Rabash, “What is that the People’s Shepherd is the Whole Nation in the Work”: All the heaviness in the  service of the Creator is only due to the lack of faith. Since when a person is rewarded with whole faith, he yearns to annul himself before the Creator like a candle before a torch. And indeed all the organs, which means, all his thoughts and desires do what the force of faith obligates them to do.

We can purchase this force of faith only according to the hardening of the heart and all the problems that Moses went through in his time. He was educated in the home of Pharaoh and received everything from his adoptive grandfather and mother. This means that, thanks to his ego, a person goes through a special phase in his development. This ego is very big, and, so, the Israeli nation is called a “stiff necked,” “stubborn” nation because Pharaoh resides in it. So, the ego educates a person in his own territory, but a person still wants to follow his way so that the property of Moses can grow in him.

One must be a great egoist, closed inside his ego. It isn’t by chance that it is written, “He who is greater than his friend, his inclination is greater than him.” What is more, the attributes that a person develops, both in the “house of Pharaoh” and in the “house of Jethro,” are necessary for his spiritual development. Later, the attribute of Bina comes only through a difficult inner struggle between the spark that is revealed (the point in the heart) and the great egoistic desire to receive that is so cruel and hard that it is not ready to and cannot listen to anyone.
[104199]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/13, Writings of Rabash

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Rabash, “What is the People’s Shepherd is the Whole Nation in the Work”: But the main difficulty is only the lack of faith. Thus, a person has to devote all his work and perform actions in order to buy the faith in the Creator, which is the only thing that provides him with everything.

It is about a special force that, together with all the troubles, problems, tensions, and internal conflicts, keeps a person in the state of Hafetz Hesed. This means that it doesn’t make his life easier, but that it keeps him above the heaviness of life.

This force doesn’t solve the corporeal problems and doesn’t free a person of them. On the contrary, every spiritual level is built above the unsolved corporeal conflicts of the current level. Otherwise, a person would not be forced to rise above it. Having no choice under the pressure of the ego, he needs the state of Hafetz Hesed. Otherwise, he will simply not be able to live. On the other hand, this is necessary because he will never bring the Creator contentment.

This is the choice between these two discernments, between the two causes according to which a person advances to a spiritual life.

Question: What is his choice exactly?

Answer: You may choose to be in Hafetz Hesed in order to simply walk around in the forest with a flower in your hand and not wanting anything more than that, or you may not be able to stand the pains that this life brings and wish to escape to a place where everything seems good, where everything is for the best, since there is none else besides Him. Indeed, don’t I deserve such a good state?

You either yearn for the state of Hafetz Hesed because it is a higher level that allows you to remain above all the unpleasant feelings in the desire to receive or in order to remain in bestowal and to appreciate it more than receiving. It is quite hard to explain this to ourselves, but it is already the beginning of the real state of Hafetz Hesed.
[104195]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/13, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash, the essay, “What is, ‘a shepherd of the people is all of the people’, in the work”: And then he can understand what the “Shechinah in the Dust” is; being that he then sees how where he needs to do something for the sake of Heaven and not his own benefit, immediately the body complains and asks, “What is this work to you”, and doesn’t want to give him the energy to work, this is what is called “Shechinah in the Dust”, meaning what does he want to do for the good of the Shechinah, he tastes dust in this, and he doesn’t have the strength to overcome his thoughts and desires.

Generally, we describe the Exodus from Egypt simply: “It was very bad for us there, and we fled from this evil to a good life.” The superficial, egoistic, childish approach is like this: “We were slaves, and now we are free.” And this is correct really, for the will to receive accepts only this simple explanation.

But we need to understand that we advance on two levels: within reason and above reason. What is discovered within reason doesn’t point towards the exodus from Egypt at all, rather the opposite; Egypt only becomes stronger and more and more difficult for us. And that is why we can rise above Egypt all the time to go above reason.

