Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

Actions that Elicit the Surrounding Light

281.02Question: How can I hold on to “There is none else besides Him” when I am engaged in various things that distract and confuse me by bringing either pleasure or suffering?

Answer: First of all, one must believe that all these things are given to me so that through them I will gradually determine that “There is none else besides Him.” This must be the goal.

You should make reminders for yourself, create a system, strict frameworks, so that all of this compels you every 15 or 30 minutes to return to the same state. Everything should mechanically remind you of the Creator. After that, you will already be able to work independently.

Naturally, at first there is no taste in this, but over time it comes. Through these actions, which seem to have “no benefit,” you draw the surrounding light, and it influences you in a general way, so that you remember and constantly remain in this awareness.

Gradually, you come to a state where you feel that you are, at least, no longer in double concealment but in simple, single concealment, where the Creator is constantly present in the background, yet you feel that He is concealed.

With my teacher, Rabash, one could feel that he was never disconnected from the Creator, and this made a very powerful impression.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/26, Rabash, “Who Needs to Know that a Person Withstood the Test?”

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Determining the Direction of One’s Desire

283.02The purpose of creation is to bring a person to a state of absolute goodness and eternal bliss. This is, without question, the Creator’s degree. In order to attain such a state, a person must first of all desire it.

But in order to desire it, while still existing in the opposite state, he must gradually reveal that very opposition within himself, feel more and more deeply how bad it is, and how good it is to possess a desire for spirituality.

All the work on the desire is performed by the light, by the Creator, not by the person himself. Therefore, all he has to do is reveal his true state each time, the state in which he presently exists, from there strive toward the next state, and draw one degree closer to the Creator.

Everything that is required of a person is to determine the direction of his desire, the aim of his aspiration. This is what is called intention (Kavana). The word “Kavana” comes from the Hebrew “Lechaven” (to direct), that is, to determine the direction in which I want to advance.

What does it mean to ask, “What is your intention?” It means: Where are you striving to advance? What do you want to attain? What is your goal? A person needs to determine only this. Everything else is done by the Creator.

The light corrects the Kelim. If necessary, it first spoils them, then corrects them, fills them, and empties them. Through its expansion and departure, the light builds the Kli. The light does everything.

The Kli, however, possesses a kind of point of awareness that enables it to determine and discern the state in which it exists, recognize the evil of its present condition and the state it wishes to attain: what its direction is, what its intention is, in other words, what the next desired place is.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/20/26, Rabash, “The Creator and Israel Went into Exile”

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In the Right Environment

939.02Question: Which criterion can we use to constantly check whether we are in the right environment?

Answer: The right environment is an environment that guides a person’s thoughts and desires to connect with the Creator with maximal force.

The right environment is all my inner qualities relative to my point in the heart, which connects me with the Creator. Everything else in me must contribute to this point of connection with the Creator.

My properties, desires, and aspirations are called my environment. My “I,” which is called “Moses” in me, that is, the point where the formation of the soul begins, can grow only in the right environment.

Rabash writes that there must be an initial state, stages of development of this state, the environment, and stages of development of this environment. If all this works together for the connection with the Creator, optimal conditions are created for the development of the soul.

I have to check which of these four parameters I can influence and which I cannot. It is a pity to waste time, for this is our work. There are many people who waste their breath, unable to see that their pursuits are empty. Of course, they will understand this over time, but it is a shame to make an effort only to realize the mistakes.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/26, Rabash, “What Is ‘Do Not Slight the Blessing of a Layperson’ in the Work?”

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Demand the Group’s Improvement

938.05Question: Why is it necessary to put pressure on the group so that it is more precisely directed toward the goal? What does it mean to put pressure? It seems as though the group is constantly resisting this.

Answer: No, the group simply consists of people just like you. Putting pressure on them is also part of your free choice.

By placing yourself under the influence of your friends, as if standing under a shower so that they may influence you and cleanse you, you must also examine exactly how they are influencing you. Maybe they are being frivolous; maybe you are sitting in the “company of mockers.”

