Writings of Rabash, Volume 2, “What is the Righteous are Evident by the Wicked, in the Work”: In order for a person to advance in the ways of the Lord, and to be awarded that all his actions will be for the sake of Heaven, and he feels that he is in a state of ascent now, and what else can he do. The Creator leads this world by the wicked, which means that the Creator gives him thoughts of the wicked, which means that it is not worthwhile to work for Him, but only for one’s self.

And by that he receives a descent and thinks that he has received a descent not because it was given to him, so that he would advance in the way of the Lord, to be awarded with reason of Holiness. Instead he thinks that he is going backwards because he cannot work individually, but rather needs to work generally. And because from the general, he loses both ways, since he cannot enter the general again, a person feels that he is hanging between Heaven and earth. He feels that he is in a worse position than other people. Then a person can ask from the Creator from the bottom of his heart, and can pray, as it says, “save me oh Lord, for I am miserable, heal me oh Lord for I am frightened, and until when oh Lord.”

This means, until then will I remain in a state in which I feel that I am worse than any other person, and that I have no connection to spirituality. So there is no other choice but that a person should believe in what is written “that You hear the prayer of every mouth,” which means even the worst mouth in the world, that even if it is impossible to be lower and worse in the world, still the Lord hears him.

This is what our sages said, “He who comes to purified, is aided from Above.” The Zohar explains this saying that “he is given a Holy soul.” So it turns out that the Creator gives him thoughts of the wicked so that he will have a place to ask the Creator to help him, since otherwise he remains in the state he was at the beginning of his work, and would stay there all his life.

The problem is that we escape from these unpleasant moments when the Creator brings us to the state of the wicked by letting us see to what extent we are not adapted to the spiritual levels, to the spiritual work, that we are totally opposite from God’s work, and are not ready to reach bestowal, the love of others, the love of friends. We discover that we have no hold of the spiritual world, which means that we cannot exit ourselves towards others, towards the friend or the Creator.

We escape from these discoveries. The Creator opens our eyes a little in every state to see our real state, but He cannot force us, since it would deprive us of our freewill. Each time He brings us to a certain recognition and waits for us to add to it of our own freewill, in order to attain a prayer, a request, and to want the correction ourselves and not according to a verdict from Above.

Therefore, it says, “he who comes to be purified is aided from Above!” We have to come on our own and not because a desire for correction was inserted into us from Above, and in response to which the correcting force comes from Above. Not everything can come from Above; our own exertion is also required, a vessel that belongs to us.

But instead of adding our exertion after having been awakened by the Creator who has brought us to the beginning of the recognition of evil, to the state of the wicked, we are frightened by the revelation and try to hide it, to sweeten it, and to cover it from ourselves, while we have to develop this feeling by ourselves and attain the unbearable state. It is unbearable not because it is unpleasant; I would even agree to remain in this state if I could attain bestowal by it.

Here we usually escape, and cover up the state, and so we don’t reach the true prayer that could help us open our eyes. The Creator awakens us, He provides us with all the necessary conditions, the whole package that is needed in order to attain the goal. But we don’t want to connect all these components in order to fulfill it. In order to do that, we have to be connected, to evoke one another, to support, to encourage, to give each other confidence, but for the time being this is lacking.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/12

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Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: When we first receive the present, we still do not refer to the giver of the gift as one who loves us, all the more so if the giver of the present is important and the receiver is not equal to him.

However, the repetitive giving and the perseverance will make even the most important person seem like a true, equal lover. This is because the law of love does not apply between great and small, as two real lovers must feel equal.

Question: Baal HaSulam writes about love, but where is this love? There are only sufferings and disasters everywhere. Only a few days ago 26 people were killed in a school in the US…

Answer: Has anyone promised you that such things won’t happen in our world? Everything that you see here is taking place inside your egoistic desire. Rise to another desire, rise to the next level, and you will see that everything is different. You will rise to the second floor.

Now you see reality through your ego, which by definition cannot be anything good. Although I sometimes feel something positive, it is in fact bad too, but in the meantime I don’t identify it and accept it as good. We are all in a desire to receive, which is not even real, but “animal.” So, in fact there can be nothing good in our world.

So what do you expect? That things will proceed differently? We are immersed in an ego that is opposite from the Light and therefore there can only be disasters here.

But in order to allow you to rest in between them so that you will at least be able to relax, to calm your nerves, notice the details, and perceive something, then in this world, the lowest level, man lives literally by mercy and not only in pain, despite his nature.

