Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 15, “What Does It Mean that Before the Egyptian Minister Fell, Their Outcry Was Not Answered, in the Work?” (1990) (4.19.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Recording of Rabash, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 5, Item 32

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3rd part of the Lesson — Preparation for the Congress “Connecting in the Ten, Adhering to the Creator,” Lesson 6: Making a Covenant in the Ten

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Question: Is the revelation of the Creator, in fact, the revelation of a new form in oneself?

Answer: The revelation of the Creator’s face is called the manifestation of His importance because, in fact, this is what I seek. This is not the revelation of pleasure, but the revelation of His superiority, His properties, and His perfection. It helps me to respect the Creator more than my desire to receive.

This desire constantly grows in a person. More and more Reshimot (spiritual records) surface. In other words, more and more of the left line is added to a person. Then he needs to reveal the face of the Creator as a greater, more exalted one who affects him more so that he can resist the desire to receive, and respect the Creator more than his selfish desire. This means that a person has the strength to work for the sake of giving.

It follows that the desire to receive was originally created in the size of the Creator; both are equal in magnitude. However, a person feels the magnitude of the desire to receive only in accordance with how much he is able to overcome it, and at the same time, to reveal the Creator as important and great.

Each time it is like a game. At first, the desire to receive is hidden from us; we feel only a small part of it in the form of reality of this world. In fact, this is the same general reality, only it is called “this world” because we perceive it without taking the Creator into account.

All else, apart from this level, we already perceive in accordance with the reality of the Creator, meaning, we actually feel the Creator, which is called the upper world. “All else” means that we already consider the importance of the Creator relative to the importance of the desire to receive.

This desire gradually grows, starting from the lowest, smallest state, until it reaches the level of the Creator. It helps us to ask the Creator time and again to show us more and more of His importance, greatness, and superiority. And when we reveal the Creator and prefer to bring Him pleasure rather than serve our ego, then we adhere to the Creator’s form, absorb it, adopt it, and it truly becomes our form.
[352381]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/26, Rabash, Article 29 “Lishma and Lo Lishma”

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However, we were given one place on which we can work without any reward. That is, even when we still do not have a taste for Torah and Mitzvot due to the Tzimtzum, there is one advice, which is to work in greatness of the Creator, how privileged we are to be serving the King (RABASH, Article 29, “Lishma and Lo Lishma“).

Question: Do these words apply to us who are in this world?

Answer: I want to enjoy. This is how I am. My desire to receive perceives nothing in any other way. There is something before me; I receive it and enjoy it. How can I work differently? I am able to work in another form only if I nevertheless receive some pleasure.

Without pleasure it is impossible to live, impossible to move. I can enjoy only from what I receive. We are confused about this because this is our foundation, which has not yet been clarified. Clarifying it takes years of persistent, serious work.

The question is this: can I move from the place where I am now in any direction by even one meter? My answer is: yes, I can, but only on the condition that you fill me with, say, a liter of fuel, or a hundred calories. Then I will be able to move from one place to another. Where will I get the hundred calories from? In various ways, but I must receive them.

Thus, I have two possibilities. Either I receive the hundred calories from all kinds of pleasures that supposedly exist around me or from seeing how great the Creator is. I have two fueling stations with which to set my desire to receive into motion at my disposal, and that is all.

If I am able to work due to the greatness of the Creator, then I become a perpetual motion machine, and I depend on nothing. In that case, my machine can operate without stopping; it no longer depends on any external, insignificant factors. This is our entire goal!
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/26, Rabash, Article 29, “Lishma and Lo Lishma”

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Before the invention of road-signs as a means to put order in traffic, police officers would stand and streamline traffic. At that time, many people were angry and had grievances against the officers for not doing their job right, and that they were not noticing the line of cars.

But today, the streamliner of traffic has become inanimate, mindless. So, now each one accepts the verdict of the road-sign (traffic light), and no one gets angry with it or asks it for favors (RABASH, Article 28, “What Is, His Guidance Is Concealed and Revealed?“).

On the one hand, the Creator places a traffic light before us, and these laws of nature are absolute. You can curse the traffic light, but it will not help, except perhaps only in the case that you turn to the cause, to the one who operates it. In our days, sometimes when traffic is heavy, you can see a police officer directing traffic. Then you have someone you can shout at.