You must constantly demand that the group improve.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that ‘Law and Ordinance’ Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”

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What Should One Expect from the Commandments of the Torah?

533.01Question: What should one expect from the commandments of the Torah?

Answer: A “commandment of the Torah” consists of extracting the concept of the “Torah of life” from the Torah, attaining life itself. Baal HaSulam writes about this in TES (The Study of the Ten Sefirot). He refers not to the study itself, but to its result.

Question: Suppose a person is sweeping the floor in our building or working in the kitchen. Is this considered that he is studying Torah?

Answer: If I do something in our kitchen and intend thereby to attain something in my life, then the desire that arose in me at that moment, multiplied by the good, beneficial thing that I contributed to the group, that is, multiplied by the group’s collective desire to attain spirituality, becomes my own desire.

By serving my friends, I thereby acquire their desires, include myself in them, and then those desires influence me, and direct my own desire into the proper course.

As a result, during the lesson I intend to draw the light of the Torah that reforms from what I study, not to become a great sage or anything else.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that ‘Law and Ordinance’ Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”

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The Force That Separates Us from the Creator

260Question: On one hand, a person feels that they have no strength for the work, and they ask the Creator to give them strength. Yet this is considered pride. On the other hand, they can turn to the group, receive the awareness of the greatness of the Creator from it, and only then turn to Him.

So what is the difference? In both cases, I am turning to the Creator.

Answer: You are not capable of turning to the Creator with the forces you currently possess. The Creator gives you an initial awakening, but with it alone you are unable to see the full depth of the problem or appreciate the greatness of the Creator in its solution. You do not yet have enough inner discernments to turn to Him.

Suppose there is a wealthy man who could solve all your problems, but you cannot bring yourself to ask him because you are under the control of your pride. No matter what, you are incapable of turning to him directly for help. You have such a strong feeling of shame that you would have to overcome yourself completely, yet you are unable to do so.

Such is human nature. A person is prepared to be killed rather than allow his inner “I” to be harmed. This “I” is a part of the eternal; it is his soul, and for its sake he is ready to sacrifice his body. For many people, this inner “I” is far more important than life itself.

For example, there may be someone who would give me a million dollars if I simply asked, yet I am unable to do it. Or there may be someone who could help me establish my life, yet I cannot bring myself to turn to him. We encounter this constantly. It reveals the force of our pride, the force of our inner “I,” the very force that separates us from the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/26, Rabash, “What Is ‘Do Not Slight the Blessing of a Layperson’ in the Work?”

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According to the Opening of One’s Eyes in the Torah

243.04Question: We learned that if a person who studies the Torah directs the proper intention toward their study, they come from the state of Lo Lishma to Lishma (for the sake of the Creator). How does this happen?

Answer: It is said that one does not truly engage in the Torah while in the state of Lo Lishma. If a person remains an egoist, why should they study the Torah? If you are an “animal,” then live like an animal. But if a person uses the light in the Torah to correct themself and return to the source, then they truly can engage in the Torah.

However, for one who studies without such an aim, everything happens in the opposite way. Their eyes become blind, light becomes darkness, and darkness becomes light.

Question: If a person strives only for the Creator, is it called Lishma?

Answer: What does it mean to say, “I want the Creator”? What do I want to gain from that? What is it that you want from the Creator? Do you want to bring Him contentment? If a person desires to bestow upon the Creator, this is called Lishma, for the sake of the Creator.

This is determined according to the opening of one’s eyes in the Torah. If the Creator is revealed to you, and as a result of your aspiration toward Him you are in adhesion with Him, and if, in accordance with your desire to bestow upon Him, He fills you with His presence and His light, then it means that, through the equivalence of form, your desire truly has the intention to bestow upon Him.

But if you have not yet reached such a state, then you are only saying that you wish to bestow upon the Creator. In reality, you are deceiving yourself.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that ‘Law and Ordinance’ Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”

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I Am Not the Master of My Desire

232.08Question: How will it help me if I turn my Hisaron (deficiency) into a request?