This is called the spiritual exodus from Egypt, and therefore, with every commandment, that is, with every correction, we say it is a reminder of the Exodus. It is not arbitrary that it is said that the person must personally feel as if he is now leaving Egypt. In the spiritual path, we always feel not just a difference but an opposition between these two levels: reason and rising above it. And we establish our reality, the reality of the Human Being (Adam), through the distance between them.
[104188]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/13, Writings of Rabash

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We are initially adhered to our vessels of receiving, and only in them can we feel the world. We judge everything only according to how good or bad we feel in our vessels of receiving called “a donkey (hamor),” which is also our “matter (homer)” (which has the same root in Hebrew). And the man in us is also adhered to the same “donkey.”

Thanks to our exertion, we can detach the man in us who is immersed in his matter. Then this man begins to think differently.

How can we detach the man from his matter, from his “donkey?” Only by the Light that Reforms that gives a person the attribute of bestowal, Hesed, the Light of Hassadim. This Light fills the part called “man” and gives him new attributes by which a person can detach himself from the donkey, from the matter of the desire to receive. This detachment from the desire to receive is called the exodus from Egypt.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/13

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Question: Why at the end of the Passover holidays does one feel heaviness of the heart, and how is it possible to help your friends who feel it harder than you?

Answer: I didn’t think that you would already reach heaviness of the heart. I thought the opposite, that during the holidays we felt the need to advance in two lines: right and left, in order to connect them at each moment to the middle line, to the Creator, to “There is none else besides Him” Who directs us. We are incorporated within Him and adhere to Him in that we all connect to one man with one heart and merge with Him into one whole.

And in this way we remain adhered and happy in the most difficult heaviness of the heart since we are able to connect it to the same state of unity, rise even higher, and be even more dependent on the Creator. And that is a wonderful action that is given us, and one needs to give the effort in order to execute it.
[104117]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/13, Writings of Rabash

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash, “One Should Always Sell the Beams of His House“

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, “Va’Etchanan,” Item 188, Lesson 10

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 10, “Ohr Pnimi,” Item 46, Lesson 25

Writings of Rabash, “What to Look for in the Assembly of Friends“

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, Article 19: “Come Unto Pharaoh – 1”: And about that it says, “Come unto Pharaoh,” which means that we shall go together, that I will also go with you, so that I will change nature and I want you to ask only for Me, so that I will help you change your nature and turn it from the desire to receive to the desire to bestow.

This is a very important moment, when we cannot do anything by ourselves. First we ask for something global and rely on ourselves in every other aspect, hoping to manage by ourselves and to leave the Creator only “His part.” But the more we advance up the ladder or towards the exodus from Egypt, before the ascent to the first level, we see more clearly that we are weak and that we cannot do anything right, not even one action, not a thought or an intention. I actually grow weaker along the way, and so it says: “And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out.”

But then it says, “and their cry rose up to G-d.” It’s then that we have an opportunity to pray, to ask, to demand. This is to what we are led.

According to my advancement, I grow weaker and my prayer, my request for help, grows until I reach a state in which I cannot do anything, the darkness and powerlessness take hold of me and at the same time I reach a whole request. Until then, things don’t move.

So it’s clear that I cannot manage without the support of the group, without the friends’ mutual guarantee. I feel that I’m falling down further: I lose my powers, the goal grows pale and doesn’t attract me forward, my motivation disappears and the evil inclination grows before my very eyes while the point in the heart descends further downward and there is nothing left. The good Pharaoh gradually becomes evil and vicious to such an extent that it seems that there is no way I can be free of his domination. So where can I find the urge, the attraction, to carry on if not from the group?

Generally speaking, I reach a state of hopelessness and maximum separation (∆) between the current state and the desired one. Still I refuse to withdraw; I have to come out to the Light…
[103991]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/31/13, Writings of Rabash

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We need to accept all events patiently and see them in two ways, along two lines, from the point of view of judgment and of mercy, so as to distinguish precisely between what influences my “donkey” (my egoistic substance) and what may influence the human in me. Then I will feel a split within me and to the extent that it is possible, I will adhere to the human in me.