But if this cause is unknown, you do not see the police officer, the traffic light works according to an internal mechanism, and you do not yell. You have no one to turn to because the governance is concealed. Nature! From this example it is clear how much understanding the cause raises you to a different level in relation to the situation.

If I know that it is the Creator who arranges everything for me, then I immediately turn to Him. I do not look at the traffic light; I look at the police officer. If I see both the police officer and the traffic light, I look at the one who directs the traffic because salvation will come from there. Then all the laws of nature lose their importance.

That is why the Creator does not reveal Himself. Because if He were revealed, I would cling to Him because of my will to receive, and I would never be able to come out from under its control. This is what originally happened with Malchut of the world of infinity. In order to free oneself from this, there must be a restriction, a distancing, and the desire to receive must be corrected into a desire to bestow.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/26, Rabash, Article 28, “What Is, His Guidance Is Concealed and Revealed?”

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Question: What does awe before the Creator mean? How can one attune oneself to this sensation?

Answer: It is said in The Book of Zohar that awe before the Creator consists of three parts. If we seriously move forward, we begin to feel our egoism, how it leads us forward and pushes us toward certain attainments and achievements. It forces us to worry constantly: Will it be better for us in this life, will we become smarter, stronger, more knowledgeable, more understanding, more advanced; will we receive something in this world or in the future world?

Gradually, we begin to attain that the spiritual world is not beyond the boundary of death, and the death of our body has no influence on anything whatsoever. Spiritual death means that we simply remain in our Reshimo. And everything that happens to us depends only on how much we realize our Reshimot and create a spiritual Partzuf from them, that is, a corrected part of our soul, and try to develop it to a complete level where the soul includes all the rest of creation: the still, vegetative, animate, and human parts of the soul.

Therefore, awe speaks of what I fear. It is a natural protective function of egoism, which constantly trembles: Will I be able to receive or not, now or later, am I sure of this or not, have I lost what I acquired, did I earn more today than yesterday, and so on? The state of awe is the most essential thing in egoism: It constantly trembles lest it lack fulfillment. This is its fundamental property.

Our task is to transfer material awe into spiritual awe: Will I be able to bestow? Will I come to such a state where I think less about myself and more about the external Kli (vessel)? Do I include myself in this way, do I awaken to the quality of bestowal? Do I cross the psychological barrier where I am not within myself, but outside, where my soul actually is? Within me there is only my egoism, and my soul is outside of me. I must make a Tzimtzum (restriction) on my egoism, impose a prohibition on it, and develop my attitude toward others. Can I do this?

It is precisely here that a new awe appears: Will I be able to bestow, will I be able to be independent of my egoism, will I be able to create the Rosh (head) of the Partzuf?

Suppose we have a desire over which we build a screen (Masach) and work with the light above it.

What we create above is called Rosh (head), and below is the Guf (body).

We strive to reduce the awe, the anxiety for ourselves, that we feel in our desire. This is what we perform the first restriction, Tzimtzum Aleph (TA), upon, then we build a screen and work above it.

As is known, the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection; therefore, to the extent that we correctly perceive the upper light, to that same extent we can work with it.

By transferring awe from “concern for myself” to awe as “concern for others,” I include myself in their desires, which is called “love your neighbor.” Thus, I build the Rosh of the Partzuf, and this becomes the connecting link between me and the others. In the Rosh I define my soul, which is built above the body, above the screen. In it, I can include the entire world and the Creator. This is how it works.

Therefore, as we study in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” concern can be within oneself and outside oneself.

Concern for oneself usually turns into anxiety about what will happen to me in this world and in the future world. This concern is absolutely incorrect, because there is neither “this world” nor “the next world”—such a concept does not exist at all.

There is a world, a spiritual state, that I can enter even today. It is called Olam Haba, that is, the coming world, the world that is coming. The next minute, my next state, is called the “future world.”

Therefore, we must rise to concern for others, including the Creator, which is realized above the screen. It is this concern that determines the power of the soul.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/20/13, on the topic “Group and Dissemination”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 36, “And There Was Evening and There Was Morning,” (1985) (10.20.2003)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 5, Item 26

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The Torah is called “613 counsels,” meaning 613 tips by which one is rewarded with vessels of bestowal.

