Question: We learned that if a person who studies the Torah directs the proper intention toward their study, they come from the state of Lo Lishma to Lishma (for the sake of the Creator). How does this happen?

Answer: It is said that one does not truly engage in the Torah while in the state of Lo Lishma. If a person remains an egoist, why should they study the Torah? If you are an “animal,” then live like an animal. But if a person uses the light in the Torah to correct themself and return to the source, then they truly can engage in the Torah.

However, for one who studies without such an aim, everything happens in the opposite way. Their eyes become blind, light becomes darkness, and darkness becomes light.

Question: If a person strives only for the Creator, is it called Lishma?

Answer: What does it mean to say, “I want the Creator”? What do I want to gain from that? What is it that you want from the Creator? Do you want to bring Him contentment? If a person desires to bestow upon the Creator, this is called Lishma, for the sake of the Creator.

This is determined according to the opening of one’s eyes in the Torah. If the Creator is revealed to you, and as a result of your aspiration toward Him you are in adhesion with Him, and if, in accordance with your desire to bestow upon Him, He fills you with His presence and His light, then it means that, through the equivalence of form, your desire truly has the intention to bestow upon Him.

But if you have not yet reached such a state, then you are only saying that you wish to bestow upon the Creator. In reality, you are deceiving yourself.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that ‘Law and Ordinance’ Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”

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Question: How will it help me if I turn my Hisaron (deficiency) into a request?

Answer: We are constantly making requests. Whenever a need (Hisaron) arises, we ask. A person’s desire is called prayer. The desire that is in my heart is the prayer, because my heart is connected directly to the Creator, without any intermediaries.

Whatever I feel at any given moment (a desire to rest, to eat, to steal, to fall in love) are all immediately felt by the Creator, and accordingly, in the form of a response, the direction of my desires is corrected by various means: either internally—through what the Creator does within my heart—or externally.

In general, through both the internal and the external system surrounding me, the Creator gradually teaches me which desire is the correct one. So where is my work? It is in independently searching for which desires are correct and which aspirations are true. And when I attain those genuine desires that are in my heart, this is called that I pray.

A prayer is what I feel, what I desire, without having any ability to control it. The desire was created before me. Even before I begin to feel it, investigate it, study it, distinguish it from the others, and give it some name, it already exists within me.

The creature is the desire to receive. Therefore, I am unable to change it. I can only reveal it, clarify what it is, and how correct it is with respect to the purpose of creation. Then, accordingly, I arrange various external means for myself, using every possible aid (the group, the books, the teacher) so that this desire, which seems to me not to be properly directed toward the purpose of creation, will change.

However, this can be done only by means of external efforts and not by entering my heart and beginning to turn some little key or screwdriver there. That, I cannot do. I am not the master of my desire to receive.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that “Law and Ordinance” Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”

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As we engage in spiritual work, we increasingly identify all kinds of states that we were completely indifferent to before; we simply did not perceive the states with our undeveloped sixth sense.

Now that the sixth sense within each of us is beginning to develop, even if it has not yet reached the threshold of perception when it is fully open to spirituality, we can detect certain changes in it. It swells from the presence of a vast array of emerging revelations and distinctions.

This is called the soul, something we literally develop through our actions. One’s free choice lies only in willingly developing the soul, and a person is obliged to make this choice on their own.

Light from above will not come to you unless you want it to come and correct your soul, that is, to give it inner definitions (Avhanot) and endow you with sensitivity that allows you to experience the spiritual world.

This light will send you suffering so you will feel more and more lack in spirituality. But it will never correct you unless you first raise a prayer, unless you first ask to perceive spirituality, get closer to it, and subsequently become equal to it in qualities and adhere to it.

The soul cannot develop without a person’s own intense work. What does the work consist of? It consists of request, called prayer, the raising of MAN, in response to which the surrounding light corrects the soul. To the extent of your correction, according to the properties that are born in your soul, against this, you begin to perceive the properties of the Creator.

If you have corrected any one of the 620 properties of the soul, you feel the Creator in that corrected property. By fulfilling the commandment, performing an action corresponding to the corrected property, you thereby connect with the Creator, feel that He fills your property, i.e., the light fills the Kli—the corrected part of the soul.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that “Law and Ordinance” Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 36 “What Is ‘For It Is Your Wisdom and Understanding in the Eyes of the Nations,’ in the Work?” (1989) (8.20.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 1, Item 3 (Recording from 8.14.2007)

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Question: How will I have the confidence that I can disconnect from the Creator and act on my own if He does everything?

Answer: The fact is, you disconnect from the Creator only in acting as if you are the one doing something rather than Him. If you, like a horse under a rider, do not make some movement, you will never know how you differ from Him (the rider). So you have to say, “I am taking action!”

When you act, you begin to feel the difference between your desire and His desire, and so you begin to know yourself and Him.

After you have know yourself, attained Him, been in a struggle, accused, doubted, and yet revealed that this is good and made corrections, you come to a state in which, based on what you have done and experienced, you say: “There is none else besides Him!” But not before you have not done anything yet, but just started checking.

Now, after all the verifications, you say, “There is none else besides Him.” This means that you have adopted and copied all His actions in yourself. You definitely make a movement like Him not because He somehow makes it in you, but because you accept this movement willingly, as if you are doing it with Him. This is called the desire of the one getting clothed, and the desire of the one who is clothing.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/26, Rabash, “Who Needs to Know that a Person Withstood the Test?”

