Question: When a person checks his desires, do they refrain from using them?

Answer: A person who uses their desires discerns which of them they can use and which they cannot. This distinction is referred to as commandments or instructions on how to carry out a correction within each specific desire.

There are desires you can perform corrections in; these are the performative commandments, positive commandments. There are desires that pertain to the fourth phase; these are the prohibitive commandments, negative commandments. Regarding the latter, only one action is possible: not to use them.

There are 248 performative commandments and 365 prohibitive commandments. The 248 primary desires of the soul are desires with which it is possible to work for the sake of bestowal in various forms. And the 365 desires that belong to AHP, to the structure of the soul from the Tabur and below, can only be restricted. These commandments are called prohibitive.

“Prohibited” means “do not use.” These desires must only undergo restriction. That is, you decide that they cannot be applied since the manner of their use cannot connect you with the Creator, because there is not even a spark of bestowal in them. They cannot grasp the qualities of Bina. From the sparks that are in them you understand that there cannot be anything in them more than your decision not to use them.

By carrying out this investigation you determine the difference between the second and the fourth phases and see that the fourth phase is opposite to Bina. Then you decide that you will not use these desires. And for more than that you are not capable. The true Bina cannot unite with the true Malchut.

We must understand that two such qualities cannot unite, they are so opposite. This can never happen. Between them there can be a connection which gives you the possibility to decide how opposite they are and how to separate from them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/26, Rabash, “All of Israel Have a Part in the Next World”

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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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We are constantly advancing. In reality there is no turning back and no descents on the spiritual path. Ascent is taking place all the time, although it can be either in the Kelim or in the lights. This is how we should think, and this is what is really happening.

If it seems to us that we are falling, this is not a descent, but rather an accumulation of empty Kelim that later will receive their fulfillment. In this constant forward movement, a person needs absolutely everything they have. It may seem to you that something is hindering you on your way, but in reality, you are unable to advance without your “Pharaoh,” without egoism.

Pharaoh is all your Kelim. If they are not corrected by you, then what are you going to use for your advancement? Every time you take from him, correct it and advance. All the obstacles that exist in your head, along with the sense of powerlessness you feel, occur precisely when you are obtaining new, empty Kelim. However, this is an acquisition, and you must remember this,  you must believe in this, even if you feel that it is literally death: They can kill me, but I am unable to move.

Do you think that someone is going through this path in a different way? I used to have states when Rabash would call me and say “you should come.” But I was sitting home and crying because I was unable to move a bit and leave the house. I was not capable of getting up, getting in the car, coming to him, and taking him for a walk to the park.

Different things happen to a person, he goes through a great variety of states. We have to believe, just believe, that difficulties help because we are unable to see or know. Later on, you reveal that this is what happens, after all, you can justify everything only later.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/26, Rabash, “What Is the ‘Bread of an Evil-Eyed Man’ in the Work?”

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Each new level we attain signifies that a person has corrected themself by rising to it, and has thereby fulfilled a commandment. Therefore, the number of levels corresponds to the number of commandments: 613 plus another 7 commandments instituted by the sages.

A person rises from degree to degree by virtue of the Exodus from Egypt; therefore, we attach the remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt to many commandments, since it is the foundation that allows us to begin spiritual actions called “commandments.”

We are not speaking about the commandments known to us in the material world (simple movements of the hands, feet, or tongue), but about spiritual actions through which a person fills himself with the upper light.

In the absence of a screen (a spiritual filter that would allow the upper light to enter within us), for now we can draw it toward ourselves through the study of the books. It reaches us in the form of surrounding light that gradually purifies and corrects us. The same actions can be carried out not only through study, but also through real deeds.

On the holidays, such as Pesach (Passover), which brings us goodness, there are specific surrounding lights, and here the participation of a person in preparing the festive event is important, specifically physical participation, carried out in unison in the whole nation.

But in addition to the general participaction, we must have an intention: the desire to attain the essence of the holiday, to ascend to the level of Pesach, so that what the event known as the Exodus would actually happen to us. Depending on the correct direction of the pre‑holiday preparation and the sincerity of the intentions, a person can merit very great surrounding lights even at the stage of preparation for the celebration.