Afterward, once he is rewarded with vessels of bestowal through the Torah, he must receive the delight and pleasure that is found in the thought of the Creator. That delight and pleasure is also called “Torah,” meaning that at that time, the 613 counsels become 613 deposits (RABASH, “What It Means that the World Was Created for the Torah”).

The Creator created the desire to enjoy, but He wants this desire to enjoy bestowal rather than reception. Therefore, it must undergo changes, and must do so independently, according to the principle: “We shall do and we shall hear.”

Where is this desire found? It is in the human species, at the human level of development. As Baal HaSulam writes, after all examinations, we find only one advantage of man over the animal: the impulse to work for the Creator and to adhere to Him. One in whom this impulse exists is called “human” (Adam). If this urge, this ascent, has not yet been born within him, then he is called an “animal.”

And yet it is said in Psalms: “Man and beast You save.” All gradually draw closer to awakening toward adhesion with the Creator. And having awakened, they begin to act according to the principle “We shall do and we shall hear.”

“We shall do” means the correction of the Kelim, when we carry out the 613 counsels. And “we shall hear” means the filling of the Kelim through the 613 commandments, that is, deposits, investments, when the corrected Kelim enters a contribution, a pledge, meaning the light.

Through correction and filling, by means of counsels and deposits, we come to realization: all our 613 desires are corrected from reception to bestowal and are filled with the upper light, or the Creator. In the end, we find ourselves filled with Him, or in adhesion with Him, when He fills us.

Therefore, the Torah (the method of correction) was created only for those who wish to correct their egoistic desire with an intention to bestow. Only they truly engage in the Torah. After all, “Torah” is the light that returns to the source (the reforming light). One who does not exist for this purpose is not called a “human” who carries out correction.

If we were to look at our world through spiritual lenses, we might see here perhaps only a few humans. All the rest would belong to still, vegetative, and animate nature, including many animals in the form of people, though this is only an external resemblance.

If a person has not awakened to correct himself and to attain the height of the Creator, it means that he is still at the animate degree of development. The method of correction was not created for him, whatever he may be engaged in. He may be a great erudite, he may consider himself righteous, but if he does not care about correcting his evil inclination every second, he is still called an “animal.” And therefore, it is said that all are like animals.

Thus, we must respect the desire that has awakened within us that is directed toward adhesion with the Creator and respect the friends in whom this fire also burns. We can unite among ourselves so that the common desire of all will dwell in each one. Then, upon this great desire that encompasses everyone, we will draw the light that returns to the source, and it will indeed unite all our desires into one great, already corrected Kli. It will be filled with the upper light, the Creator, and thus we will become similar to Malchut of the world of infinity, as it is said: “He is one and the Creator is one.” He is the light, and the Creator is the vessel, the Kli, HaVaYaH.

Thus, it turns out that the entire world was created for correction. In the end, all will have to correct themselves and come to adhesion, of which it is said: “All shall know Me, from the smallest to the greatest.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, Rabash ,“What It Means that the World Was Created for the Torah”

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Question: Why is achieving the purpose of creation such a complex, multi-stage process that includes descent, ascent, and shattering?

Answer: Because from the very beginning it consists of two components that are opposite to each other: the light and the desire (the vessel, Kli), which build a connection between each other based on their opposite nature.

The process of development proceeds from two conditions and dictates a single law of development: what are initially two opposites ultimately must come to complete similarity.

The entire process inevitably follows from these initial and final conditions. We cannot replace anything in it or act according to a different logic. The conditions are rigid: the initial condition and the final condition.

Condition 1: There is an infinite distance between them.

Condition 2: There is their complete union to the end the very end.

Initially, one is entirely giving and the other is entirely receiving. On one hand, there is an infinite abyss between them, and on the other hand, there is a final point where they merge into one whole.
Now try to write a formula by which, from the first condition of complete opposition one can reach the second condition of complete similarity.

In the world of infinity, both the separation of these two components and their union already exist. Although there is light and desire there, they are fused and complement each other. This fusion is maintained by the power of the upper light.

That is, the final condition is initially ensured by the power of the light, the Creator. This enables us to reveal the formula for how to carry out this transition from one state to another.

The potential conditions have been created, now the realization must begin. And the whole reality is now sequentially unfolding, scene by scene, before our eyes; they are those very creations that exist in the world of infinity. We never leave it.

