Question: How can we extol an idea that no one actually feels in the group?

Answer: How can we praise an abstract idea that is completely unfelt, and moreover, make it the cornerstone and goal for the future? Precisely because it constantly slips away from us, it helps us advance toward it.

In this process we do not yet have the proper intellect or feelings, nor any prior experience or training, no data or accumulated sensations along the spiritual path. Therefore, every moment is new for us, and a person feels like a newborn, simply confused. One must get used to such states, because all of them are necessary.

If you grasp the idea of the Creator and His greatness, and begin to build everything else on this foundation, then you are on the right path. You are personally seeking that point within yourself that is completely connected to Him, but for now only by one percent. He stands before you as the goal, as one hundred percent. You as Israel have one percent from Him, and your goal is that He will be within you one hundred percent. This is called drawing closer to the Creator.

It is said: “Israel, the Creator, and the Torah are one.” This is our motto, our law, and the formula we advance with.

The Creator is the quality of bestowal one hundred percent; Israel represents one tenth of a percent, a millionth fraction of bestowal. The quality within me called Israel grows from a millionth part to one hundred percent. This means that within myself I pass through degrees and states until I reach the goal. Then the Creator is within me one hundred percent.

I come to this through the Torah and the commandments, through the light that reforms, through the group, and through other means. And each time we clarify what these two points are and what the means is to reach them; each time it requires effort.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘There Is Nothing that Has No Place,’ in the Work?”

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Question: How does the group decide what is day and what is night in spiritual work?

Answer: The group sets its own standards. What is the highest standard and the ideal indication? The quality of giving, bestowing like the Creator, is the goal, a state that I regard as the completion of the path.

Every time I partially achieve this goal—the intention for the sake of bestowal, whether I am currently immersed in it or merely aspiring to it (even though I have not yet achieved it), I must resolve that this is day. I do this not based on my subjective feelings, but based on the fact that this is the truth.

All other states that may appear sweet in my senses confuse me and constantly pull me in the direction of receiving for myself, I define as night.

I can distinguish between night and day both in relation to my inner state and in terms of the purpose of creation; that is, by comparing my own attributes with the properties of the Creator. I can apply this “day and night” criterion to absolutely everything.

The group must accept all this as fact and as a standard. After all, what is a standard? It is something I am not yet in, but from now on, I undertake the obligation of measuring myself against it until I become exactly like it. This is called an ideal indication, the example of what I should become.

The group must constantly check itself and refine its inner charter, its ideal, regarding what it aspires to be. We must cultivate a mindset where at every stage our stages of development, we can quickly transcend the feeling of “bitter versus sweet” and instead choose to prioritize the truth regardless of the subjective flavor we may perceive within it. Ultimately, we will aspire for our next state to be one in which truth itself is perceived as sweetness, because the purpose of creation is to bestow delight upon the created beings.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/26, Rabash, “What Are Day and Night in the Work?”

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As long as the Creator is not revealed to us, we take the group as the defining factor and use it in place of the Creator. I enter the group and resolve that its opinion will apply to me as if the Creator were revealed.

Then I receive strength from the group, the power of authority over me. Therefore, I deliberately prepare myself for connection with the group in order to dissolve within it, so that it will begin to rule over me and give me a feeling of the greatness of the Creator.

I deliberately enter the group and position it in relation to myself so that the friends will overturn all my thoughts, all my desires, effectively giving me a new mind.

But this work does not end with a single act of closing my eyes and throwing myself into the group, and that is it. It is a meticulous process that continues in every moment. In this lies its difficulty.

Here, there must be a decision that comes from my side. This is called effort. It consists of going against the desire that I have and building this in full awareness, without closing my eyes. The entire success lies in this.

If a person succeeds methodically in allowing his “brain to be washed” regarding this abstract idea that he hates, he will see that the heavens clear up, and together with the growing difficulties he will increasingly enter concealment until he comes to revelation.

Thus, the effort lies in the free choice of the group, and this feels dreadful, no one wants it, but we must choose this each and every moment and use this choice in order to place the group so that it will “wash my brain” precisely with the idea that the Creator is great and must rule over me.

This cannot be done directly with the Creator because we would simply use our will to receive and would never be able to carry this out as we do with the group. In the group, I make efforts against my desire, override my nature, and am ready to annul myself, to lose myself within it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘There Is Nothing that Has No Place,’ in the Work?”

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One can come to the recognition of evil only within a group, which serves as a spiritual laboratory, because it is there that you engage with your soul. The soul is perfect and whole, as it was in Adam HaRishon.

However, you see only a tiny part of it. That is, you see everything, but merely as a single point, and within this point lies the entire structure of the soul.

If you take the light and shine it into this point, then, instead of that point, you begin to perceive a distinct world, the world of your own soul, and you begin to live within it. Here everything depends on how much light you draw to illuminate all of your qualities.

It is said that if you attract the light with the help of the group, then your friends become representatives of all the other souls of Adam HaRishon. Then you draw light of great magnitude that is enriched by the other souls with its many nuances, that it shines upon you in accordance with all the sensations you have accumulated, and thereby brings you to an awareness of evil.