Why? Because he has another destiny, a goal. If it weren’t for the destiny and the future goal, our world would be immersed in the darkness of endless sufferings and pain from morning to night, day after day. This is the nature of the egoistic intention which is opposite from the Light.

A slight illumination still penetrates this world, but only in order to allow us to exist here for a while and to start rising. In every other sense, the Light and the desire to receive are totally opposite from one another. It is to such an extent that we cannot even imagine.

If there were really great sufferings here, we would have no chance to rise above them and to at least think about something. In the meantime, we are being held above an ocean of pain, but if we don’t use the time we were given correctly, the Lights will disappear and we will fall into great sufferings that will “launder” us well, until we cry out for help. Then we will be given a break, and we will be examined to see whether the “shaking” was enough or not.

By the way, with regard to the Jewish people, one “shaking” is usually not enough. Go out to the street and talk to people, they feel that everything is fine. They have already forgotten about the missiles and have not learned anything from last fall.

Question: What about us, those who study Kabbalah?

Answer: You are twice as stubborn. All the others at least don’t know what it is about, but you are truly stubborn. What have you done with what you have heard during the lessons?

Our problem is the shattering. Our correction is the connection. What have you done for the unity of all of creation? First, do you help our friends all over the world to connect? Do you help them be a greater, more special force that wants to rise above the ego and connect the whole world in order to build a place for the revelation of the Creator and to bring Him contentment? When He is revealed, He enjoys more and more, and then we too enjoy what we have done for Him. This is called an equivalence of form. So what else should you know? Only to work for unity and connection, for mutual guarantee, for the integral education.

But you come to the lesson, listen, and then go your way. In this case, the ordinary person on the street is a greater righteous than you. Since he doesn’t disrespect what is important, he simply doesn’t know about it. Much less is demanded of him than of you.

We have to be really fearful. Time passes and there is much more that we can do. We really must feel responsible not for ourselves but for the group, for the world. After all, the disrespect is a result of everyone thinking only about himself and being resigned to fate in advance. Don’t think about what will happen to you; think about the fact that you are responsible for everyone. Then you will have a different attitude. In the meantime we don’t feel the responsibility that chokes us and motivates us. The ego is destroying us…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: Recently, I’ve been visiting at the hospital frequently and I notice that some patients lack a basic drive for life. People do not cling to life. What has happened to this basic desire?

Answer: It disappears in sick people, and the elderly, and the young. This is the natural course of evolution: The egoistic desire is growing, not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively.

We still judge by quantity; we strive to a greater scale, greater luxury, but in the meantime, the quality changes. And suddenly we discover that development requires something higher, values that do not exist in our world. There are new requests in me, and my environment cannot give me answers to them. It turns out that I have nothing to do here, there is nothing to look for, nothing to live for, nothing to enjoy because I do not just seek pleasure, but want to discover something more essential.

But wait, what essence is there? People themselves do not know what they want.

This is because our world has nothing more to offer them. And then the defense mechanisms of the body push many, especially the younger generation, to all kinds of whims and follies, as well as to suicide, drugs, terrorism, and anything negative. They are looking for something, but cannot find anything. Today, a new egoistic desire is manifested, which sees a wall in front itself: “What have I come to? The world is lifeless. Why am I here?”

People whose mind and feelings have not been yet developed enough become economists, lawyers; in short, they look for success in life. They are still attracted by something, enticed by some benefit. But those who have evolved a bit more can no longer find anything worthwhile for themselves. They initially have no taste for life, and this produces much more serious phenomena than we see on the surface. After all, the media and Internet save many people from suicide. The general opinion makes everyone participate in these “games,” distractions from the main question. But soon, this will end; in six months or a year, the wave will subside, and we will see how media resources and virtual reality lose their popularity.

And then a problem will emerge: how to occupy people? By that time, the number of unemployed will increase; the scale of deprivation will grow. A person will have nowhere to go, even the means that used to be before will disappear…

Question: It is known that the statistics of depression and emptiness are increasing. Where will people get a new desire that will lead them on the spiritual path?

Answer: In fact, it is impossible without the “Light” from above. Of course, we will not be able to awaken them if we do not get the Light for us and for them, according to the principle “the first-born takes double.” Only in this way, will we be able to show them the way, to show them a spark of the Light, which is enough for everyone. In the end, it is our duty.

And if not, the only alternative is a world war. People would feel that that would be better than to continue to live as before. No one will oppose a war. On the contrary, in this month, many looked forward to the end of the world, hoping for at least some diversity. “It hasn’t come yet? Well, let’s wait for the next one…” People will embrace a war, albeit unconsciously…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/12, “Body and Soul”

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Question: How do we reach collective exertion?

