Question: You said that a sign of advancement is the sense of helplessness in the desire to receive. Yet, there are so many people in the world who feel bad without any connection to striving toward a higher goal.

Answer: You are saying that there are many people in the world who day after day increasingly feel worthless. I am not sure that is so. The surest sign of advancement is that this feeling of worthlessness comes first as a result of applied efforts, and second, if I do not despair, but continue the work.

How do I know that disappointment, helplessness, bitterness, or a state in which I feel as though I am dying yet at the same time hate the Creator for it is the result of my purposeful efforts? Only if my despair is purposeful, when despite everything I continue to exert efforts, to break through forward, toward the Creator, and along with that, I increasingly feel what spirituality is and to what extent my nature is in opposition to it.

In other words, any state we experience includes two factors in itself: a Kli and the light. And if in bad states I perceive them correctly, it means that I am on the right path, that my despair is not merely laziness. It does not come because I have failed to receive something from the pleasures of this world nor because I lack power or honor; but rather, it is a direct consequence of the fact that I have not yet attained the goal.

My goal is the intention for the sake of bestowal, yet I have discovered that I am even further from it, that the nature of the Creator is an even greater bestowal than I had imagined.
[356875]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/26, Rabash, “The Difference between Charity and Gift”

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Question: Let’s say I automatically attribute the obstacle to the Creator. Is this enough?

Answer: When obstacles come and I attribute them to the Creator, this is not the whole work but only part of it. Thank God I do not forget; I try every moment of my life, and if I lose my connection with the Creator, I return to it. That is, I am always in and out. This is great! But this is only part of the work.

After I have resumed my connection with the Creator, what must I do?

This is where I scrutinize our relationship, how I perceive Him, what He is to me, how I explain to myself what the forces of bestowal are, and what for the sake of reception means. Resuming the connection is essential when I return from the animal state to the state of Israel.

Question: How are obstacles defined?

Answer: Everything that separates me from the awareness of the Creator is called an obstacle. And if I return to Him with the help of obstacles, this is called “help against him,” against the ego. This is how everything works in the world and the purpose is solely in order to bring us back to connection with Him.
[356670]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/26, Rabash, “The Severity of Teaching Idol Worshippers the Torah”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 7 “The Importance of a Prayer of Many” (1986) (2.14.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Comment: Suppose someone in my environment outside the group has a Hisaron (deficiency or need), and I want to help them, to fulfill their need. We are supposed to help people, aren’t we?

My Response: By advancing toward spirituality, we draw the upper light upon ourselves, and through us, it spreads to the entire world; that is where true help lies. Everything else is harm.

How can you help? You can see how welfare benefits can sometimes undermine a person. You can see how prisons often make those inside worse than before. A prison becomes a school for criminals or terrorists, depending on who is there.

Where have you seen society truly benefit from good intentions alone? For you, “doing good” means giving. But giving, when it relates only to egoism, can become harmful. Then you create various systems that simply drain resources without correcting anything.

Why do you assume that the desire to receive should simply receive? This contradicts the fundamental law of nature. If you merely fulfill the desire to receive, you only worsen the situation. You cause harm and lower it into the Klipot. In doing so, you bring troubles upon the whole world.

Take a child, for example, and indulge him in everything, fulfill all his desires. What will become of him? You will simply ruin him.

The upper governance operates through the right and left lines in order to guide a person correctly and teach him how to use both forces and maintain the correct balance between them. But to simply give without discernment can be very damaging; it is a disservice.
[357358]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/26, Rabash, “The Difference between Charity and Gift”

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How can the group feel that it needs the effort of every friend? It is much easier to work on the principle of “myself in relation to the group,” and much harder to work from the side of the group relative to each person.

Baal HaSulam writes that a person must be concerned with spiritual flourishing and feeling gratitude to the Creator for twenty-three and a half hours a day, and only after this to dedicate half an hour to critical analysis.

It is the same here. We must analyze the contribution of the friends to the group only after we have unequivocally made efforts to understand the concept known as the “group.”

Once we perceive it as a spiritual concept and share a mutual understanding of what it entails, then we can discuss, at a gathering of the friends, how to evoke an extra measure of effort from everyone and how we can lift up the group.

Ultimately, we will not make demands of any individual: “Why are you not bringing benefit to the group?” Instead, we will hold ourselves, the group as a whole, accountable for failing to bring people come to the correct understanding that they contribute to the group and integrate with it heart and soul, or they see that they are outside the group.

