Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

The Influence of Spiritual Roots

268.02In the spiritual realm, there are concepts that relate to roots. And in our world, in the material realm, there are also names, concepts, and results that stem from those roots. These are two domains: the spiritual domain, and below it, the material domain.

Baal HaSulam explains the concepts of root and branch in the section “Inner Observation” of the first part of The Study of the Ten Sefirot. He cites the saying that there is not a blade of grass on earth that does not have an angel above it that strikes it and tells it, “Grow!”

That is, in this world, every object, quality, force, or desire—anything that exists in any form on the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels—has a spiritual root from which it originates.

This root gives life to the created being and, as it is said, strikes it and says, “Grow!” By increasing the sensation of lack of fulfillment within it in various ways each time, it intentionally drives it toward growth.

Since this is determined by the spiritual realm, where the roots reside and from which all pressure of governance and control descends, everything below is compelled to grow. The wisdom of Kabbalah deals with showing a person how they can change their destiny, how, without waiting for the “blow,” they can rise and perform all the necessary actions themselves, and thus grow more efficiently and quickly.

This personal participation is called “Israel.” A person, on their own, strives directly toward the Creator, since in any case they are “growing.” But the question is whether they wish to do so independently. In that case, they transition from the state called “the nations of the world” to the state called “Israel.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about these qualities from a spiritual perspective. But of course, in the material realm as well, as a result that is manifested in matter, we acquire the same concepts. First, we correct the vessels of GE, which are called “Israel” and are “few among the nations of the world.” Then comes AHP de Aliyah, and only afterward the true AHP.

When Israel (GE) from all the shattered vessels correct themselves, they must completely exit all the vessels. These actions are called “holiness” and “purification,” the making of a covenant.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/26, Rabash, “All of Israel Have a Part in the Next World”

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An Infant Born in Spirituality

276.02Prayer is the desire to acquire the correct Hisaron (deficiency). There are many inner discernments here.

Our entire path—from the moment we receive the point in the heart until crossing the Machsom, when we work in double and then single concealment and while committing intentional transgressions and then errors—all these states are traversed in order to form a desire, a need, for vessels of bestowal within us.

In the article “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Baal HaSulam describes the state of “not for the sake of the Creator” (Lo Lishma) where I passionately desire to attain spirituality for my own sake and at the same time, I want to bestow upon the Creator.

Both these desires must exist within me simultaneously, and this state is called Lo Lishma. Consequently, by having the desire to bestow upon the Creator within me,  I feel that all my other desires are simply egoistic, for my own benefit. Existing within these two desires simultaneously allows me to see the difference between bestowal and reception.

Baal HaSulam writes that a person must realize that if they were to discover that they would receive only vessels of bestowal and absolutely nothing for oneself, such a state would not satisfy them, they are simply incapable of it. This is the true state of Lo Lishma, and from it, one comes to the state “for the sake of the Creator” (Lishma). In the book A Sages Fruit, it is stated that we must attune ourselves only toward striving to reach the state of Lishma day and night.

Our initial Hisaron, the point in the heart, signifies the state wherein “the Creator inseminates first, she gives birth to a female (Nekeva).” This primary Hisaron (Nekeva) implanted within us must be increased to its greatest possible measure in this world.

In other words, despite the earthly desires within me, which I seek to fulfill and realize, I want even more to have the desire to bestow upon the Creator. It is precisely this state that is represented by the sages’ saying: “A woman (Nekeva) who conceives first gives birth to a male (Zachar).” Zachar represents the first screen, the force of bestowal. This state may rightfully be called an infant born in spirituality.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/26, Rabash, “What Is, “If a Woman Inseminates First, She Delivers a Male Child,” in the Work?”

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Can a Hisaron Become Fulfillment?

961.2Question: Can a Hisaron become a filling? How does this happen?

Answer: A person who is created from the will to receive, can never exist solely on the basis of a Hisaron. The very nature of creation demands fulfillment. The only question is what shall I enjoy? What kind of pleasures will fill my will to receive?

I know that my Hisaron is directed toward something great, something I have not yet attained. However, this unfilled desire itself brings me a certain illumination from this “greatest” from afar because I otherwise would not have a need for it. In such a case, my Hisaron can actually become my fulfillment.