That is why we try so hard: everyone wants to take part in this work and loves it because it gives a greater spiritual result than study.

Baal HaSulam and all the Kabbalists who preceded him singled out Pesach and Sukkot from among all the holidays. Pesach corresponds to the exodus from this world into the spiritual, to entering eternity and perfection, which, in essence, everyone wants.

And Sukkot is the “cloud of His Glory,” that is, a cloud, a Sukkah, a shelter: All this is also surrounding light that comes to a person and corrects him. The principle remains unchanged; only the conditions in which a person’s soul is found change. Therefore, in our world these holidays, these spiritual states, manifest in various forms and modes of expression.

On Sukkot the surrounding light acts differently, because the soul is already on a higher level, whereas Passover is truly the exodus from our state to the light.

Therefore, every time a person takes part in lessons or in work, it is desirable not to forget that everything that happens to them, all their efforts, require an accompanying intention: one undertakes these actions in order to come out of this world into the spiritual world, to feel the upper reality. Then these efforts accumulate and bring a person the holiday of Passover.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/1/26, Rabash, “Why the Festival of Matzot Is Called Passover”

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But because we were given the Torah and Mitzvot to keep during the concealment, we can keep them in utter simplicity, and say, “If my aim is to bestow, why should I mind what taste I feel?” (Rabash, “The Measure of Practicing Mitzvot [Commandments]”).

We must reach a state where it does not matter to us what state we are in. The main thing is to be aware, to be in a certain feeling, that I am connected with the Creator, that I am moving toward Him. I must come to a point where this becomes more important to me than all the feelings in my sense organs

Question: So how does one “simply perform” the commandments in practice?

Answer: Precisely like this, without any cleverness. It must be clear to me in my feelings. “Simply” is not a concept that describes understanding. I am a desire to receive, not an intellect, not a computer. Therefore, I must feel the commandments within my desire.

Question: And if I am not able to?

Answer: Everyone is capable, you simply have not attained it yet.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/26, Rabash, “The Measure of Practicing Mitzvot [Commandments]”

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Every commandment is a correction of a particular desire in the soul in which I reveal the Creator.

There is no connection here with the commandments that a religious Jew performs in this world. He is simply working with his hands and feet; whereas, we are speaking about actions that we carry out within the desire, even if there is no body, only the desire without the body.

If I carry out actions in this desire, they are called spiritual. If I perform actions with the body, this is a different work called “the opinion of the common people,” which is opposite to “the opinion of the Torah.” One is completely opposite to the other.

The only thing we need to do is to come to connection with the Creator and constantly apply efforts for this. “He and His Name are one,” “There is None else besides Him”—only this. If, despite all the disturbances, we try to be connected with this with the help of the environment, the group, the books through which we study, then this is called that we are fulfilling the commandments.

What else must a person do? What other external actions? The Torah does not speak about this. It speaks about the inner development of a person, about the revelation of the Creator to the creatures in this world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/26, Rabash, “The Measure of Practicing Mitzvot [Commandments]”

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The body of the soul includes 248 positive commandments, 365 prohibited commandments, and 7 commandments of the sages (De Rabanan, from the word “Rav,” great), which are an addition to the 613 regular commandments. Altogether, there are 620.

Until we cross the Machsom, we do not know a single commandment because we are in darkness, in concealment. We do not know what we are fulfilling, with which desire we are working, or by means of which desire we have a connection with the Creator. The Creator is revealed within desires. If He is concealed, it means the desire has not yet been clearly revealed in me.

I do something, but I do not know what I am doing. I have a point in which there are 620 desires. What can I do with them? I do not know. They appear to me as a point. Therefore, it is written that since you do not know what to do with them, in which particular desire you are now acting, then “whatever is in your power to do, do.” And whether I do it for the sake of reception or for the sake of bestowal, it is not important. Exert effort!

This continues along the whole path until we cross the Machsom. As I approach the Machsom, I begin to feel the particular desires I am in, even in the smallest form; this is still called “the growth of a person in the mother’s womb.” But certain awareness already exists.

What awareness does an embryo in the mother’s womb have? We say none at all, but it does exist! It is still a foreign body found in the body of the higher.

