Every morning before the lesson we rise to our feet anew and open a fresh page. The same can happen during the day as well.

It is said: “Let the old things you have already heard appear in your eyes as new every day.” Each time a person must feel like a new creation, again and again entering into contact, beginning the spiritual work, and drawing closer to the Creator.

With each such renewal, he realizes Reshimot until a sufficient number of them accumulate. This number is not known in advance, but the counter keeps ticking, the gears keep turning, and the digits after the decimal point change; at some moment the main wheel on the left will click over from one number to another.

So it is with us. Therefore, should be glad to renew our contact, our intention, and our striving toward the goal.

It is said: “The end of the action lies in the initial thought.” Already now I must hold in my mind the goal that I hope to reach in the end. Where am I heading? What exactly do I want? Each time I must imagine this anew more precisely, more clearly, more understandably, more tangibly.

In the final goal all my thoughts and efforts, desires and disappointments converge, fuse together, and become complete. My work ends at the point of the final contact, and this point is called the “drop of unity.”

In it, I myself, the entire reality that I feel, and the Creator, that is, the quality of bestowal, the upper force, all become one whole. This is the state I must already imagine now.

Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) offers another formulation: A person must direct himself toward the unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. Call it whatever is convenient for you. The main thing is that we think about the final point of unity.

And the more clearly that I imagine it in feeling and in mind, the greater joy it should give me. Because then I undoubtedly realize the current Reshimo and consistently advance toward the end of the action.
[29527]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/10, Preface to The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
Pleasure From The Book Of Zohar
The Amazing Power Of The Book Of Zohar
When The Book Reads You

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: How do we make sure that we are worthy of receiving the Torah, that we are ready to be each other’s guarantors?

Answer: If a person is ready to act as a guarantor for others (and we know that it is a condition for receiving the Torah to be “as one man with one heart”), then, of course, what one actually desires is to receive is not the Torah!

If one wants to be ready to become “like one man with one heart,” and is unable to do so, this task looms before the person like a mountain, meaning that the impulse to act “for the sake of receiving” is abhorrent and one wants to act “for the sake of bestowal,” then it is defined as being “like one man with one heart.”

It means uniting the points in the heart. This is the only correction the Torah brings, nothing more.
Our standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, along with all the doubts and all the hatred, serves one purpose: to effect the transformation from acting “for the sake of receiving” into “for the sake of giving.” For the sake of giving means that you unite all hearts and form a common vessel into which you receive the Torah. But if you do not do that, then what you get inside will not be the Torah but something else, some kind of science.
[353161]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/26, Rabash, “What Is Preparation for Reception of the Torah? – 1”

Related Material:
Everything Depends on the Degree of Sensitivity
How to Merit Receiving the Torah
The Condition For Receiving The Torah

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Question: How can I advance if the desire to receive dominates me?

Answer: Indeed, the Creator constantly activates the desire to receive in you to advance you, and then you feel that it dominates you again. It is not even that it dominates you, but that you are that desire to receive.

But to feel its power over you, you need the upper light that gives you the feeling that there is something besides the desire to receive—the desire to bestow. Then you realize that the desire to receive and you are not the same thing. There must be a third party.

If you have this separation between you and the desire to receive and the awareness of its power, this is salvation. Now something is up to you.

You have come out of unconsciousness and can act. You think “I am not my egoism, my hater, the one who prevents me from advancing. I would kill it, but how do I seize it? It is like a cancer in me.” You should start looking for some kind of cure. The cure from egoism can only be the light.

Your problem is that you do not really want this cure. Then you should go to a group that will strengthen your awareness of evil, so that you would see that this disease is killing you and separates you from eternal life to such an extent that you start to scream. It is the real scream that opens the heavens.
[353318]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/26, Rabash, “What Is the Preparation to Receive the Torah in the Work?-2”

Related Material:
Under the Control of the Desire to Receive
The Main Choice in Life
The Cure for Egoism

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

It is extraordinarily difficult to describe the spiritual world with our earthly words and to imagine it within an earthly mind. In essence, it is completely impossible, because we are speaking about a different nature altogether. But let us try.

We must detach from everything we currently see, feel, and understand, and imagine that pleasure exists from bestowal and that this is the only pleasure that can possibly exist. It is felt only in acts of bestowal, in the Creator.