This means that I find satisfaction with this Hisaron, it suffices for me, and I desire nothing more. If I were to possess anything in addition to this Hisaron, it would no longer be a lack for the highest pleasure. Even the act of receiving fulfillment would only distance me from the goal I strive for. Therefore, I prefer to remain with the Hisaron, which itself serves as my fulfillment. I am happy simply in the fact that I desire this greatest pleasure.

Is this sufficient for attaining the goal of creation? No, it is not. This is similar to the state of bestowal for the sake of bestowal, which undoubtedly is not our ultimate goal. And yet, in this situation, I find pleasure and justification for my current state. Such a state is certainly desirable for a person in this world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/26, Rabash, “What Is, “If a Woman Inseminates First, She Delivers a Male Child,” in the Work?”

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When You Do Not Think About Personal Gain

239Question: If nothing shines to me from afar, does it mean I cannot develop a need for the upper goal?

Answer: Our desire depends on several factors: an illumination from above, an awakening of the Reshimo (spiritual gene) from below, and so on. We can demand the conditions we need.

There are no problems here, because I ask the Creator for a Kli (vessel) and not for the filling itself. And even later, when “a woman will conceive and give birth to a boy,” there too I am asking for a Kli, for the desire to bestow. I do not ask: “Fill me.” I say: “Give me the possibility to bestow so that bestowal to You will serve as filling for me.”

What filling does a mother receive when she gives love and care to her child? She enjoys the very act, her bestowal to him. To the extent that the child enjoys, she enjoys. In giving to the child, the mother does not think about personal benefit; there is no self enjoyment here. We speak about this superficially, because inside maternal love there is an egoistic nature. But whatever it may be, this example is like an imprint from spirituality.

“For what do you suffer, why do you constantly think and worry about your child? We will give you a pill so that you forget him.” Will a mother agree to such a thing? Never! Because in the child lies her whole life, the source of fulfillment and joy. Therefore, when one asks for the desire to bestow, one asks precisely for it and not for something outside of it.

You cannot say: “Once I have the desire to bestow, with that, I will fill myself.” That would be bestowal for the sake of reception. Of course, the Creator will not reward such a request with an answer. But if a person has the desire to bestow even though it contains a mixture of the desire to receive, of self enjoyment, then this is already the state of Lo Lishma from which one comes to Lishma.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/26, Rabash, “What Is, “If a Woman Inseminates First, She Delivers a Male Child,” in the Work?”

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The Role of the Group in Realizing the Greatness of the Creator

938.05Question: How can one immediately understand that one is doing evil and causing harm? How can one shorten the time spent going through this process? One could remain in this delusion for years.

Answer: Let’s assume I am doing something. How can I tell if it is good or bad or if it is to my detriment or benefit? How can I shorten the time required to verify and understand? One could remain in this delusion for years, and until you realize this, you will keep circling around various paths  before finally returning to the straight one.

Comment: A person can turn to friends whom he sees as big because sometimes you can annul before them.

My Response: And what would you ask of them? Advice? It might, on the contrary, only confuse you. They might offer a thousand tips, but instead of getting help from the group, a person could become even more confused and weakened. Where does it say to do this?

Comment: We know that only a group changes a person; it shows him where he stands in relation to the goal and what is wrong with him.

My Response: Or maybe, on the contrary, it is he who is fine? But how does the group enable a person to check? By hearing different things? No, it is with its help that he realizes the greatness of the Creator, and that is all! A person gathers an unlimited supply of force from his friends, much like fuel.

For example, instead of 70 octane gasoline, they fill me with 90 octane gasoline, and then I can do everything much faster. Nothing more! The group does not give me their concepts and definitions. It gives me an awareness of the Creator’s greatness, an understanding of who I should be with in my desire to receive, within my difficulties and obstacles.

I am not going to share my personal issues with my friends (nor will they share theirs with me). I have to take only a common force from them—a pull toward the goal. I seek to ensure that the goal, which feels like it occupies only 10% of my field of vision, would capture 50%, 70%, or even 100% of it. This is exactly what I want the group to do for me.

Beyond that, how exactly am I to move toward this great and big goal is entirely my task; I do it. This is my personal individual work; no one should meddle in it. Similarly, the teacher is forbidden to interfere, otherwise you will not have the right concepts of your own, the properties that allow you to feel the Creator. Therefore, it is necessary to protect everyone’s individuality.

