Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 1, “Make for Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 1,” (1985) (4.6.2003)
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2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How can I demand anything from a group meeting if I cannot possibly give it to my friends myself?
Answer: How can I demand anything from my friends if I myself am not very good at it myself? If I were good at it, I wouldn’t demand anything from them; everything would be fine.
After all, I join the group because I feel weak and incapable of advancing on my own and I have heard that this is possible in a group, so I hope that what I lack for attaining the goal, will be found in them. I need additional vessels in which to reveal the Creator, and these vessels are within them!
This means I must receive all the impressions, all the desires, and all the thoughts from them, and I can acquire them only if I approach them with the intention to bestow. If I relate to them with the intention to receive, then I will receive their egoistic desires from them; I do not need those.
To the extent that I treat them with a willingness to bestow, to that extent I will acquire ideas about the forms of bestowal from them. Otherwise this one enjoys cigarettes, another Coca-Cola, another plays bingo, and I will be drawn to each of their desires. They will drag me to football, etc.; they will teach me to enjoy corporeal life.
But if I join a group to learn the forms of bestowal from them, then I take their aspiration for and their ascent toward the Creator from them. Therefore, there is room for the individual’s work—how they relate to the group and what they want from it.
The group itself must obligate a person to relate to it correctly. If a person approaches it egoistically, the group must resist such an approach. It must “turn” the person toward what is beneficial for him or her, toward an attitude of bestowal to the group. “If you want to bestow, you are welcome. If you want to receive, you have no business here.”
Why? What can it give a person if they have come in order to receive from it? He or she will only grow their desire to receive, they will want to rule over the group and manipulate it according to their wishes. Therefore, the group must help us relate to it properly.
[352862]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/8/26, Rabash, “And There Was Evening and There Was Morning”
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When does one leave a depleted state and move on? This happens when a person feels all the bitterness of separation from the Creator in one’s current state. This gives rise to the next state.
All our states are the steps that we descended along from above to this world, and within it to the lowest level. Now we are starting the return journey, and are passing through the same steps, with the only change being how and at what pace we go through them. This, in essence, is our choice.
Everything is already laid within my soul, all the steps, my entire journey back. The only thing that is not predetermined is my attitude toward the path, that is, how I will build it: by freewill or by compulsion, by the path of light or by the path of suffering. This does not mean there are two paths to the upper because the path is my attitude toward the ascent.
Therefore, at each step, as soon as I sense how far I am from the Creator, how opposite to Him, and I want to correct this, the stage has been passed. Then I rise to the next level to experience even greater bitterness from being distant from the Creator and opposed to Him. Just imagine how much spiritual strength it takes to withstand this constant feeling of lack!
But if I understand the goal and receive the support of a group that helps me constantly keep the grandeur of the goal in mind, then all this suffering becomes sweet because I see the Creator in it. By introducing the Creator into the picture of my world, I “sweeten” it and completely transform it.
It is like how we cannot eat without salt. We absolutely need some kind of internal “twist,” some sharpness, in every taste we experience; otherwise, we will not feel anything. We do not distinguish between good and bad, only one relative to the other.
If I am very hungry, I feel the taste precisely on the border between the lack (hunger) and the pleasure (food) when I take the very first bite. This is how our entire sensory system operates. Therefore, I need the strength each time to reveal the lack at the border with pleasure, and this sensation is always acute and unpleasant, so only the environment can help here.
[352942]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/26, Rabash, “What Does It Mean That Before the Egyptian Minister Fell, Their Outcry Was Not Answered, in the Work?”
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Question: If I am not getting advancement from the group, what is the problem?
Answer: If you are not receiving from the group what you think you should receive, then one of the following may be happening: either the group is not paying enough attention to you, or generally it is inattentive to its duty to constantly awaken each and every person.
Perhaps the members of the group are not putting in enough energy and effort into the common thought, into the shared desire; perhaps they are not sufficiently attentive to the fact that an inner flame should truly blaze between the friends, something that must be felt in the air, not merely in words, text messages, or other external things.