In short, everything depends on attracting the surrounding light. This is the ultimate destination.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/26, Rabash, “What Is Preparation for Reception of the Torah? – 1”

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What is advancement? It is the attainment of the Creator’s degree, and it is not without reason is it called revelation. We must not merely receive an impression, not merely enjoy, but we must discover His degree, which we reveal gradually until we fully reach His state.

There is no path of suffering in advancement. The path of suffering consists of those states in which I still do not wish to advance, have not found the strength to move forward, and have not realized the group as the only place where I have free choice in order to advance correctly. Thus, I remain in suffering.

These sufferings gradually accumulate until they compel me to seek a way out of them. And when I search, I find this path. Then I agree to enter a group that will obligate me to advance, and I am even ready to pay for it, because otherwise I will again feel suffering.

This process continues until I begin to understand that the problem is not the suffering itself, until I desire to have my own inner aspiration, and that will become my suffering, rather than the animal suffering from blows received. Accordingly, I will work to transform the group so that it ensures my advancement, not from fear of blows, but because the goal is great.

In other words, I cannot advance by means of suffering. Each time, suffering is given only to compel me to change my state. If I am not capable of doing so on my own, then from that point onward I can begin to think, examine, and invest my efforts in the group so that it will awaken me. Then I replace the quality of suffering myself and rise from degree to degree. If I do not do this, suffering comes as though on its own. That is the only difference.

Therefore, free choice lies in choosing the group, in choosing the force that will come to me instead of blows and which will reveal to me how I must change.

Either blows will force me to change or the group will. Through the group, it happens faster, more successfully, and without suffering. Baal HaSulam explains that in this case we gain twice: I shorten the time, and by striving in every state to resemble the Creator, I already feel that I am in some connection with Him, similar to Him.

In every state, I am to some extent in final correction. But this is only if the group provides me with awareness of the necessity to advance toward attaining the Creator’s status. If it does not provide this, I remain in suffering and will never know on my own how to emerge from it or how to change myself.

Each time I wish to use the group for advancement, I will discover within it possibilities and forces, and readiness to receive bestowal from me and to give me the greatness of the Creator in return.  Then the state I feel will resemble final correction to some degree. The group will give me an “awakening from above,” an awakening that comes from outside me, which I lack.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/26, Rabash, “What Does It Mean that the Creation of the World Was by Largess?”

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Question: Why is the goal hidden?

Answer: “I want to come to the Creator.” Let us say I have some kind of desire of this kind. What this desire is, I do not know. What I should do, I do not know. Who is the Creator? What does it mean to “come to Him”? How can I understand that it is I who comes to Him? If I do not know what state I am going to be in, and what exactly will happen to me, then I am just saying the words. Do I know what they mean?

I imagine now that it is good, like a child who thinks it is good to be, say, a policeman: “The policeman is big; he has a gun.” I will also think that it is good to be in union with the Creator. I do not know what properties He has or what is the similarity of form. If I am the same, what will I be? How is He? And Who Is He? Nothing is clear.

But if I initially approach this idea with the help of a group, then I already find out some detail in it. That is, merging with the Creator becomes clearer to me, and to this extent I comprehend Him. Let us say that I comprehended a hundredth part.

Now some kind of obstacle comes again, and again I perform some actions in the group with the same thought of coming to the Creator. After all, initially “Israel, the Creator and the Torah are one.” And again, I am making a clarification.

So I performed my actions in a group, teamed up with my friends, and I gained strength from them because loving my friends should lead me to love the Creator, and again it became clearer to me what “love the Creator” means because I was engaged in fulfilling the commandment “love your neighbor.” As a result, the totality of fulfilling this commandment leads me to fulfill the commandment “love the Creator.” I am building a Kli.

“Love thy neighbor” is the construction of a vessel of 613 parts. Let us put it this way: I am gluing together all the parts of a common Adam HaRishon (The First Man), like pieces of a broken clay vessel, and the glue between them is precisely the fulfillment of the commandment “love your neighbor as yourself.” In this way, I build a Kli.

And what is revealed inside the Kli is already “love the Creator.” When the Creator fills the vessel, He makes me feel exactly this way. Thus one thing becomes the cause of the other.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/26, Rabash, “According to What Is Explained Concerning ‘Love Thy Friend as Thyself’”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 25 “What Is the Preparation on the Eve of Shabbat, in the Work?” (1988) (3.26.2003)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of the ARI, “Gate of Intentions – for Pesach (Heb), Gate of Intentions – for Pesach“

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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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When he is “not rewarded,” it is the complete opposite—he has no desire for Torah or prayer.

Anything he does in Kedusha is forced on him, and when he introspects, he says about everything that pertains to Kedusha that it is to him as the potion of death, that he wants to quickly run away from all those things around him (Rabash, “What Is, ‘There Is Nothing that Has No Place,’ in the Work?”).

Question: What does it mean that “anything he does is forced on him”?

Answer: Rabash shows how much a person can be deluded and not see where he actually is. It seems to him that he is about to build a Kli, but if his work is without the application of effort, then he receives the potion of death. It seems to him that he is advancing, rising, and feeling the fruitfulness of the work.

