We constantly work with our egoistic desire, which acts according to its natural property, the desire to receive fulfillment, our only matter. We await the light of correction to come and add an intention for the sake of bestowal to this desire.

We must separate desire and intention. With the desire to enjoy, I always have the opportunity to work and advance. As it says, “Do everything within your power.” But the intention to give to others or to the Creator comes as a result of the influence of the surrounding light. That is what we need to ask for.

That is, I already have half of the spiritual vessel, the desire to enjoy. I am not neglecting or annulling it, I just want to change its intention. If a person correctly separates his attitude toward action and intention, he will always be able to perform some actions and do work, both when spirituality attracts him and when it does not. But the force of unity that was formed in the past helps him.

He will always be able to raise a prayer, a request, for the right intention, so that it joins his action, and determines his spiritual quality. That is how a person advances.

Once he begins to understand more, feel more, and enter the spiritual world, he sees that there is not much difference between the spiritual and the material. It only takes a psychological change in a person to experience the spiritual.

We are not required to cross out our entire past life or override all our basis. We just need to extract the intention from all this and try to bring it to correction.

Therefore a person is happy that he came out of Egypt and brought with him many vessels, desires, and much strength. On the other hand, he is full of selfish intentions, and feels that they are the opposite of the truth. That is what he is starting to work on now. From this state, work begins. Therefore it is considered the point of spiritual birth.

We feel as “You Stand Today, All of You” before the Creator, with our corrupt desires, which we can present to Him as ready for correction.
[58790]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 10/26/11, Rabash, “You Stand Today, All of You”

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A person goes through various stages in their spiritual development. Initially they are like something lifeless; they join a group that begins to influence him and develop them,  but they are not yet capable of independent actions and do not understand where they actually are.

Several years pass this way, until they realize that there is work to be done and they need to act actively, and constantly clarify which direction they are looking. From that moment, they cease to be inanimate and turns into a plant. They begin to grow on their own, through self-care, thanks to connection with others, following the teacher’s advice, and attentiveness to the path.

They try by themselves to put themselves under the influence of the environment, as they have realized that this group is not merely a gathering of people, but that it possesses a special inner force that is necessary for their development. Thus, they become a “plant,” and they begin to draw forces from the group, like from soil, in order to integrate with them even more strongly. They understand that fruit appears on a mature tree, and the tree grows only on the condition that a person integrates into the group.

And as they grow, they desire to receive the fruits, which are connection, love, mutual bestowal, and the revelation of the common force of bestowal in which the Creator is revealed. All of this is still on the vegetative level.

But then there is also the animate level, when they are already able to govern and take on part of the responsibility for the connection among all. This is no longer a “tree” rooted in one place and passive relative to the person who tends it.

The human degree within a person is the one who tends the tree. Yet the animate degree within a person is already not just a tree, but one that itself strives to grow and tries to actively participate in the entire system. A person sees the common flaws and tries to correct them. He sees not only how to correct himself and passively integrate into the system, but also how to help others, through which he becomes included in the general connections and corrections. This can be attributed to the animate degree.

And then there is the human degree, when, according to his actions, he already adheres to the Creator. It turns out that the foundation of all our development is the tending of the “tree.”

To begin with, this is enough to divide life into the material and the spiritual. To the material world one should give what is necessary—no more and no less. And to spiritual work—all the rest, without limitation.
[69196]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/8/12, Rabash, Letter 46

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Everything is determined solely by the degree of my connection with the other souls at the level on which I was before we fell into a state of separation from one another.

If I somehow jump over this separation, then I seemingly return myself to the spiritual state that we essentially want to reach.

If I try to do this, then whatever comes out of it, whether it succeeds well or perhaps not very successfully, if I make the effort, it turns out that this is the only action by which I can push myself toward a spiritual state.

I am a Kli (vessel), and from my side, there is only one action: to increase the Hisaron (lack), and then a greater light will enter this Hisaron. And I can increase the Hisaron only by jumping over the screens between the 600,000 parts of the soul despite the screen separating us that arose as a result of the breaking of the Kli when the state that connected the desires, the parts of Adam HaRishon, broke and the connecting screen turned into a separating screen.