In exactly this measure, a person feels his existence in the world of the Creator, in the Creator Himself, within Him. We, in our present state, cannot point out even a single commandment precisely. Our commandments are our various efforts that we make in order to come to some degree of similarity to the Creator, to connection with Him, to His revelation.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/26, Rabash, “The Measure of Practicing Mitzvot [Commandments]”

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Question: Does it make sense to perform actions without a desire, without an inner attitude? Suppose I know that right now I am not capable of desiring the Creator, but I was told that if I work in the kitchen, for example, I will attain this.

Answer: First of all, a person must act. As it is said in the “Preface to The Book of Zohar”: even commandments without intention purify the body, but on the level of Nefesh de Nefesh.

What does commandments without intention mean? It is when a person like you wants to reach the goal but does not know by which actions exactly.

It is said that even simple commandments, that is, various corrections of desires without the intention for the sake of the Creator will help if you try to come out of the inanimate (Domem) state. This state is characterized by a lack of understanding and absence of sensation as if you do not exist at all.

Question: But must a person ask himself what he is doing this for?

Answer: When you act without knowing why, you are like a small child. He looks at his father and repeats the same actions after him, without knowing why he is doing them. This is called the “monkey” instinct. In fact, this is the most correct learning when the small one wants to become similar to the great one only through actions.

“From Your actions we shall know You.” From the fact that a person performs these actions, he begins to understand the mind, the plan of the upper, why He does this. Then the lower one begins to receive this mind. Even in this world you never know the next degree in advance, its plan or how it works. You see only its external form, that is, how it acts on you.

It has other Reshimot, other intentions that you do not touch at all and about which you have no idea. Of course, you cannot act as it does because you do not have such Reshimot, screens, and forces. And nevertheless, if in your state you try to do everything as it is done there, despite the fact that you have no desire and no Reshimot, this will mean that you want to become similar to the upper.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/26, Rabash, “The Measure of Practicing Mitzvot [Commandments]”

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We should discern between righteous and wicked in terms of the action, and righteous and wicked in terms of the intention. In terms of the actions, the righteous are the Ultra-Orthodox and the wicked are the secular. But with respect to the intention, righteous and wicked go by a completely different order. In other words, in terms of the action, both are righteous. But with regard to the intention, there is a difference: Righteous are those who work for the Creator, and wicked are those who work for themselves. However, in terms of the work, both are righteous (Rabash, “Why the Speech of Shabbat Must Not Be as the Speech of a Weekday, in the Work”).

A Tzadik, a righteous one, is one who fulfills the Creator’s will. Therefore, in regard to the inanimate, the vegetative, and the animal levels, there are no questions; they are all righteous. For example, fish in a fish tank are one hundred percent righteous: nature acts on them, and they fulfill its directives one hundred percent.

At the same time a person cannot be one hundred percent righteous. The Creator gave him a certain level of freedom, and in the degree of this freedom a person does whatever he wishes.

If he fulfills the Creator’s desire to this measure with his effort, with his desire, then he is called righteous. If he does not do that, then he acts as though in the opposite way, and he is called “wicked.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/26, Rabash, “Why the Speech of Shabbat Must Not Be as the Speech of a Weekday, in the Work”

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Question: Is there some special reason why in the article “Why the Speech of Shabbat Must Not Be as the Speech of a Weekday, in the Work” Rabash addresses the religious and not the secular?

Answer: This is indeed so because there is a necessity to perform the commandments on the material level.

We are built from two parts: intention and action. We need to make sure that intention is the determining factor, and action is the consequence of intention, rather than having intention without action, as if we are simply “fluttering” like angels.

If we perform an action without intention in which there is nothing, then we act like an animal that carries out commands. That is, a person who performs commands without the involvement of his personal desire is similar to an animal.

Therefore, it is said that “a commandment without intention is like a body without a soul.” As Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” a person must study, at least from a short guide, how to observe the commandments and truly fulfill them. But in addition to this, one must perfect oneself and constantly care about the intention through which you grow from below upward to the state of equivalence with the Creator, to the purpose of creation.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/26, Rabash, “Why the Speech of Shabbat Must Not Be as the Speech of a Weekday, in the Work”

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