However, if this elevation comes not because he has the possibility to connect with the Creator and rises above all problems and difficulties, but because, when he feels a lack in his ordinary Kelim, he lives only by the fact that he is connected with the Creator thanks to His greatness and not for any other reason—this is called holiness. But if he enjoys the connection with the Creator, and his will to receive and intellect agree with it, this is opposite to holiness.

This diagnosis must be completely clear to a person. The study and the group must help him in this.

First of all, we need the light that reforms, so that first we will see how much our desires are opposite to the desires of the Creator, how all of reality, except for our limited reality, is built on the basis of the desire to bestow. And we, compared to the spiritual reality, are only a tiny grain of sand in which the law of fulfillment according to the will to receive rules. Yet we see that even in this no one has succeeded.

For us this law is not fulfilled. It operates only as preparation so that we will come to the conclusion that this thing is impossible, and we begin to build something opposite to it that is above it. Above it means that we must invert it. A person must prepare many means and examinations for himself that would help him, and that remind him of his advancement. Otherwise there will be no advancement.

Everything with which we agree is rejected in spirituality. It is important to understand what this opposition is because it is not about going against one’s desire, but about the Creator ruling within it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘There Is Nothing that Has No Place,’ in the Work?”

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Question: If the group is “on fire,” it is easy to follow its lead, but what if it is not?

Answer: If you do not feel that the group is “on fire,” then ignite it. What is stopping you? How? It does not matter how. Shout, shake them up, buy them gifts; do something! Search for a way! Sit with them and talk. Tell them that this is not life, that this is not why we are here. Let us start doing something; begin to awaken them.

The group is an external mechanism in relation to me that will constantly press on me, and force me to change. Yet the moment I feel I am in need of change, I must invest myself into the group. Then the group will return this to me, and many times more than what I invest in it.

The group includes many desires to receive: separate, uncorrected desires that exist in various relations with one another. Each of the friends goes through ascents and descents, and because of this the group is always in its own internal movement.

Internal changes take place within it by its very nature because it includes many forces that are foreign to one another. One rises, another descends, and due to this the group is constantly changing.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/26, Rabash, “What Are Day and Night in the Work?”

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The difference between weekdays and the Sabbath (Shabbat) is that weekdays represent the work of correcting souls, which is a process through which a person gradually reaches the state of the goal of creation called Shabbat, the state of final correction. This attainment is contingent on the work performed throughout the week, as it is written: “He who has not exerted himself on the eve of the Sabbath, what shall he eat on the Sabbath?”

Spiritual advancement means that a person, at any given moment of his life, weighs his actions to determine the extent to which they are directed toward the goal of creation. This is the difference between a person’s material and spiritual levels.

We exist in this world, and it seems to us that actions control and determine everything. Indeed, to maintain life in our animal body, actions are indispensable. We must plow the earth, sow seeds, and harvest crops; that is, we must perform all 39 types of work to produce bread, which constitutes the staple food of man.

Unlike animals that merely gather ready-to-eat fruits and do not need to cook their own food, humans must actively engage in the preparation of their food because nothing in nature exists in a ready-to-consume state except for water, salt, and herbs.

Everything we procure to sustain our existence requires processing. We must labor “by the sweat of your brow.” Therefore it seems to us that the primary element is physical action. Indeed, for everything related to material life in this world, intention is not important. For example, we can bring workers from Thailand, and they will work, while we simply enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The same principle applies to the physical observance of the Torah and the commandments: one who performs them is called a “righteous man,” and the one who does not do this is called a “sinner.” These definitions are correct regarding existence in this world. This degree is called the “holy still” (Domem deKedusha); that is, the assessment of one being righteous or a sinner based on his actions.

However, there is also a spiritual aspect of man, and here we must fulfill the commandments, not with the help of the body, but in accordance with the “point in the heart.” When a person has this point, he can fulfill the Torah and commandments in a spiritual way, but when he lacks it, he cannot.

If one were to approach any individual and tell them that it is a necessity, that the Creator has commanded us so, that it will for their own good, then he would do everything strictly at the level of material action, in the heart (in his egoistic desire), but not in the point in the heart (the embryonic seed of a spiritual Kli). This is called being a “proper Jew.”

However, in order to work with intention, a connection with the Creator is needed, which does not come from the ordinary “heart” but from the “point in the heart.” In it, we evaluate a person’s actions according to their intention, since relative to the point in the heart, the Creator does not take our actions into account at all, but only intentions. Intention is action.

This means, as it is said, “He has done, is doing, and will do all actions; there is none else besides Him.” Everything comes from the Creator, both in actions and intentions. The question here is only about a person’s attitude to what comes to him.

According to this attitude, that is, according to the intention of a person, we evaluate him as a righteous or a sinner. Either his intention is directed at the Creator, which is called “for the sake of giving” (al Menat Lehashpia), or it is not yet directed at the Creator and is called “for the sake of receiving” (al Menat Lekabel).
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/26, Rabash, “Why the Speech of Shabbat Must Not Be as the Speech of a Weekday, in the Work”

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