The Creator wanted to create a creation that would highly value the state of the Creator. And therefore, He created creation with the desire to enjoy and implanted the smallest pleasure of all possible pleasures inside it, a spark, a “thin candle.”

This is a deceptive sensation, because in truth it is impossible to feel pleasure within egoistic desire. It is given this spark only to maintain life so that it can somehow exist. And by means of this tiny spark, our entire world lives.

But true pleasure is possible only from acts of bestowal; this is a law of nature. Yet in order to become capable of appreciating this quality, the loftiness of bestowal, we begin, from the black point of creation to build enormous vessels of receiving, like black silhouettes on a white background.

It turns out that we construct the evil, egoistic beginning from a single tiny black point called “the tip of the letter ‘Yod.’” And when we work on this black point, trying with all our strength to turn it toward acts of bestowal, precisely because of this it grows in the opposite direction, in the form of receiving.

We reveal within this tip of the letter “Yod” all the other letters, all the qualities, everything that exists, because in this black point we become completely opposite to the Creator. And therefore, the more we try to resemble the light, the more we become convinced of how opposite we are to it, revealing more and more details. This is how we inscribe all the letters, within which all qualities, spiritual Partzufim, worlds, and all existing connections are contained.

And the main thing is that in every state we build the combination of the right line with the left line, that is, with those desires we revealed thanks to our efforts to attain bestowal. The more we strove to bestow, the more we revealed our egoism, the left line. But despite this, we still attempted to compare those egoistic desires we revealed within ourselves to bestowal; that is, we tried to transfer them into the right line.

By doing so, we drew upon ourselves the light that returns to the source so that it would act upon those black letters that are revealed within us, give them a clearer form, and reveal all the components of the interaction between the light and the desire, the entire TANTA (Taamim–Nekudot–Tagin–Otiyot).

Thus, moving from below upward, from a point sketching out the contours of letters and, within them, the full TANTA—all the sensations from the entry of the light into the vessel and its exit, we ultimately attain the light that is revealed within the desires. We advance in the reverse direction, from below upward.

When the worlds descend from above downward, everything happens in the opposite sequence: first occurs the striking unification (Zivug deHakaa) in the head of the Partzuf, then the TANTA, the entry of the light into the vessel and its exit, and at the very last stage the letters (Otiyot) are formed, and ultimately, we reach the black point that lies at their foundation.

And in exactly the same way we build our path from below upward, only in reverse. By revealing in the right line the extent to which we are capable of resembling the light, we thereby establish balance between the material that is within the letters, their thickness, and the light that is outside the letters, around them.

Those black contours of the letters that we ultimately see against the background of the white light is the middle line that we have arrived at.

In the middle line, two forms of prayer come together. On one hand, the “general prayer,” a request on behalf of many. And on the other hand, it is such a general prayer through which we all integrate into Malchut and clarify the common goal as one person. To the extent that we are able to combine these two components, this prayer will also enter the middle line.
[91114]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/12, Rabash, “The Importance of a Prayer of Many”

Related Material:
We Only Need To Ask Correctly
The Left Line Comes From Above And Raises Us Upwards
The Basics Of Working In Three Lines

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Imagine that you are a parent—perhaps strict, perhaps kind, it doesn’t matter which, but loving—just such a parent relates to their children so should you treat others.

Question: And at the moment when I read this each day and understand that I cannot do it, is that the prayer: “I can’t!”?

Answer: This is not yet a prayer, but a state in which you examine yourself and see how much you need to be corrected. And then you already have some sort of claims or requests for correction. And you lay them out.

You judge yourself; you come and demand that the Creator correct you because you cannot correct yourself. The only one who can is Him. But only in accordance with your demands, requests, and supplications. So hurry!

Question: You began with the instruction to love everyone.

Answer: Yes.

Question: So I want to reach this, but I cannot, and I ask for it?

Answer: Exactly!

Comment: Thank you. Wonderful!

My Response: So prepare yourself.
[353612]
From KabTV’s “Conversation with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 2/26/26

Related Material:
The Creator Wants Us to Be Corrected
How to Step Back from the Edge of the Abyss
Just Love and That Is All?