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A person cannot raise a genuine inner plea to the Creator; they can only do so by drawing strength from the group because the importance of the connection with the Creator, which they absorb from the group, surpasses the power of their own pride.

In an ordinary state, a person with a certain degree of pride cannot independently realize the importance of connection with the Creator, since pride acts like Pharaoh within them, and it is impossible to get rid of it.

Only when, as it is written, the children of Israel sighed from the work (that is, when a person gathers all his strength and receives help from the group), can they raise the level of importance of connection with the Creator, which will become greater than the level of one’s own pride.

Then they subdue their pride and turn to the Creator with a request for the Creator to reveal Himself and give them the strength to truly keep their pride under control.

There is no other way to get rid of it except by truly asking the Creator for the strength to do so. Only the group helps to generate a genuine request.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/26, Rabash, “What Is “Do Not Slight the Blessing of a Layperson” in the Work?”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 22 “What Is the Gift that a Person Asks of the Creator?” (1987) (8.7.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, “Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words,” Item 41 (8.13.2007)

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It is very important for us to know all of our qualities, and the path we must travel in order to use our one true freedom of choice for spiritual advancement. After all, if a person does not strive to advance, they are not moved forward.

You have a very narrow path before you, long, but narrow. Imagine that it lies in a desert where you cannot see it. Or, as if you are walking on water, your next step is unknown and invisible. With all the strength you possess, you must choose “north,” hold on to it, and direct yourself toward the goal with every step you take. Then you will make the right step.

Otherwise, it will only seem to you that you are moving forward, when in fact those are not real steps at all; they are merely what you perceive with your ordinary, animal senses. You may remain standing in one place, going around in circles for a thousand years. Therefore the method of reaching the goal, of taking one step after another toward it, of knowing whether you are truly advancing, or only imagining that you are running while you are actually running in place, is the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

A person must be able to see the path, and this is accomplished quite simply: his eyes must be opened so that he truly sees the desert before him, where there is no other road except the one unique path. Moreover, each person has his own individual path; this ensures they do not lose their way, allows them to see both the final goal and themselves, and enables them to know how to take each step only after first examining it.

If a person fails to do this, the soul will undergo incarnation after incarnation as time slips away. We exist beneath the plane of spiritual life, and therefore we can continue spinning in circles for another million years; that is not the issue. From the perspective of spirituality, there is no account for this earthly life because by itself it brings no spiritual benefit.

Kabbalists write in their articles about the forces within our soul, and explain how, by using the many opposing qualities that exist within us, we can choose the correct path and realize our freedom of choice.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/26, Rabash, “When Should One Use Pride in the Work?”

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Comment: You said that a person attains the names of the Creator to the extent of their correction.

My Response: I usually give the following example: to catch a radio wave, you must create the same frequency inside the radio receiver. This is called the resonance effect. Otherwise, you cannot pick up the external waves. There are millions of waves across all possible ranges outside the receiver. How do you catch something specific?

Each receiver acts like a transmitter in a sense; it does not merely receive. First of all, it has to generate the wave you want to pick up from the outside, i.e., the same oscillation frequency. Then, from what is outside, according to the law of similarity of form—in this case, the matching frequency—you catch the corresponding external wave and perceive it as sound. Thus, you need to match the qualities with what you want to experience.

Our eyes and ears are designed to detect a certain range of external influences because inside us there is a mechanism capable of producing the same frequencies that are outside.

This mechanism consists of nerve fibers, at the ends of which there are receptors, sensors, specific to each type of frequency. Heat, cold, and pressure are, in general, different frequencies of wave vibrations that I perceive according to the similarity of form in my vessel with what is outside.

How can I claim that the Creator is just and merciful if I do not first acquire the property by which I can find out what “just” and “merciful” are? That is, first of all, I must make a correction, and in accordance with this, I will be able to feel that the Creator really is like that.

Sometimes we say that a person doesn’t have a heart. It is just that his feelings are so undeveloped that when he sees someone crying and suffering, he does not feel bad or even understand it.

For example, an infant, even if someone is crying next to him, has no idea what this means. His sensory perception is not yet developed enough to understand that something very serious has happened to an adult, which has led him to such intense distress.

Later when the child grows up and develops the inner vessels capable of feeling sorrow or joy, he will be able to perceive what is happening in the world around him.

This is what happens with everything. We perceive everything only according to similarity of form.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that ‘Law and Ordinance’ Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”

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Question: Can we say that the period of preparation is necessary so that we can come to feel the need for a connection with the Creator?

Answer: Of course. First and foremost, a person must feel the need for it. This is called the recognition of the evil of egoism. How else can I know that something good is being concealed from me?

In the article “What Is, ‘There Is None Holy as the Creator, for There Is None Besides You’ in the Work?,” Rabash illustrates this with the following example: the son of a wealthy man is kept in a basement. He has nothing, lives in misery, and receives only a small amount of food that is lowered down to him from above.

The son curses his father for his cruelty and for the life he has prepared for him. But when he is finally brought out and shown that there is another way of life, you can imagine the confusion he experiences.

We go through similar states as well. A person does not understand at all what is happening to him. He feels lost and unhappy until he begins to study and draw conclusions from the state he is in.

What does it mean to study? After lamenting his twenty years of imprisonment, a ray of light penetrates the basement, and he begins to see that everything had been done for his own benefit.

Why then did he have to suffer for twenty long years? Because only in this way could he appreciate and accept the goodness that was prepared for him. The Kli must be ready for the revelation of spirituality.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘There Is None as Holy as the Lord, for There Is None Besides You,’ in the Work?”

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