All else should be very open. But my personal connection with the Creator—what I clarify with Him, the kind of relationship we have—is between Him and me, while the group provides me only with common energy on the way to Him, and no more.

In addition, we can share knowledge when we study, that this should be one way and that another. But it is forbidden to share what lies within me, within my personal scrutiny.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/26, Rabash, “The Meaning of the Strict Prohibition to Teach Idol Worshippers the Torah”

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Simulate the Condition of Unity Within Yourself

530Question: The methodology for creating unity consists of joint actions, joint study, and joint dissemination. What might there be besides these well-known methods?

Answer: Every conceivable joint action. They serve to ensure our efforts—to define what the Creator is and to establish the proper conditions for spiritual advancement toward that end—ultimately meet with success. We must define among ourselves what the Creator signifies and what kind of property it is that can be revealed in nature.

It is a unique property that manifests where (based on the nature of our own properties) there is neither “I” nor “you.” But this state of “neither I nor you” is built precisely on “me and you,”  two distinct entities that unite with one another so completely that the “I” disappears.

Once united, at the very point where these egoistic properties annul themselves, where they succeed in rising above their own nature, they ultimately lead to a state of self-negation. This “negation of the negation” yields an image of the Creator within our desire even though the Creator Himself exists entirely beyond our desire. This is a force that exists beyond the scope of our perception and it can manifest within our desire provided that our desire becomes similar to it.

This is the manner in which we must constantly think, analyze, and gradually progress to this realization. For this, we have a teacher and a friend, or as the saying goes: “A friend, a teacher, and a brother” who offers assistance and  who bears a specific duty in this process. We must make use of the explanation and try to model this condition in ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Gate of Tears” 10/11/10

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Relative to Whom Should We Examine Ourselves?

938.01Question: If I see negative qualities in my friend and detest them, can I redirect this hatred toward my own recognition of evil?

Answer: We have two ways to look at our states: ourselves in relation to the Creator and ourselves in relation to others. These “others” are none other than the Creator, the group, or the friend. I have no other object against which I can examine myself.

Instead of the Creator, we have been given the group. Through it, we can subsequently transition to a relationship with the Creator. Ultimately, we must come to a state where both the Creator and the group exist within a single dimension for us.

In short, it does not matter who is outside of my egoistic vessels. If this distinction matters to me, it means that I am approaching my state with an intention for myself and making various calculations about whom I should treat better and whom worse. By doing this, I am simply deceiving myself.

If I truly want to examine my status as a Kli—to what extent it is corrected or corrupted—then first of all I must regard both the group and the Creator as one and the same in relation to myself. Then I completely nullify my desire to receive, and from that level I can begin measurement. In this way, I can avoid distortion in my inner measurement.

My instrument is an instrument correctly directed from within me outward. Then I will be able to see how to continue developing, and where my true attitude actually lies. And from this point, I begin to work.

It is self-deception to think that something outside differs in relation to my desire to receive. Such deception must not blind me because then I will be unable to remain in the correct position at all.

Of course, this does not mean that I should run around serving everyone now or forcing myself to be good to all. People usually think that this is what should happen and expect a Kabbalist to solve their problems.

I must relate to everyone outside of me in such a way as to nullify my Kelim. I am not supposed to serve the whole world, nor to cater to the egoistic qualities of my friend.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/26, Rabash, “What Is Heaviness of the Head in the Work?”

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The Nature of the Will to Receive

232.01The essence of our work does not lie in acquiring a lack (Hisaron); we already have one, rather, it is in determining what this Hisaron will be directed toward. This is called intention.

Intention is the tuning, the orientation, of my unfulfilled desire: what am I aiming it at? What do I want to have revealed in my Hisaron? What kind of fulfillment do I seek to receive in it? Since a Hisaron is filled by pleasure, I must determine what kind of pleasure I want to reveal in my unfulfilled desire, what I decide to enjoy.

Undoubtedly, all decisions boil down to a choice of pleasure and nothing else; we are built this way. However, there are many variants and levels of pleasure: I can enjoy bestowal or reception, adhesion with the Creator or distancing from Him; the main thing is that I receive what I desire.

The spectrum of pleasures includes many options: ranging from pleasures stemming from the depths of the Klipot (impure forces) to the highest level of pleasure, that of the Creator Himself. Here, everything is determined by the direction of one’s intention.