This is the only action that I can perform, because I am a small Kli that becomes a large Kli due to this.

Aside from this, I have no other possibility to fix anything in my development, on my path.
[351875]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/26, Rabash, Article No. 17, 1986 “The Agenda of the Assembly – 2”

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I must create a Kli so that the Creator can fill it. If I receive inspiration from the Creator, that is not my merit but His. If I receive inspiration from the friends, that too is not my merit but theirs.

I take inspiration from the friends. I, the insignificant one who has nothing and is incapable of uniting with them or desiring the Creator, take this inspiration from them and act with it. I myself have acquired this inspiration.

Here, there must necessarily be two points: I am completely nullified, a zero, the lowest of the low; yet, I received inspiration from them because I exalted them in my eyes to a great height. Then the inspiration I received from them through my work in relation to them becomes like Keter for me, while I myself am like Malchut. Here I have as if a Reshimo deHitlabshut and a Reshimo deAviut. This is how I act. There is no other way.

If I simply take inspiration from the Creator, it is His inspiration. And if I simply take inspiration from a friend, it is the friend’s inspiration. How, then, does it become mine? There must be two points here: I, who am not inspired either by the Creator or by anything else, have now acquired inspiration from a friend.

There must necessarily be two points. Where is the point of my “I”? How will I reveal it if I do not act according to the rule love your neighbor as yourself?

You show the friends greatness so that they will show you this greatness in return.

Question: Why is it that when I show them greatness, I see even more that I myself am incapable of it?

Answer: You can come to see that you are incapable only if you try this with the friends and, in practice, see that you are unable to do anything. With regard to the Creator, you cannot see this. It follows that you must receive both the point of Malchut and the point of Keter from the friends, from the group.
[351871]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/26, Rabash, “The Agenda of the Assembly – 2”

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Question: How can I check whether I am applying effort correctly?

Answer: How to check whether your effort is correct? There are many ways to check this. First of all is whether you want it or not. Usually, what you do not want may be the correct thing. Secondly, whether it is respected in the eyes of the friends. Check it in relation to what is written in the primary sources and to what the teacher says.

Before the Machsom, we have no clear system by which we can examine and evaluate ourselves. Essentially you are asking where that standard is against which you could check yourself and see how much, more or less, you correspond to it, or on the contrary, do not correspond.

Before you enter the spiritual world, this is not revealed to you. This is why it is called “concealment.”

But you can evaluate yourself in relation to your will to receive, in relation to the group and the teacher; at least in this way you can test yourself. It is not for nothing that it is said: “Do not trust yourself until the day of your death.” As long as your egoism has not died, you can make mistakes—terrible, foolish mistakes, and even the simplest ones. And here is what is interesting.

You keep making mistakes again and again, as if in the same situations, which seem simple. How can this be? You went through such big things, you did not get confused, you managed them somehow, and suddenly you fall into some foolishness again?

That is how it is. We do not know the degrees. It seems to us that each degree is like this. No. They can appear to you in a very simple, natural form. You suddenly become like an infant who stands and cries from having lost his mother.

All periods before the Machsom are like this. After it, everything depends on the screen, on the degree to which you are merged with the Creator.
[351788]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 1/8/26, Rabash, “Concerning the Reward of the Receivers”

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Question: What does it mean to connect with a friend?

Answer: To unite with a friend means that I want to come to adhesion with the Creator. But unfortunately, I cannot attain this without connecting with you. And you must also come to the same realization that if you do not connect with me, you will never attain the Creator.

The Creator, adhesion with Him and attaining similarity of qualities with Him is our goal, both yours and mine. No one will attain it without connecting with another, but only through another—yes.

Union means that the Kli (vessel) for attaining the Creator is located within your friend. A Kli is the impression, the yearning, the exaltation of the goal, the greatness of the Creator.

