Question: How should a person prepare and direct themselves during prayer?

Answer: In the Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot  (TES), Baal HaSulam writes that during prayer, a person should focus on only one thing—to desire that what he studies in the Kabbalistic books be revealed within him, to strive to know and connect with the material being studied.

But if the subject is so distant that a person cannot see how it relates to what is taking place in his soul, then he should regard it as a remedy.

As it is written: “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice.” And it is also said it: “Heals every illness.” It will give me what is necessary for my advancement; it will come as a remedy, as help from Above.

Question: How can one avoid forgetting this during the lessons?

Answer: If you suffer from an illness, you do not forget about it. Sometimes cancer patients come to see me; they do not forget their illness for a single moment. They are ready to follow any instruction from morning to evening in order to be healed. Without a doubt, they are willing, and they do not forget.

Therefore, everything depends on the recognition of the importance of the goal and the degree of pain. And the importance comes, once again, from the group. Only the group can increase  the importance of the goal, the importance of spirituality, within you.
[357180]
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 11 “Concerning the Debate Between Jacob and Laban” (1985)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

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Question: Is our goal to acquire the intention for the sake of bestowal?

Answer: Ultimately, yes. But a person does not know what for the sake of bestowal means. He only increasingly feels his own insignificance and his distance from the goal. He reveals more and more of his egoistic nature and feels his helplessness.

Everything becomes distasteful to him. He has no strength left because his Kelim do not receive fulfillment. On the contrary, he feels the absence of fulfillment and sees that he is even farther from egoistic fulfillment than he had previously imagined.

What does it mean that “the children of Israel sighed because of the labor”? A person was already in such a state before, but now it is revealed to him that he cannot receive reward in the Kelim he presently has. The reward will be received in different Kelim.

Question: At first, is this simply a matter of thoughts?

Answer: Gradually, thoughts, desires, and definitions: “Who am I?” and “What is spirituality?” All the details contained within these inner definitions undergo change. They are transformed.

Most importantly, each time I define differently who I am and who the Creator is. These new definitions increasingly correspond to the truth. And because my definitions become more truthful, the revelation of evil takes place within me: I discover where I am, where the Creator is, and what my state truly is.

The formula here is very simple: a person makes efforts while feeling that he gains nothing from them. Then he exerts even more effort and receives even less. As a result, the correct need, the correct Hisaron (deficiency) is formed within him and eventually become what is called MAN.

Question: Does this also include work in the group?

Answer: In working with the friends, the despair, the effort, and the lack of reward are even greater. Because if a person could truly unite with the friends, he would already be satisfied with that.

In the end, there is nowhere he can receive a reward except from the Creator.
[356918]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/26, Rabash, “The Difference between Charity and Gift”

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Question: In our state, can contribution to the group be limited only to thoughts?

Answer: In our state, no. A contribution to the group is expressed, not only spiritually, but also corporeally. After all, we are connected together, we work together, and we perform actions together. Through performing corporeal actions, we are granted strength from above, reinforcement from above.

It may seem that we are simply publishing books or engaging in dissemination. But through this, we receive tremendous spiritual power as a reward. As long as we exist in this world, you cannot separate the spiritual from the corporeal and say: “That’s it, now we are as if without bodies and deal exclusively with spiritual concepts.” That is impossible.

You will always be dealing with bodies and physical actions in this world: creating something, disseminating, and so on. Therefore, one must understand that through such actions, one also comes to spiritual values.

Baal HaSulam writes about this: the more effort a person invests in something, the more important that thing becomes to him, and he can no longer leave it. This connects him to the work until he begins to feel that it is worthwhile to invest effort there, to bring benefit, and even to devote himself to it.

One should not diminish the importance of corporeal actions. If we had not performed the corporeal actions that we do during or before Passover, we would not have attained what we have attained.

Question: So, are physical actions in the group together with correct intentions the proper combination for spiritual bestowal to the group?

Answer: Yes. We must strive for both corporeal actions and spiritual actions to become as one, truly as one so that there is not a single bodily action arising from conscious desire that is not connected with the correct intention.
[357192]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/26, Rabash, Letter 59, 1962

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Question: How should I deal with my surroundings outside of the group (work, family, and friends) who have no aspiration for spirituality?

Answer: You have nothing to do with such a society unless you come to them in order to teach them the wisdom of Kabbalah and they accept this path, become inspired by it, and are willing to work according to what is written in our books.

You may offer them various teachings and methods, and if they accept specifically our method of spiritual ascent, accept the goal, and are prepared to follow this path, then they form a goal-oriented society moving toward spirituality. This is possible. But as long as they have not accepted our method, you cannot relate to them as a Kli  (vessel) through which you will continue your spiritual advancement.

Question: How does my close environment, which has no connection to my path, influence me?

Answer: It depends on how significant and important the goal is to you. If it is important, then they have no influence on you.

For example, I visit my mother, and she begins to complain: “You never rest, you never sleep. How can you live like this? Just look at yourself! How many years have you been living this way?” I sit and listen to her, since she is already advanced in age, but it does not affect me. There is nothing to be done; mothers are all the same. She speaks, and I remain as I am.

However, there are environments that are quite aggressive and can harm me through their influence. In such a case, I prefer to distance myself from them, because I have no obligations toward them. Toward my mother, I must show respect; I have duties toward her. But a friend is someone connected to you by a common goal. The word “Haver” (friend) comes from Hithabrut (connection, joining).

For example, friends from my hometown may come to visit, people I once invited and spent time with, yet today I have no connection with them. I have close relatives who have lived in Israel for ten years or more, and I have not even met with them. Sometimes my mother asks me to call a relative, and then I call and inquire about their health once every few years.

Why do I behave this way? Simply because it is not within my field of attention. How can I maintain a connection with a person with whom I have nothing in common?

I am not telling you this without reason, it is a common situation in life. Everything depends on a person’s desire.
[357176]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/26, Rabash, “The Difference between Charity and Gift”

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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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