Answer: We are constantly making requests. Whenever a need (Hisaron) arises, we ask. A person’s desire is called prayer. The desire that is in my heart is the prayer, because my heart is connected directly to the Creator, without any intermediaries.

Whatever I feel at any given moment (a desire to rest, to eat, to steal, to fall in love) are all immediately felt by the Creator, and accordingly, in the form of a response, the direction of my desires is corrected by various means: either internally—through what the Creator does within my heart—or externally.

In general, through both the internal and the external system surrounding me, the Creator gradually teaches me which desire is the correct one. So where is my work? It is in independently searching for which desires are correct and which aspirations are true. And when I attain those genuine desires that are in my heart, this is called that I pray.

A prayer is what I feel, what I desire, without having any ability to control it. The desire was created before me. Even before I begin to feel it, investigate it, study it, distinguish it from the others, and give it some name, it already exists within me.

The creature is the desire to receive. Therefore, I am unable to change it. I can only reveal it, clarify what it is, and how correct it is with respect to the purpose of creation. Then, accordingly, I arrange various external means for myself, using every possible aid (the group, the books, the teacher) so that this desire, which seems to me not to be properly directed toward the purpose of creation, will change.

However, this can be done only by means of external efforts and not by entering my heart and beginning to turn some little key or screwdriver there. That, I cannot do. I am not the master of my desire to receive.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that “Law and Ordinance” Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”

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Correct Your Soul

238.02As we engage in spiritual work, we increasingly identify all kinds of states that we were completely indifferent to before; we simply did not perceive the states with our undeveloped sixth sense.

Now that the sixth sense within each of us is beginning to develop, even if it has not yet reached the threshold of perception when it is fully open to spirituality, we can detect certain changes in it. It swells from the presence of a vast array of emerging revelations and distinctions.

This is called the soul, something we literally develop through our actions. One’s free choice lies only in willingly developing the soul, and a person is obliged to make this choice on their own.

Light from above will not come to you unless you want it to come and correct your soul, that is, to give it inner definitions (Avhanot) and endow you with sensitivity that allows you to experience the spiritual world.

This light will send you suffering so you will feel more and more lack in spirituality. But it will never correct you unless you first raise a prayer, unless you first ask to perceive spirituality, get closer to it, and subsequently become equal to it in qualities and adhere to it.

The soul cannot develop without a person’s own intense work. What does the work consist of? It consists of request, called prayer, the raising of MAN, in response to which the surrounding light corrects the soul. To the extent of your correction, according to the properties that are born in your soul, against this, you begin to perceive the properties of the Creator.

If you have corrected any one of the 620 properties of the soul, you feel the Creator in that corrected property. By fulfilling the commandment, performing an action corresponding to the corrected property, you thereby connect with the Creator, feel that He fills your property, i.e., the light fills the Kli—the corrected part of the soul.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that “Law and Ordinance” Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”

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After All the Verifications

237Question: How will I have the confidence that I can disconnect from the Creator and act on my own if He does everything?

Answer: The fact is, you disconnect from the Creator only in acting as if you are the one doing something rather than Him. If you, like a horse under a rider, do not make some movement, you will never know how you differ from Him (the rider). So you have to say, “I am taking action!”

When you act, you begin to feel the difference between your desire and His desire, and so you begin to know yourself and Him.

After you have know yourself, attained Him, been in a struggle, accused, doubted, and yet revealed that this is good and made corrections, you come to a state in which, based on what you have done and experienced, you say: “There is none else besides Him!” But not before you have not done anything yet, but just started checking.

Now, after all the verifications, you say, “There is none else besides Him.” This means that you have adopted and copied all His actions in yourself. You definitely make a movement like Him not because He somehow makes it in you, but because you accept this movement willingly, as if you are doing it with Him. This is called the desire of the one getting clothed, and the desire of the one who is clothing.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/26, Rabash, “Who Needs to Know that a Person Withstood the Test?”

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