Rabash’s Article, “The Duty to Convey the Story of Exodus from Egypt”: The Book of Zohar explains why one shouldn’t eat matzah during the year, but only during Pesach. It is similar to the king who appointed one of his subjects to be a minister and on the day of his appointment dressed him in luxurious clothes.

Later, the subject took off these beautiful clothes. He was wearing them only for one day when he took a position of a Minister to celebrate the event. Afterward, every year he commemorated his appointment and dressed in his festive, solemn clothes. This example explains why we eat matzah only during Pesach to honor the exodus from Egypt.

Each spiritual root has a corporeal branch. The entire universe represents a single will to receive, “something out of nothing.” Besides it, nothing has ever been created. The light impacts the matter and leaves its imprint on it.

Only because of its imprint and due to the four stages of HaVaYaH can we explore the Light. If we manage to change our desire, we will attain the Light that created the matter and left its imprint on it.

Exiting from the egoistic forces (Klipot) is just one of the stages that lead us to the attainment of the Light. If we manage to achieve this stage, we will detach from our nature that was made out of nothing and begin connecting with the imprint of the Light that is present inside the desire. We will learn what the Light is, what It does, how did It create everything, and what happened to all fragments of the Creation long before this world and man emerged.

In other words, we rise to our root and learn that there was a special point called the “exodus from Egypt” in the program of creation of the desire and in the Light’s impact on it. The desire stops sensing only itself and is no longer confined to its nature; it goes out and begins feeling the Light, its origin, the Root.

From this moment on, the desire has already established a mutual connection with the Light and they begin acting as partners. The upper root that allows us to approach it and work together with it is very important since it is the point where a Man (Adam)—(Domeh) the one who is similar to the Creator—appears. It’s like a birth! That’s why the exodus from Egypt is called a spiritual birth of every individual soul. This explains why we honor this state.

There is a correlation of the spiritual root of the material branch that is imprinted in the categories named world, year, and soul. This world was made as a projection of the spiritual world, that’s why for each spiritual action or event, there is a corresponding material branch in this world. This is why we celebrate the entire spiritual process that we go through in the branches; it is called a yearly cycle.

All our traditions are a material reflection of spiritual actions that we hope to attain and implement. Exiting from the will to receive and attaining the very first sign of the similarity with the Light, i.e., spiritual birth, is called the exodus from Egypt. It is the initial step for all of us. This month is called the first among all other months. It denotes the beginning of the spiritual growth of a human being.

By all means, we advance for many years before arriving to a sensation called Egypt and realizing that it’s impossible for us to stay at this level. Although this state is very hard to reach since for that we have to experience more pressure, undergo unpleasant sensations, acknowledge that we are unable to exercise self-control, and divulge our slavish dependence on our egoistic nature.

The fact that we live in this material world is of great help to us. It’s a spiritual state in which we completely depend on the will to receive, and thus have no connection with the Light. This step allows us to experience material sensations. It seems to us that we live in the materiality, at the last level of sensations that manifest inside the will to receive.

Due to materiality, we can organize our lives in a way that we get a chance to exit from it and begin sensing spirituality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/14, Writings of Rabash

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At this time, we approach a state when humanity faces a need to change its attitude to life, to itself, to its developmental goals. Humans have to realize that there is a purpose in life and that nature leads us to achieve it.

We will advance towards mutual understanding, benevolent attainment, and comfortable existence to the extent of our correspondence with the program that guides us.

The goal we must reach is above this world, beyond life and death. Eventually, we will transition to the level of immortality. This world gradually will dissolve and we will enter a totally new dimension. By the way, nowadays all worldly sciences confirm this fact. We are going through this process as we speak.

Everything starts with Pesach (Passover), i.e., when we realize that we are capable of rising above our egoism and we shift to unity and reciprocity by observing the rule of “loving our neighbor as ourselves,” or at least following the rule of “not doing to others what we do not wish for ourselves.” In other words, when we feel like brothers and maintain mutual guarantee. This holiday is about realizing that exiting from the ego is possible.

When one “leaves Egypt” and rises to the next level one regards the prior state as absolute wickedness and clearly sees how it can be used correctly. This explains why it is said that attainment happens at the foot of Mount Sinai (derived from “Sina,”  hatred) when all human properties “stand around the mountain,” whereas our aspirations, the point of Moses, rise to its peak.

Mount Sinai represents a huge egoism and it is absolutely essential to make us rise above our qualities that stand for the entire nation gathered around the Mountain.

The final goal of human advancement is to reach the peak of the Mountain where Moses and the Creator are.
[156669]
From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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Question: The night of the Passover Seder is a special night for the people of Israel. It is thought that on this night this people was born and began its new way. So really, in what way is this night of the exodus from Egypt so unique?

Answer: A person begins to feel that he is in the Egyptian exile, in slavery to his ego, which is called Pharaoh, and that it is necessary to depart from under its dominance, to flee; yet he cannot do this. He begins to scream internally, he is no longer prepared to endure a life like this. He invests effort in regard to the group, the environment, the teacher, and the books. He really feels that he is in prison, in darkness.

Gradually he sinks into a state that is called the “darkness of Egypt,” the night of the exodus from Egypt. This night is absolute darkness; no hope is left for him, no chance in life. He doesn’t feel that he is prepared to continue to live within his ego, since he hates everyone, and he is unable to relate well to anyone.

He strives to love the friends, to love the other as himself, but he sees the opposite, he becomes worse and worse. The Pharaoh in him, his ego, becomes stronger and more brutal. So in the end the person is broken, for he sees that he has no chance of leaving this servitude.

