In the article “What ‘Israel Do the Creator’s Will’ Means in the Work,” Rabash explains that the path of the Torah is opposite to the opinion of the masses, the opinion of an ordinary person. An ordinary person is one who follows his nature directly according to the desire to receive that the Creator created within him. Such a person works in a very simple way, according to the principle of reward and punishment, understanding that to the extent he invests effort, he will receive a reward.
However, in this way one can reveal only very small pleasures within the desire to receive, only what can be received in the desire “to receive for the sake of receiving.” These are limited pleasures, called corporeal or animalistic pleasures.
They are called “corporeal” because of the intention for reception. This is how the whole world advances, it pursues these pleasures and receives rewards according to the effort invested.
But there are people who begin the true work. This means that they do not work according to desire and the pleasure corresponding to it. Rather, they make efforts to acquire a screen that separates the desire to receive from the pleasure. The screen operates according to the principle of bestowal through the desire to receive, that is, contrary to the original nature that exists in reality. On this path, everything is different.
A person who works like the rest of the world invests effort, and the more effort he makes, the more he acquires within his desire to receive. But a person who develops the desire to bestow and wishes to receive the reward within it must evaluate what he receives through the “eyes” of the desire to bestow. If he begins to develop the Kli of the desire to bestow, then he must examine himself and his progress according to the principles of bestowal.
The problem is that we are confused. On one hand, I am in the right environment, studying according to the correct method, and I am being directed to develop the Kli called the desire to bestow. Yet how much I expect to receive in that Kli, I still measure according to my original nature. As a result, it seems to me that I have nothing. Worse still, the more I study, the emptier I feel.
And this is indeed so. We build one Kli, the desire to bestow, but we measure its fulfillment by the standards of another Kli, the desire to receive. That cannot work. Therefore, one who is advancing toward spirituality, that is, toward the intention to bestow, must view it as an opportunity to bestow even more, rather than as a means of receiving greater pleasure.
Such a person reveals his own nature as evil, sees himself as increasingly egoistic, and feels that he is moving farther away from the desire to bestow. Yet he must relate to this as an ever-greater revelation of the Kli, his reward, and rejoice in it.
Until he has fully revealed the Kli of his desire to receive, until he regrets and is pained that everything he does is with the intention for self-reception, until he has examined himself and become convinced that he is incapable of correcting himself, and begins to cry out for help, asking to be given a screen, saying, “I want to become different!”, until this work has been done on the entire Kli of the desire to receive, he will not enter spirituality, will not cross the Machsom, and will not receive the light.
Therefore, the more he advances, the more he discovers his own emptiness, how weak he is and how opposite he is to spirituality. Yet he should rejoice in this, because if he examines himself through the new Kli “for the sake of bestowal,” he will see that he is constantly gaining.
He should not examine himself through the Kli “for the sake of receiving,” because advancing toward spirituality and measuring oneself according to the receiving Kelim cannot take place simultaneously. Here the work consists of making efforts to acquire the Kelim of bestowal while, at the same time, examining and measuring everything correctly, according to the Kelim of bestowal.
Therefore, there is the work of the mind and the work of the heart. There is an inner fracture, an inner duality, where a person still exists within the Kli of the desire to receive, yet must look at everything as though he were already within the Kli of bestowal. Naturally, such a state creates an inner contradiction. And this continues until he crosses the Machsom.
As Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” only the heroes among those whose measure of patience endured truly overcame the guards standing at the entrance and entered the King’s palace. Only by patiently revealing more and more evil, feeling ever more unpleasant states, yet seeing in them a good result, an addition to the Kelim of bestowal, does the work cease to be difficult.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/26, Rabash, “What ‘Israel Do the Creator’s Will’ Means in the Work”
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