Filed under: News, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

When a person is proud and has no desire to annul his authority before the Creator, and says that he has no lowliness in him, but he rather does what he wants, from this come to him all the bad qualities. The light of pleasure, which comes from above, illuminates as a slim light in order to sustain the world. As is known, it dresses in three qualities, called “envy,” “lust,” and “honor,” and all three qualities are included in the quality of pride (Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Creator Does Not Tolerate the Proud,’ in the Work?“).

Pride is a common term for a human personality, a sense of one’s own “I.” There is a correction for this feeling: bringing a person to realize that he is not capable of anything. Rather, he is capable of many things in this life, but he cannot come to spiritual correction on his own.

How is one led to understand he cannot correct himself, to come to Lishma? It is with the help of three qualities: envy, lust, and honor.

Because the human desire to receive has all three qualities, it develops. As a person develops, he sees that every time he is unable to control the desire to receive, he cannot combine it with the intention to give and use it within the framework of eternity. Then he gives up and asks the Creator for help.

Our progress, in fact, includes many such states when we try and fail, try again and again in vain. And every time a prayer appears in our hearts, an appeal to the Creator, that I am unable, I cannot. So far, this request, that I am really disappointed in myself and want to achieve an intention to bestow, has not fully formed as addressed specifically to the Creator.

But gradually, a person begins to learn more and more about these details within his desire to receive, within his environment, and becomes convinced of the importance of this goal. He sees that otherwise, his life will be temporary, random, and meaningless.

This happens until he begins to understand that this appeal is not a natural request due to accidental disappointment, but a certain approach to various life situations in order to find the right attitude to all cases of life, to see how much he is able or not to dominate the desire to receive, and based on this, turn to the Creator with true prayer.
[353144]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Creator Does Not Tolerate the Proud,’ in the Work?”

Related Material:
Pride Is The Best Helper
The Spiritual Root Of Pride
What To Be Proud Of On The Path To The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

There is a prayer that precedes the prayer, a request that I may have the correct needs and that I may see my state in its true light. Only after this does a real prayer arise.

A person has prepared their Kli for correction, and then the correction happens, meaning that the light truly influences the person and he receives the intention for the sake of bestowal.

It is not that the Creator needs our prayers, pleas, praises, or blessings. Rather, through them we define our state from each type of desire in relation to a corrected state.

And if we truly want to achieve the correction of each quality, then it is a sign that we have prepared our Kli so that in it, for every desire, an intention for the sake of bestowal can appear.

But if my desire still does not need the right intention, then I cannot work with it. Only to the extent of realizing the necessity of this intention can one begin to work with the desire; otherwise, it will be coercion, and in the spiritual there is no coercion.
[353149]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Creator Does Not Tolerate the Proud’ in the Work?”

Related Material:
Exodus Occurs In No Time At All
Preparation For A Prayer
What Does Prayer Begin From?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: I am discovering the evil in the very use of desire to receive. Why is it revealed in this way?

Answer: I receive the desire and intention to enjoy for myself from above, as a given. Now I need to see what the reason is. What kind of desire did I get? It can be a desire that brings me great pleasure or an opportunity to enjoy in order to achieve a goal.

Therefore, I make an effort to reveal that what is important to me is, not the fulfillment of the desire, but the intention for it. Even if I enjoy myself within the desire, as I do now, and remain in an unfilled Hisaron (deficiency), the intention I have received for the sake of receiving is still, in essence, evil for me. The fact is that the Creator becomes greater in my eyes than the intended fulfillment of desire.

Thus, I must value the greatness of the Creator more than the pleasure that can be obtained in the desire. When I achieve this, I have come to the realization of evil.

But this happens only because we work in a group and try to get inspired by everyone with the importance of the goal, of the Creator. Then I develop a need to do this, and I pray to the Creator that He must reveal Himself to me as something greater than the desire He gave me before.

In other words, the following happens in the actions of the Creator toward me: He gives me a desire with the intention of receiving for myself, and I have to reveal through the group, through books, that this desire is evil because the desire itself is higher in my eyes than the greatness of the Creator. Then I will ask the Creator to reveal Himself to me as great and not as a source of pleasure, so that His greatness will help me use my desire with the opposite intention—to bestow to Him.