Answer: This is all the work in the group. Without a collective effort, without our connection, we cannot attain vessels of bestowal.

We don’t have desires to bestow; there are only desires to receive! In the desire to receive, there is a point in the heart. So how can I build a desire to receive from it? I have to be incorporated in the right environment, with the initial bud of bestowal, the point in the heart.

I accept this environment as if it is my “point in the heart.” The group is thousands of points in the heart, a billion times bigger than my one point! If there is only one star in my heart, then the environment is like all the stars in the sky. I want to connect them, and by that I build my GE. Otherwise there is nowhere I can get vessels of bestowal.

These GE already belong to the next level with regard to my desires to receive (like phases three and four) and are intended to adhere to AHP of the upper.

By being incorporated in the environment, I build the desires to bestow (GE), and if I am not incorporated, then they don’t exist in me. Then I can say that my desires to receive are my AHP, and to the same extent I am incorporated in the group. If I have brothers in it (my family: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), with whom I am in a conflict now, then to the same extent I am in Egypt.

My whole path is determined by how I am incorporated in the group: First it is Babylon, then the Land of Canaan with all the adventures there, until I find myself in Egypt, right in it. This whole inclination takes place in the group, together with everyone else.

“Brothers go down to Egypt,” means that the desire to receive that separates them grows and they turn it to in order to bestow, which means that the children of Israel multiply in Egypt. During the first seven years, their number grows, and then come the seven years of famine, which is the time to start the correction.

They carry on in the same direction, but now they see that Egypt enslaves them and doesn’t let them attain a higher level. This is called that “a new king arose in Egypt.” But in fact, the same work in the group continues and as a result the states that are described in the Torah are revealed.

This whole story is fulfilled only in a person’s connection to the group. It is in the connection that everything the Torah tells us about is revealed. The Torah tells us only about a person’s connection with the Creator in order to bring Him contentment. There is not a word in it about anything else.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot“, Item 107: Hence, after one attains the illumination of the face in such a measure that each sin he had committed, even the deliberate ones, is turned and becomes a Mitzva for him, one rejoices with all the torment and affliction he had ever suffered since the time he was placed in the two discernments of concealment of the face.

…has now become a cause and preparation for keeping a Mitzva and the reception of eternal and wondrous reward for it.

From this we learn that the more I have suffered, the more I am rewarded now. So does that mean that it is worthwhile to suffer in order to receive a greater reward later? That’s what it sounds like in our language, in our egoistic perception. The past is not erased; the correction is in turning it from sorrow to delight. Instead of a vessel that has suffered from darkness, from lack and emptiness, from wars, from diseases, from pains, which mean from lack of filling, we now feel a filling and in it we feel a reward and love.

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 108: This is similar to a well-known tale about a Jew who was a house trustee for a certain landlord. The landlord loved him dearly. Once, the landlord went away, and left his business in the hands of his substitute, who was an anti-Semite.

What did he do? He took the Jew and struck him five times in front of everyone, to thoroughly humiliate him.

This is about the ego and about the point in the heart in a person, about how the ego dominates a person now and beats the “point in the heart” called “Jew” (Yehudi), which stems from the Hebrew root “unity” (Yehud). This point wants to unite with the Creator and suffers because it cannot do so. This means that it receives blows from its ego.

Upon the landlord’s return, the Jew went to him and told him all that had happened to him. His anger was kindled, and he called the substitute and commanded him to promptly give the Jew a thousand coins for every time he had struck him.

The Jew took them and went home. His wife found him crying. She asked him anxiously, “What happened to you with the landlord?” He told her. She asked, “Then why are you crying?” He answered, “I am crying because he only beat me five times. I wish he had beaten me at least ten times, since now I would have had ten thousand coins.”

In the earthy representation of this story, this seems coarse and egoistic, but we understand that the Torah tells us about a person’s internal world. Whoever understands this interprets it correctly.

“A person is a small world,” in which there are two opposite sides: a point in the heart and the heart itself. The heart hates the point in the heart that yearns for unity with the Creator.

The greater the desire to receive that is revealed in us, called the cruel egoistic heart, the more strongly it seizes the point in the heart and doesn’t let it advance. The point in the heart makes different attempts to escape it and to advance, and so it suffers from its domination and from its own slavery, from the tormenting exile. The tension and the struggle between them constantly grow and the point in the heart feels more and more pain since it cannot unite with the Creator.