He passes through very difficult inner states, which ultimately are amassed together: all of his attempts to flee from his ego, to rise above it, all the victories of the ego that show a person how strongly this Pharaoh is holding him from within. He really finds himself in the middle of the struggle of two forces: On the one hand the person pushes since he yearns to go free, and on the other hand the ego hangs on to his legs not letting him flee.

Ultimately, these two forces reach the peak of the struggle between them, and the person finds himself between them, feels absolute darkness. This state is called the night of exodus, the darkness of Egypt. And so suddenly he hears a call from within this darkness: “You must leave! You are ready to do this! You can get up and flee from your ego, here and now, at midnight, that is, from the darkest state. Don’t take anything with you to the new state, except those things that you really need for bestowal, the attainment of unity, the connection, the love”.

In this case the person is ready to leave and flee from his ego; he wants to rise above it. This is called his spiritual birth.
[R103509]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder,” 3/4/13

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The Torah, “Leviticus,” 23:4 – 23:8: These are the Lord’s appointed [holy days], holy occasions, which you shall designate in their appointed time: In the first month, on the fourteenth of the month, in the afternoon, [you shall sacrifice] the Passover offering to the Lord. And on the fifteenth day of that month is the Festival of Unleavened Cakes to the Lord; you shall eat unleavened cakes for a seven day period. On the first day, there shall be a holy occasion for you; you shall not perform any work of labor. And you shall bring a fire offering to the Lord for a seven day period. On the seventh day, there shall be a holy occasion; you shall not perform any work of labor.

Question: Why is it forbidden to work on the first and last days of Passover?

Answer: It is because we distinguish between two states in the spiritual work: awakening from below and awakening from above.

During the awakening from below we evoke the cooperation between the light and the vessel by our yearning. The light corrects the vessel and gives it the right intention. During the awakening from above, this work is fulfilled from above but only because we have created all the right conditions for it in advance.

We make efforts, and thus create the right conditions for the first and last days of the holiday since the week of Passover has to be closed at its ends by states in which we don’t do anything since the upper light does all the work. The first day of the holiday is the beginning of the exodus from Egypt. The last day is the end of the exodus that seals it.

It is important to say that the nations of the world have different calendars. The Christian calendar is based on the movement of the sun. The Muslim calendar is based on the movement of the moon. While the Jewish calendar takes the movement of the sun, the moon, and the earth into account since the earth is the central object between the sun and the moon.

On one hand we take the year into account, which means the revolution of the earth around the sun, and on the other hand we take the month into account, the revolution of the moon around the earth, and compare the two. Thus the Jewish calendar doesn’t change and so, for example, we can calculate in advance which day of the week will be the first day of Passover in another 35 years.

What is more, based on the comparison between the movement of the sun, the earth, and the moon, we can say that Passover cannot be on certain days of the month. This means that everything is accurately related to the general astrological system.

Question: The Torah refers to holy assemblies several times. Why do we have to gather in Passover?

Answer: Holy assemblies during Passover are the most important thing for the Israeli nation since it is actually thanks to their desire to unite that they need to come out of Egypt.

A person’s union with a group of people, with the society, with the nation, or with the whole world is actually different levels of the exodus from Egypt (from the ego). When we attain the force of unity, a certain tension, this exodus, the detachment from the ego, takes place.

It is always among us, separating us and making us feel repulsed by one another. If we begin to compress and condense it, try to unite and connect to one another, then the exit from the ego begins the moment we first attain unity.

On the first day of Passover (the exodus from Egypt) we begin to tighten this connection. Then we work on it during the week and totally unite on the last day of the exodus from Egypt. From that moment on we are a united nation.

But in the meantime, people don’t understand what they should do, although there is a direction that spurs the desire to escape from the ego, it is merely an animalistic instinct without the proper awareness. People will acquire the recognition when they gather at the foot of Mount Sinai.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/28/14

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Spiritual roots also have an influence on their material branches. Everything is determined by the order of dissemination of the forces of light, which affect our material, the desire to receive pleasure. There is a special periodicity and causality in the affect of these lights.

They have a mechanism, which puts into gear and controls everything from the head of the World of Atzilut. From there, from Arich Anpin, Aba ve Ima, YESHSUT, and ZON, which exist in special relationships to each other, we receive changes, which are called: year, month, week, days, minutes, nights, as well as many different more internal states. We are talking about qualities and the combination of qualities, which have a great influence on this world.

If a person wishes to connect himself to the spiritual root and to place himself under a greater influence of the upper light, in order to become closer to it, then one must use these periods of a special influence on us from above. If one wishes to ascend spiritually, then during such periods in our world, which are called holidays, he needs to unite with the intentions that pertain to such influences.

In ARI’s book, The Gates of Intentions, he explains how a person should act during such special periods of influence on our world, as Rosh HaShana, Sukkot, Pesach (Passover), Shavuot, and so on. If we are talking about Pesach (Passover), then its most significant characteristic is the light of Hassadim. When a person receives the light of Hassadim for the first time in his life, he acquires the quality of bestowal and rises above his ego.

Therefore, it pays for us to think more about the upper light, which, at this time, has a greater power to raise us above our egoism and to keep us above it, in the quality of bestowal. Subsequently, we will already be able to advance further and to feel the spiritual world with all its details.

Thus we should spend all the days of Pesach thinking about the unification between us and the upper light, which raises every one of us above his personal egoism. This needs to be our main intention over the course of the whole holiday.
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