In that case, if they remain present despite clearly standing outside and opposite to the group, then either they leave on their own or they are removed.

In spirituality, when you look at a person from the group’s perspective, the group is upper relative to that individual. And the upper must awaken the lower. If he cannot awaken the lower, then he leaves him be; and if he leaves him, it means the lower does not belong to the upper.
[357143]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/26, Rabash, Letter 59

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How can one begin to feel a Hisaron (lack) for the Creator again while in a state of descent (if you have fallen into a bad state and lost contact with Him and no longer feel the connection? The only way is to persist in your study with the group, and through by coming to the friends and including yourself in them, you again return to yourself the connection with the group, your connection with the Creator.

We have the opportunity to accelerate this process. Above all, one must not fall due to slipping into the sensation of animalistic pleasures, that is, enjoying the ascent rather than the connection with the Creator. One must not commit a sin in the ascent.

And how does one avoid sinning during an ascent? It is by constantly striving to increase one’s awareness of the greatness of the Creator with the help of the group. In this way, it is as if you are constantly maintaining a sense of Hisaron; you add a yearning for the Creator through the group that allows you to advance further.

And if a descent does occur, as it inevitably will, it is not your fault because you were constantly striving to receive an increase in desire from your environment. You were increasingly motivated to ascend, and to ascend not merely in terms of sensation, but in unification with the Creator.

Then your descent is not experienced simply as the loss of a “good state”; rather, you define the descent as a loss of connection and contact with the Creator. That is why it is painful for you. You measure ascents and descents no longer according to sensations, but according to the measure of connection with the Creator.
[357086]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/26, Rabash, Letter 59, 1962

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Question: Is it possible to give something to the group while in a state of descent?

Answer: If you are in a descent without completely losing your connection to the Creator, meaning, that even in the descent you know that you have lost connection with Him and it is precisely this that you lack, then in such a state you add a Hissaron (deficiency) to the group for contact with the Creator, and the group benefits from your descent. It now has unfulfilled desires.

If, however, you have fallen like an animal, simply feel bad, and are only under the influence of this sensation, this is also an addition. It means that soon you will have a recognition of evil.

But still, this addition is not spiritual. Through the group and through efforts, you will gradually rework this addition into a spiritual Hisaron, a Hisaron for the Creator. But that is a long journey.
[357135]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/26, Rabash, Letter 59

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Question: You say that all the work of acquiring Hisaron and building the Kli must take place through bestowal to the group. But what if I am in the company of a person who does not have spiritual attainment?

Answer: We are not talking about spiritual attainment. The society should be a group of people striving for the right goal. They do not know exactly what this goal is, are not in attainment, and are not excited by it. But they study together, gather, participate in various activities, and devote their free time to the group.

Then I can check whether this group is suitable for my advancement, whether I can advance toward the goal together with it. If I cannot inspire it, and move it from its place, then perhaps I need to think about a suitable replacement. Maybe I even take a few friends with me and leave, and let the others continue their life in the “nursing home.” And we will continue the path forward.
[357132]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/26, Rabash, “The Difference between Charity and Gift”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 6 “What Is Above Reason in the Work” (1989)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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To what extent do I connect myself to the group’s collective strength? Only to the extent I replenish it through my own efforts toward the goal.

To that extent, I establish a connection and can draw upon my friends’ ascent to use the collective spiritual force known as the group. By using the common strength, I am in fact adding to the group.

Spiritually, no matter how much you take, you only strengthen the whole; it does not weaken. This is not so in the corporeal world. In spirituality, a person “lights a candle from the candle” of another. This does not mean the first one is left with less. By lighting their candle, the second person adds its glow to the first, until a blazing bonfire ignites.

The situation is such that multiplying the collective strength reinforces it further, and accordingly, we perceive the reality of the group, the environment.

Moreover, as we work on this, we begin to feel everyone, we feel to what extent they invest themselves and how much they are able to invest given their current form. Outwardly, one can be quiet and modest, and can even, perhaps, look lazy, but then we begin to sense the magnitude of their contribution. We already see the work of everyone’s soul.

Question: So the one who takes is contributing?

Answer: Certainly, you take strength from the group to advance. You cannot take anything from this force except the benefit of advancing in the same direction; otherwise, it will not help you in any way.

After all, it is the force of striving for the Creator, directed at Him. You cannot take it and use it for something else; it will not work. Therefore, we see that those who fails to use this flow is evading the work, which means they neither take from it nor contribute to it.
[357027]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/26, Rabash, Letter 59, 1962

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