This creates a vessel and so the filling arrives, which is called “upon the Landlord’s return.” The reward is felt in the same sufferings, in the same empty places that were created during the exile. This means that it isn’t the desire to receive itself that becomes in order to bestow, but the struggle against it
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The desire to receive, which we are in now, is bad. It is very good if we want to enjoy life, and it helps us as much as it can. But it becomes bad and cruel if a desire to bestow is evoked in us, and it doesn’t let us adhere to the Creator, to the upper level. The desire to receive places a Machsom (barrier) between the upper and us, which does not allow us to pass.

The point, the spark of bestowal, strongly yearns to adhere to the Creator. The more the desire to receive dominates it, the more it yearns for the Creator. The more the domination of the ego is revealed, the more strongly this point has to struggle with it. And so its intention for the Creator grows and at the same time the sorrow and the pain also grow from the inability to adhere to the Creator. Its feeling of exile becomes greater and more bitter.

The tension, pressure, and yearning grow, and thus the vessels are formed. The vessels for attaining this upper level are not formed by the desire to receive that has turned into a desire to bestow, but are derivative of it. It is a result of the efforts and the sufferings, of the struggle between the spark of bestowal in a person and his desire to receive.

The spark struggles in order to adhere to the Creator, but it cannot do so since the desire to receive holds it by its feet and doesn’t let it break free. Then its exertion (for which the desire to receive is responsible since it held the “point in the heart” in its hands) becomes the vessel in which the unity of the next level is revealed.

This means that the desire to receive itself doesn’t become this vessel, it always remains restricted, but we work above it, by building our vessel above it, from the bricks of our exertion.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: During the process of spiritual work, I reach a state where I am not able to rise above my ego, and that causes tension in me, anger. Is it within a person’s power to rise above the ego, or can he only request it?

Answer: A person can never rise above his ego by himself. He can only request this from the Creator.

You can fight against all kinds of corporeal habits, for example, to stop smoking, to go on a diet, etc., thereby replacing one ego with another which is more beneficial for you.

But it is not in your power to rise above it, since the ego itself has no such means. For this, one needs to bring forth the upper Light, which is the ego’s opposite attribute, the attribute of bestowal, which will implement this action.

After rising to the new level, you will level off, establish yourself, see, learn what is done on this level by the new force, and then fall again, but this time even lower, to a darker space, to terrible confusion, in both feelings and in consciousness.

Sometimes you feel yourself as drunk, and sometimes as lost, without will power, completely helpless, and sometimes all of these together. It will seem to you that the problems pile up on you from all sides, that life is dark, and that there is no brightness in front of you.

All of this happens so that you will organize the correct connection with the group, the correct surroundings that will support you, and with each moment it says to you that you must turn to the Creator

You need to see it according to your friends who must show this to you. If any of the friends don’t show that he is turning to the Creator, yearning for Him, and that the most important thing for him is the importance of the goal, you must show him, since we are influenced by the group, from the group’s yearnings. You need to play, act for the friends, showing that you have a real yearning for going forward. Within you, you may be “dead”; that doesn’t matter, but on the outside, you need to play for the sake of saving the friends. If you do this, then you won’t have descents.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 6

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Question: Will a person feel his integral inclusion into everyone constantly?

Answer: Certainly! A person will constantly exist in such a social environment that will support him since he fully depends on the surrounding environment.

The person we see now is unreasonable, limited, and almost negligible. Therefore, when a person starts revealing the properties, feelings, attainment, and width in the integral system, they will be billions times greater than the ones he reveals inside his small, low, and enclosed egoism. This is why he in no way wants to break away from integrality to withdraw into himself to “take a break.”

After all, existence in the integral system will become like rest, a flight, or relaxation for him rather than stressful with the burden of taking care of himself. At the spiritual level he will feel his perfection, eternity, and freedom from the body.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World,” 11/26/12

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Pharaoh will remain in Egypt. We need to escape from Egypt and Pharaoh’s vessels. We do not work with the desire to enjoy itself, but we fight against it. It puts on the brakes or even shifts into reverse, but we want to break out from it, ahead of it to carry out the work of the Creator outside the borders of Egypt.

The battle that we fight during all the ten plagues of Egypt creates our vessel. I work above the desire to enjoy, which holds back the point in the heart, and this battle is called: “I labored and I found.”

My attempts to get away from egoism create the derivative, which is my new vessel. The same will be repeated on the next degree: Every time I build a more flawless, accurate, and finer vessel. After all, the desire to enjoy is the same, but my job becomes more refined and more precise, aimed at more internal clarifications. That is why, each time, a new vessel is created, more selective and of higher quality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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