My will to receive is an unfilled space, an empty place that I want to fill. It is like a person who wants to satisfy their hunger but has no prior memories (Reshimot), and they must choose the dish that will give them pleasure. Essentially, we must choose by what to enjoy.

Our initial idea of the essence of pleasure is derived from our physical world, from our natural environment. We are conditioned to derive pleasure from ordinary and simple things.

The Creator created the will to receive and established a specific state in it that instinctively and naturally gravitates toward the various pleasures that lie before it. It makes a calculation and thus gives preference to this or that pleasure. Such a mechanism is conceived in order to stimulate the development of this desire. An environment is constructed round it that is clothed in the objects of our world.

From this state, the will to receive must begin its development, that is, find other sources of pleasure. If it remains locked in its small, familiar environment, the one known since birth, and sustains itself solely on the usual natural pleasures, it will continue to exist on the animate level, will remain undeveloped, and will conclude its life in that state.

The development of the will to receive is possible only through the revelation of a new environment that encompasses pleasures of an entirely different nature. Then the person will, as they say, acquire a different life—a spiritual one.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/26, Rabash, “What Is, “If a Woman Inseminates First, She Delivers a Male Child,” in the Work?”

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The Genesis of a Hisaron

255The development of the will to receive can take place in its natural environment. But there is also another, unknown environment, a new surrounding. How is a person prompted to develop in the direction of this different environment? Of course, one is given a desire from above.

The fact that a person is endowed with a desire for pleasures absent from the limited environment in which he was born (this world) is referred o as “the Male (the Creator) who conceives (sows).” “The Creator conceives first”; that is, He grants the person an awakening toward spirituality.

Obviously, an awakening to the upper world cannot appear in a person by itself. It manifests only by means of lights that illuminate the Reshimo (spiritual informational gene). Suddenly a desire arises within a person for something that lies beyond the confines of this world. And as the saying goes: “The Creator, having conceived first, gives birth to a girl (Nekeva),” that is, a Hisaron for spirituality.

This is precisely what a person senses; consequently, one begins to make efforts to realize, to fill this lack. He bustles about, runs here and there, begins to study, comes to a proper society, looks for various means and actions in order to fill their Hisaron. And so it continues until one begins to see oneself acting in order to attain the fulfillment.

Gradually, as a result of many years of effort, it becomes clear to a person that the will to receive, although it came from above, lacks the qualities, form, and nature necessary for its fulfillment. This desire is present in us, but it is unsuitable for a filling that is beyond the bounds of this world because beyond its boundaries, both the Kli and the fulfillment are of a completely different nature. It is these missing attributes that we must acquire.

Gradually, it is revealed to a person that the desire given to them from above is not directed toward spirituality. And this is despite the fact that a Hisaron (a “girl”) seemingly was born in them. The Creator implanted a certain unformed desire in us for a filling that lies beyond our reach. This desire must be realized in an absolutely different vessel, in a vessel of bestowal. The Hisaron must fill itself with pleasures from bestowal to the Creator.

When a person comes to understand that what he needs is a new Hisaron and not the filling, then we can say that the Creator, the “male,” conceived, and a girl (Nekeva) was born. That is, as a result of a long search, it becomes clear to the individual that what they lacks is not fulfillment, but a desire to bestow. This desire to bestow that has arisen in him is indeed the Hisaron that has been born.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/26, Rabash, “What Is, “If a Woman Inseminates First, She Delivers a Male Child,” in the Work?”

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Two Points of View

243.05For a need to unite with the friends to arise within me, I have to understand that I will be able to truly sense where I exist in relation to the Creator through them. This happens when I relate to them as to my future point of Keter.

And in order to unite with them with the purpose to reach the Creator, I have to use their desires, connect my and their Hisarons (deficiencies), to see them as small, and live precisely within the tension between these two points of view.

There is nothing you can do. Otherwise, if I lack this disparity (which in essence is the difference between the lower one and the upper one, between what is inside of reason and what is above the reason), then the need for help of the Creator will not arise.

By our nature we can endure anything, except for the state of standing in direct confrontation between the light and the Kli, in the point of collision (Bitush) from which it appears there is no possible escape or breakthrough other than to ascend above reason.

Consequently this point cannot be perceived as something positive, good, or comfortable. After all, it does not have any basis within the nature of our world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/26, Rabash, “What Is Heaviness of the Head in the Work?”

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