In this single place (the desire) created by the Creator, the light and the desire and the condition of their union exist; and all of this is now being implemented. Therefore, we ourselves are called the actions of the Creator, the results of His work: creations, works, beings.

It is impossible to change anything here: the conditions themselves, the initial and the final ones (“the end of the action is contained in the initial thought”), already determine everything that will happen, including the shattering.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/10, Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: How can one feel the desire to receive as evil?

Answer: Suppose I stole something and was caught. At that moment, I scold myself: “Why am I stealing? I must put an end to this, because I feel suffering from having such qualities.”

This also applies to our work. It is said that Adam HaRishon was a thief. Any reception without the intention to bestow is called theft.

If I were to see this as evil, I would rid myself of it. It is said: “The advantage of the light is revealed from within the darkness.” If I knew that through acts of bestowal I would reach good, then I would see that the act of reception brings me to evil.

How can I see this? Either through suffering when I perform actions within the desire to receive and receive blows. Then I simply do not want to have this desire; I want to restrict it.

“Less wisdom, less suffering. Do not demand much, and it will be better for you. Why chase after something? Sit quietly, and everything will be fine.” This is how the whole world understands it.

This path is called the path of suffering. But nevertheless, we are not able to live and advance by this path, because our desire to receive is constantly developing and burning. And although we do not control it, it nevertheless demands its due, and then, whether we want it or not, we make use of it. However, we suffer even from the fact that we want to use it, but we do not receive what we desire. This is called the path of suffering in its various forms.

And there is the path of Torah, when through study and various actions, I begin to reveal that in spirituality, in the intention for the sake of bestowal, there is a great attraction, very significant things: eternity, perfection, and attainment, which does not exist at all within the desire to receive.

Then I see that the desire to receive is evil, not because I receive suffering within it, not because I get caught when I steal, not because I desire but do not receive fulfillment, but because it does not allow me to reach the good things that exist in spirituality. Thus, I begin to compare the desire to receive with spirituality, and therefore, I simply want to remove this desire from our world, remove it from myself.

This is called the path of Torah; it is when I begin to see the desire to receive as evil and wish to move to bestowal by means of the upper light which illuminates me just a little. In this, the desire to receive does not interfere with me. The greater it is, the better. I do not destroy it, I do not go against its development, since this will not help me anyway. On the contrary, I take it in its entirety and begin to demand from the light that it return it to good.

Therefore, the path of development when the light that returns to the source operates is natural. It goes together with the development of the desire to receive and with the development of humanity. This is the only path that can give a person an answer to all questions.

A person asks: “Why do I suffer?” Then do not suffer, use the desire to receive that is developing within you, but use it correctly. Therefore, the use of the desire to receive with the intention to bestow is the perfect answer to all questions. You do not need to restrict yourself or artificially flee from pleasures. On the contrary, you begin to use the desire to receive with full force.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/26, Rabash, Article 12, “What Are Torah and Work in the Way of the Creator?”

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Only light and Kli that exist in the universe. Just as light has different kinds of manifestation before Kli, so does the Kli have different ways of feeling itself. It feels itself in this world as  either inanimate, vegetative, or animate where it is not aware of itself at all, does not know what it is, and acts solely in accordance with its desire to receive.

These are the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels where creation does not see itself from the outside, and cannot study itself. Then follows the degree of “speaking,” “human,” when the creation can relate to its desire to receive and to all its qualities from the outside. However, this is also very subjective.

Even if it perceives itself incorrectly, cannot understand what is inside the desire to receive, and does not see that all this is predetermined in advance, nevertheless it tries to know itself as some kind of independent point, as a neutral objective researcher who studies himself from the outside.

When can the creation, the Kli, truly judge itself completely freely? When it receives the opportunity to look at itself from the Creator’s perspective. To the extent that the Kli acquires the desire to bestow, it can relate to the desire to receive in the same way the Creator relates to it. And there are no more than these two points: either to relate as creation or as the Creator.

If a person acquires the Kelim of bestowal, then he can see that there are two worlds, that is, two kinds of awareness, sensations, that exist on two planes. And before he receives the Kelim of bestowal, he does not understand at all that there is some other angle of vision, completely different from his own.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 1/25/26, Rabash, Article 28, “What Is, His Guidance Is Concealed and Revealed?”

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