It must be as internal as possible, but in such a way that no one can rest and everyone is compelled to rush into the whirlwind. In other words, the individual is to blame for not awakening the group, and the entire group is also at fault since it includes everyone. After all, the group is a collection of all our desires, all our hopes.
Question: Where do we begin in correcting such a situation?
Answer: By gathering together and deciding what we want. And as soon as we feel ourselves slipping, each person immediately begins to “wake up” the group so as not to descend from the level we have established. The same applies to external actions.
Although external actions are only a means toward inner connection and inner burning, I am inspired by each person’s willingness to make efforts within the group to advance with it.
[352859]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/8/26, Rabash, “And There Was Evening and There Was Morning”
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Question: The driving force before the Machsom is the intention “for oneself.” Beyond the Machsom, in the sensation of the Creator, does my driving force remain the question: “What will I gain from the next level?”
Answer: Always! My fuel is always: “What will I gain from this? But before the Machsom, this question sounds like “What will happen to me?” It is the fear of not receiving benefit, the fear of dying and not having time to receive everything, the fear of suffering, etc.
Beyond the Machsom, there is the same question, only in a different form: “What will happen to me so that I can give to Him?” The question is the same, the meaning is the opposite.
This is called “Lishma.” Everything we feel, we sense and evaluate through our desire to receive; we have no other measuring system.
Otherwise, how can we act? If I do not get pleasure, I have nothing to give Him! My pleasure, in fact, is what I give to Him, He enjoys that I am enjoying.
[352949]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/26, Rabash, “What Does It Mean That Before the Egyptian Minister Fell, Their Outcry Was Not Answered, in the Work?”
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Question: How can one increase one’s power of overcoming when an even greater egoistic desire is revealed?
Answer: All of a person’s qualities, no matter how they may seem to him, from good to the very worst, are revealed within the framework of a general system of souls moving toward unity according to the program of creation. Therefore we cannot attribute any of a person’s personal manifestations to the person himself. Like a cogwheel, like an integral part of the system, one is obliged to reveal in oneself a certain set of inclinations, impulses, and states.
Whatever happens in a person, one does not need to make any calculation about it. After all, it is not they themselves, but the general system, in a given state, that determines what happens to him now.
Thus, you do not need to worry about the current state; there is nothing you can do about it. It is woven from thousands of factors external to you. As for the future state, there is nothing to think about it either, because that too does not depend on you; it is determined by the needs of the system that must make a step forward.
In essence, all I have to think about is how I am going to take this step. What is it that depends on me?
Here too there are things that are carried out not by me, but by the upper force, revealed not by me, but by the upper light. A person conducts an analysis and reaches the point where they can truly realize themselves. And they see a very clear and precise action, like pressing a button.
This is the task of a person: to identify only the action required of him or her every moment and to carry it out. In the course of this analysis, one reveals many other things as well, and as a result, by pressing the button, one activates the system and begins to perceive it, accept it, and integrate into it.
In other words, a person begins to attain the system as a whole. One is by no means a guinea pig that finds the button for the feeder in the maze. On the contrary, through one’s efforts in various states, a person attains the conditions, causes, and essence of what is happening.
Once one reaches the button, a person will undoubtedly press it. The whole matter here is in analysis, and it is the real treasure.
[32602]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/11, Rabash, “What Is the Meaning of ‘Reply unto Your Heart’?”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 2, “Concerning Love of Friends” (1984) (5.16.2003)
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2nd part of the Lesson — Recording of Rabash, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” “Ohr Pnimi,” Vol. 2, Part 5, Item 35
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3rd part of the Lesson — Preparation to Attack at the Congress
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Selected Highlights
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If you want to achieve a corrected state, in accordance with the plan of the Creator, according to how He would do it, and you are not concerned in what form it will happen to you, as long as it is similar to Him, then you must demand an example and instructions from Him, and He will give them to you.
But this is on the condition that you do not demand any compensation before you even begin the work. You must demand knowledge: how to work.