When you feel that you are praising the Creator, that you are exalting Him, then know that it is not you, but your friend who brought this into you. But you can receive inspiration only in exchange for your own contribution into him. If you carry this out, then through this a Kli will be created, in which you will strive toward the Creator.

And until you connect with a friend and absorb the greatness of the Creator from him and know that it is the Creator who has given you the yearning for Himself. It is He who has expressed His desire toward you, and not you toward Him.
[351838]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/26, Rabash,”The Agenda of the Assembly – 2″

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My work with a friend is to receive awakening, upliftment, a sense of the importance of the goal, the greatness of the Creator, and praise of the Creator from him. To the extent that he can give this to me, I exalt the connection with Him. This means that I exalt the connection in the group, and then one thing triggers another.

But everything that I check, analyze, and evaluate in a friend, my entire attitude toward him, must be only in accordance with his attitude toward the Creator. No matter how differently it may seem to me, it is so.

I must not climb into his soul, nor force him to speak about his relationship with the Creator. But the external form in which he expresses his yearning for the Creator gives me the understanding that he passionately desires the Creator.

I am obligated to be under the influence of the friends, to increase my desires through the connection with them, and to be in interaction with them, which operates in two directions: from me to them and the opposite.

If you see that they are here and truly ready for this, it is called that the Creator brought them to you, and in accordance with this you must relate to them in a special way. You have no choice, but He has a choice, and He chose precisely them. From this point begin to develop your attitude toward the entire group.
[351833]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 1/11/26, Rabash, “The Agenda of the Assembly – 2”

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The relations among friends in a group are external, but they should become internal.

To the extent that these relationships take on the form of bestowal, to that extent they will transform into a spiritual vessel in which the Creator will be present.
[351791]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/26, Rabash, “Concerning the Reward of the Receivers”

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In the article “Concerning the Reward of the Receivers,” Rabash writes that there are prohibited things; permitted things that cannot be received for the sake of bestowal but are necessary; and also, things received through the fulfillment of commandments that cannot be received for the sake of bestowal.

In addition, there are permitted things and things received through commandments that can be received for the sake of bestowal. According to the level of performance, a person receives a reward.

And what is this reward? Reward means performing the action in the most optimal way, through which a person attains equivalence of form. Why, then, do they not say that equivalence of form is the goal, but rather say that the goal is reception for the sake of bestowal? Because the result does not depend on us. The result comes from the law of the Creator, whereas the action depends on us.

This is similar to how Rabash explains the question of love: How can one force oneself to love the Creator, or to “love your neighbor as yourself,” when we cannot interfere in this? How can I force my heart to love someone?

In our world, this can be achieved through effort—when I invest myself in someone, give to them, care for them. This is clearly seen in the example of people who take a child to raise, and the child becomes completely their own, because they invest in him.

Before they invested in him, they felt no love for him at all—neither natural, instinctive love, nor love above nature. But after they invested a part of themselves in him, he becomes very important to them, because it is that part of themselves in him that they love, and from this love for the child is born.

So, it is with us as well: When we are in the desire to receive and transfer it to someone else, a connection is created between us. And in spirituality, when we want to love someone who is completely foreign to us, for the sake of bestowal (not for the sake of receiving, for then we are speaking of an animal feeling), this is a different law, as it is said: “Love the Lord your God.”
[351728]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/26, Rabash “Concerning the Reward of the Receivers”

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Our correction in relation to bestowal should be directed not toward our neighbor, but toward correcting our connection with the Creator. That is then it will become truly good for your neighbor, because in fact, what exists in the world comes from the Creator.

But if you want to change the state of this world, you must change what comes to them from the Creator. And that can be done only if you bestow to Him. And to the extent that you bestow better, He will not have to affect the world in a worse way.

You can come to this through society, when you bestow to your friends, and they bestow to you, you create a group, and just as at the end of correction on the spiritual level you unite in souls, so you try to unite here, in the spiritual task, that is, actually rise to that level.

By this you evoke the surrounding light into our world and thereby oblige the Creator to give more light to this world.
[351690]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/26, Rabash, “Concerning Fear and Joy”

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