When I achieve this, my prayer becomes a prayer for giving. That is, I am not praying for the filling of the Kli but for the opportunity to work for the sake of giving.
[352989]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/26, Rabash, “What Are the Two Actions During a Descent?”

Related Material:
Desire And Intention
Intention above All
Achieve Lishma

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

Comment: In our world, we see examples of love, but they are not very convincing.

My Response: In our world, we can take a group of people and through psychological exercises make them so devoted to one another that even death cannot separate them. The group is worked with in such a way that during a collective action no one thinks about themselves; everyone thinks about the group and cannot imagine life without it.

There is a known case of a submarine crew that suffered an accident and had to abandon the vessel. Not everyone had a chance to escape, and the part of the crew that could have left chose to stay and die together with everyone else.

On the corporeal level, we see that spiritual roots are realized in branches without any problem. And this is a human force; animals do not have it. A mother can give her life for her child, but animals cannot. If a predator truly threatens life, the female abandons the offspring and runs away. Such an addition exists only on the human level.

This indicates that we possess all the branches of the spiritual roots. But we want to attain those roots. And there, they exist in such a form that you cannot reach them directly from your ego. You must build yourself into such a form from scratch. That means you must ask to become like that.

You are not required to have the strength to become like this, nor a plan of how to achieve it, but you must have the desire to enter such a state, to acquire it so that it becomes your nature in some form; you are obligated to find it.

This is precisely where the problem lies. If you were offered to build a group modeled after a submarine crew, you would build it. But to realize this on the level of the spiritual world, you have no ability.

To rise from the branches to the roots in love for friends is possible only through our request. Not through execution, but specifically through a request.

Question: When do we come to such a request?

Answer: When the group shows you that this is how it truly is. It tells you that by exiting love for oneself, we acquire something great.

And even though for you this is not true, the group can influence you in such a way that it will become true.
[352650]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/26, Rabash, “For Man Is the Tree of the Field – 1”

Related Material:
The Law of Root and Branch
From The Root To Its Branch
How We Turn Love Into Hatred

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

However, there is a natural law that there is none so wise as the experienced, and before one tries to actually do all he can do, he is utterly incapable of arriving at true lowliness, to the real extent, as said above.

This is why we must toil in Kedusha [holiness] and purity, as it is written, “Whatever you find that your hand can do by your strength, that do,” and understand this for it is true and deep (Baal HaSulam, Letter 57).

While working on unification in order to form a vessel for bestowal, a person falls into despair. Then a genuine request arises in him in response to which the vessel arrives. In other words, the correct need for unity also comes from above. We ourselves are unable to attain it.

No matter how much we try, no matter how much we desire it, we are only preparing ourselves for a cry, and the Creator gives us the desire. In this world, a person does not have and cannot have a need for unity, no matter how hard he tries. Efforts are needed only in order to ask.

I revealed this truth to you only so you would not weaken or give up on mercy. Although you do not see anything, for even when the measure of labor is complete, it is the time of prayer, but until then, believe in our sages: “I did not labor and found, do not believe.”

When the measure is full, your prayer will be complete and the Creator will grant generously, as our sages instructed us, “I labored and found, believe,” for one is unfit for a prayer prior to this, and the Creator hears a prayer (ibid.).

Overall, the result of our work is to reach the right request. And then the vessel arrives, the correct desire for unity.

As a rule, in this world we wait for fulfillment. But in spiritual work, fulfillment is the effort. If I can work for bestowal, make efforts, that itself is my fulfillment. And therefore there are no restrictions or limitations on it.

However, in my current state I am unable even to consider such a thing. After all, all my efforts are needed in order for me to want to perform bestowal to others, not even to begin bestowing, but to feel a need for it. Is this possible? And yet, this is precisely the spiritual vessel.

That is why in our work we go through several stages of preparation. Kabbalists have written about this more than once: in spirituality, what seems to us as a reward is in essence work, and what seems to us as work is actually the reward.

However, as a result of our efforts, that very vessel is revealed to us, the correct desire.
[71937]
From the Congress in the Arava, Lesson 6, 2/25/12

Related Material:
The Best – For The Friends
Reach The Limit
Cry For Salvation

Filed under: Conventions, Events, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →