Question: What is the difference between awe and fear?

Answer: Awe is not a fear for oneself. It is based on love, respect, and striving for the Creator.

Question: What are the types of fears before the Creator?

Answer: It is impossible to list them all. The inclusion of Malchut, in all its variations, into the first nine Sefirot generates a vast array of primary, secondary, and other fears. Any feeling of possible lack of being filled is called fear.

For example, the feeling that I may not justify the Creator is based on animal and social fears. But the fear of whether I would be able to fill Him is already an awe that descends on us through the common system, because the Creator is present in its entirety.

To the extent you connect and associate yourself with everyone, you get an opportunity to fill the Creator.

Question: So contact with Him always happens through another person?

Answer: There is no other way, because the Creator dwells in the whole system.
[229210]
From a Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 1/11/18

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Question: Is maintaining a constant connection with the Creator a conscious effort, or does everything come naturally?

Answer: These are constant efforts in which we try to exist. But we cannot live in them all the time in a natural way, the Creator cuts off these efforts and gives us other pictures of the world instead. And we again return to trying to define the Creator through them. And so it is all the time: entrance – exit, entrance – exit.

Question: Could this become a habit?

Answer: It does not become a habit but a necessity.
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From a Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 2/11/18

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Our path consists of ascents and descents, deviations and contradictions, despite the fact that it is straight. You think: “I fell, I was thrown out.” But even if you are walking along a straight line, you are constantly forced to endure blows, falls, problems, and confusion. Apparently, it is impossible without this.

It is only important to see whether you become “older” from this, that is, whether you acquire wisdom (Hochma), whether you see the source, the cause. Do you relate to this in such a way that behind all these blows you see a future structure that is even more beautiful than the present one?

Sometimes it is impossible to build a new building on the site of an old one; it is necessary to clear the place and build anew. This is how to relate to these things. The main thing is whether we are building or not building. A group that begins to discuss this should be ready to enter a state of criticism of its actions and of everything that is happening to it, but it emerges from this more united and strengthened.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/18-19/26, Rabash “What Are Torah and Work in the Way of the Creator?”

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Question: People constantly strive for new sensations; they try one thing, then another, then a third. For example, I did not understand what it meant to get a tattoo, and I decided to try. Obviously, it is a sign of a certain self-expression. But only after I got it did I understand what a tattoo really is.

It is the same with spiritual things. Until you try, you cannot explain. Many people who come to study Kabbalah begin to cultivate a principle of equality among themselves so that everyone becomes similar. To what extent can the environment influence a person positively or negatively in this sense?

Answer: You are speaking about a person who is like the wind in the field. Does he have a goal or not? First he has to find it for himself. What do I want to reach? What is my goal? Does it exist or not? If not, then what? Should I just look around? These people behave like this, those have such-and-such a goal, and others fool around in their own way. So I choose what is closer, better, and easier for me. I follow the masses or some groups, and thus I join them.

But if we are talking about individuality, then I must find my own personal goal. After I find it, I need to clarify how it can be realized: where, with whom, and by what means. Then I will look: if for its sake I need, say, to get the same tattoo, then I will do it; if I need to learn something, I will learn it.

In other words, the goal must justify the means. The final state must determine the path toward it. My present state is meaningless if I do not know the final one, and I am like the wind in the field: wherever it blows me, that is where I go. Meaning, I will act not with my own head, but someone else’s, whatever is advertised to me at the moment becomes important. And so a person spins around his whole life, until he weakens, agrees that “that is it,” and dies.
[351941]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Everyone Should Be the Same” 10/1/10

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Rabbi Elazar said, “The Creator said, ‘The whole world was created only for that.’ This means that the whole world was created for the fear of God” (Rabash, “Purpose of Society – 1”).

There is an exalted goal that is not perceived within our egoistic sensations, within the aspiration to take everything “into oneself.” The exit “from oneself” and concern for what is “outside of me” is called spiritual fear (Yirat HaShem).

At present, I am anxious about how to fill and protect myself. This is called fear for oneself.

Subconsciously we are constantly preoccupied with attracting what is beneficial and distancing what is harmful to ourselves, to our egoism.

Spiritual fear means that I experience fear for what is outside of me. I worry about others and about the Creator like a mother worries about her small child when all her thoughts are in him and about him.

In this fear, in this concern for the other, outside of myself, outside of my egoism, I feel the upper reality.
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From Lesson No.1 Mega Congress, 7/24/10

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Spirituality has only the form that you build for it yourself by your desires. From above we are given only an informational record (Reshimo), and we must build the form ourselves. From above, from the upper degree, we are also given strength and mind for realization, but according to our request.

It seems to us that some ready-made world will suddenly fall upon us from above. There is nothing to wait for. I build it myself through my efforts. I myself draw this world against the background of the light.

I draw the image of the upper one, and to the extent of my efforts, it becomes more and more true. I do everything that I am capable of. I draw all kinds of forms. Sometimes it turns out better, sometimes worse, and sometimes I make mistakes. I create them and erase them until I succeed.

And in the process of my work, I suddenly see that the upper one begins to help me! He clothes within me like a hand in a glove, and works. He helps me like a mother who plays together with a child and helps him build a house out of blocks. When I try to do something and it does not work, I suddenly feel that it is He who helps me understand that it should not be this way but the opposite.

But all this comes thanks to my efforts because I tried to build something. And He also awakens the beginning of this effort within me, but I must continue it myself, find its sprout, and begin to work from it. This is what is called: “I, the Creator, am the first and the last.”

We ourselves must build the connection between us, this “house,” the place where the Creator will be revealed, the “picture of the Creator,” using our own material. Without this, He has no image at all. I project Him onto myself, onto my desires, onto that part that I can make similar to Him.

And on this desire, as on a foundation, as on a screen (and in spirituality it is indeed called a screen), I begin to see His picture. It begins to appear on this screen like a photograph lowered into a developing solution. This picture that manifests on my screen is called reflected light. And thus I receive two spiritual forces: the screen and the reflected light.

All of this must come from me myself. This is why the necessary time of preparation for entering the spiritual world—“from three to five years”—is required. The time of concealment is the time of my attempts to build this picture. And afterward the spiritual world is revealed; and what it turns out to be in reality is difficult for us to even imagine.
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Question: How do you behave when you realize and feel yourself as worthless?

Answer: You must realize that it comes from the Creator, and thank Him for revealing it, that now, finally, you understand who you are.

From this state, you can advance correctly. It will not allow you to stay in place. Therefore our worst states are actually the most productive.
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From Lesson No.7 Congress in Moldova, 9/8/19

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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.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 10/26/11, Rabash, “You Stand Today, All of You”

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Today, we have come to a state in which millions of people around the world have begun to ask questions: “Why are we suffering? Why do we live? What is the purpose of our life? Does nature have some kind of program in regard to us?”

That is why the science of Kabbalah is now being revealed; it is precisely this science that can provide answers to these questions. Overall, all these answers come down to one thing: Kabbalah reveals a different reality to us.

The science of Kabbalah is a method of revealing the upper reality, i.e., a reality beyond ourselves, beyond what we currently sense. From this, each of us needs to pass through a certain inner barrier that obscures that second half of reality from us in which we already exist even now.

It is as if a light suddenly turns on, and we see that there is something else here. And this is indeed so. Only it is not the light we are used to that turns on, but the upper light, and in it we begin to see another reality that was previously dark, invisible, and imperceptible, namely, the reality of the upper world.

Only then will we understand what is happening in it and all the reasons for what is happening, that is, what our essence is. And already here, in the upper world, we will see that we are souls, not physical bodies, not the animate part that exists in us. We are the part of the human in us that is eternal, perfect and is a divine particle from above.

We are eternal, perfect creations, living in a different reality and in a different form of existence. Our purpose is to ascend and live in the upper, spiritual, eternal world, beyond the limitations of time, movement, and space, as well as of our perception of reality.

And what will happen to this world? For some time, this world will also continue to exist, until we attain the upper reality. And according to the measure of the attainment of the higher degree of the spiritual world, the reality of the lower degree will fade and become less and less discernible until it disappears completely.

Kabbalists say that we must come to this here and now, in this life, in our world. At the same time, nothing should change except the revelation of the upper world for us.
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From a lecture “Kabbalah for the People”  1/4/11

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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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