Such a demand for correction is called raising MAN. And then from above we receive a plan for how to perform even the smallest action. Of course, a person himself cannot find it. By himself he can only organize his environment for it to provide him with the correct request that is aimed only at correction. If this succeeds, then everything will be fine.
Through the environment, we organize a demand to the Creator so that He gives us an example. By ourselves we are incapable, confused, unable to resist our nature, and unable to fulfill the rule “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but if we ask, we receive such an opportunity. This is the only free action, and to perform it is our duty.
Only for this do we have reward and punishment. Either force comes to us at the right time, in the right place, and a person grows in the right direction. Or he makes mistakes, and then the forces are not distributed in the correct way in order to bear fruit, and a person misses the opportunity.
The mistake is that he does not prepare himself to reach the correct request so that the Creator will give him a program of correction. Usually a person asks for fulfillment, not for correction. He must ask the Creator for correction in order to be able to achieve love for one’s neighbor, that is, to acquire the quality of bestowal.
[352638]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/26, Rabash, “For Man Is the Tree of the Field—1”
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Our work is to be constantly in adhesion with the Creator. We are given a point, something that does not depend on us, and from it we begin our work.
The point is our reality in the state of infinity, perfection, and eternity. But from the state of infinity, we sense only this point; we passionately desire something and feel that something is missing. But we are missing only a point, and this is not a real desire. From within this state, a person must reach the emptiness in their vessels in order to be filled with all the light of NRNHY in the final correction.
All our work is an effort to remain constantly focused on the revelation of infinity. This means complete adhesion with the Creator, contained in the words “There is none else besides Him,” and this is what we must aspire to. All obstacles are intended only to push us in various directions of our spiritual character: pride and fear, various sensations and thoughts brought to us by the Klipot.
The Klipot seem to want to pull us away from this point. And we must strive to return to it despite the contradictions that pull us in different directions. Suppose a Klipa pulls me ten centimeters to the right,that is, it gives me a foreign thought, a lack of confidence. Despite this, I must return to the central point, because there is the point of adhesion with the Creator. If I do this, I already expand my state by ten centimeters to the right.
Then I have a disturbance ten centimeters to the left, or downward, or upward—it doesn’t matter how, in different directions from this center—and in this way I build a Sefira. It is precisely the Klipot that give me the matter from which I build an empty vessel out of the point. And together with receiving the disturbance, I fill this emptiness with adhesion.
It turns out that from that point I begin to expand into a small Sefira, then more and more, until I receive all the disturbances, overcome them, and adhere—despite them or together with them—in uninterrupted adhesion (Zivug) with the Creator. And this will be called that I have completed my work and reached final correction.
It follows that the Klipa helps me grow and also guards me during my growth. Therefore, we should not be afraid of foreign thoughts and all kinds of disturbances. They awaken in us in accordance with our current state, and with their help we advance and build future states—our future. It is not that these disturbances pull us backward; on the contrary, they give us the opportunity to advance forward to the same degree.
This is the difference between working for the sake of the Creator and working for one’s own sake. All the wisdom lies in how to use the desire to receive. Kabbalah is the science of using the desire to receive, that is, the Klipot, the disturbances, whereas other methods fear them, teaching a person to prevent disturbances, to run away from them, rather than to use them.
[352603]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/26, Rabash, “Three Times in the Work”
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When striving toward spirituality, one must always strive for the destination and not remain stagnant, trapped by one’s own desire, and unsuccessfully fighting it. A person advances when his heart and mind are in the desired state.
I am not deluded by this, but I am looking forward. I may not have reached the goal yet, but I do not sink into my present desires and qualities that grab me by the legs and try to stop me. And at the same time, I do not drift in the clouds, in an illusion of the spiritual world, until it becomes my reality. This is the proper orientation.
Every moment is an opportunity to make an effort on the path toward bestowal—the goal.
When I take a step, I feel as if I have already reached the goal, and then the work becomes the reward for me.
Taking obstacles into account, I rise above them and enjoy the fact that I am creating the quality of bestowal above knowledge. The picture of the spiritual world is formed out of my desires, when the force of bestowal begins to give them shape, the contours of my soul.
[4700]
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