If I suddenly discover that I have been in the donkey part for quite some time, I need to be thankful for this instead of being sorry about it. After all, it is the Creator who arranged it so that without noticing it, I became clothed in my “donkey” so that I again would include the donkey desires and discover that I again had returned to the donkey calculations. From there, I must rise to the human calculation and strive more and more to hold onto that with the help of the group.

If I forget about the group and I have nowhere to take their material, their thoughts in order to attach and develop the human part in me, the Creator throws me into my donkey again. Thus I gradually build the human in me with the help of these two sources: the group and the donkey.

When we suddenly find ourselves below, within our will to receive, and again make pragmatic material calculations as if there were no Creator and higher purpose, and no spiritual path, rather only our ordinary life, we don’t need to regret this. One should regret only a little that the Creator threw him into a “place of filth,” into the stinking ego, and the main thing is to draw conclusions, to depart from this descent and begin to compare the states to understand and feel them better.

In this way, these terms enter more deeply into the mind and feelings of a person who makes an effort to analyze them within himself. Thus he constructs a control system for himself and his states, and so he advances.
[104133]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/13, TES

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We examine love relative to the hatred that awakens in a person toward the source of evil: whether he can love the source of his suffering despite his feeling bad. By that, he has to isolate himself from the evil, from the place in which he feels the suffering, as if it isn’t his nature.

This is a very delicate point. In the ordinary egoistic nature I hate the one who brings me sufferings, the source of evil. It’s just as we often soothe a child who hurt himself by hitting his head on a table, by telling the child to hit the table back. It’s a natural, instinctive animal response.

But the spiritual work was meant for the correction of man, and all the corrections are possible only if I feel that someone makes me feel bad and I realize what comes to me is only love and goodness. So all the painful signs should focus me not on the source of this bad feeling but on the source of evil inside me, on the place where I feel this evil, on my evil inclination. It’s there that I feel sufferings, bad relations, and that is what I have to detach myself from, to put a Masach (screen) on, a restriction, so that eventually it will turn the evil to its opposite form.

It’s as if there is a table before me with a five-course meal and every dish tastes horrible, smells bad, and looks rotten. It isn’t just that the food is a bit salty or too spicy, but that it’s actually poisonous. I, on the other hand, have to correct my vessels of perception so that I can love this food, which at first seems impossible. In the same manner we also reach love on top of the correction of our vessels in which we feel hate.
[104123]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/13

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An endless process is expected in which there will be big local conventions. On the 10^th to 12^th of May there will be a convention in the US, in New Jersey, and in June there will be a convention in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. In July there will be a convention in St. Petersburg, in August there will be a convention in Europe, and in September the holidays begin in Israel…in short there is a big convention in a different country every month.

I see all these meetings, as well as the study and our workshops, not as isolated events, but as an uninterrupted, continuous, smooth process in which we are “pressured” to reach the gathering before Mt. Sinai. We have to clarify all the stages and then go through them internally, and this will be, of course, accompanied by many inner eruptions and explosions, and at the same time, we have to stay on track in order to eventually discover the new spiritual vessel, a new life.

You must understand that we have to die and be reborn internally. We have to be reborn in our perspective of life and of the world, in all our set of values, in education, and culture, in everything. We have to change, to move on to an unknown round, adjusting to a dimension that we cannot even imagine now.

In order to do that, we need a strong collective force and a continuous evolutionary process. No matter what happens, we have to think only about correction. The “ten plagues of Egypt” will be revealed to us, and so we have to learn from Moses what to do about them. The Torah calls him “the most humble of all.” This means terrible suffering and above that, gratitude and joy. See how much trouble the people of Israel caused him in the desert…

We will go through these steps together.
[104120]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/13

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