Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

When a Person Crosses the Machsom

504When a person crosses the Machsom, Kabbalah ceases to be merely a science for him. At that point, by looking into the books, he can advance quickly; he understands what is happening to him, invokes his subsequent states, and becomes acquainted with the spiritual world in which he truly exists.

For us, however, it is only a “special quality,” a Segula (remedy) contained in the books of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

What happens to a person when he crosses the Machsom? He begins to see the forces standing behind him and behind everyone else. Moreover, a single force manifests in everything.

He does not yet perceive this force as the Creator. He simply sees that everything unfolds in harmony. Every person acts as a particle within a common field, within a common thought, that moves precisely and carries out what this field and this thought commands: whatever needs to be actualized and realized at that particular moment.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/26, Sitrin Convention, Sukkot 2003

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How Do You Go About Making Clarifications?

231.04Question: How can one engage in making clarifications while in a state of uplifted spirits?

Answer: Are you saying that if you receive inspiration from the group, it will interfere with your clarifications and self-analysis? Why? Do you think you can analyze only when you are in a state of depression? You should know that in a bad state, there is no analysis, you are only tormenting yourself!

Clarification occurs mainly when the light acts upon you, and you begin to sense the difference between it and yourself. The group will never disconnect you from your self-analysis. On the contrary, be in the greatest possible upliftment at all times. Do not worry, the clarifications will come.

If you fall into a certain thought or become immersed in self-analysis, it will happen only for a moment. And that will be enough. This is what is called “shortening the time.”

You seem to think that analysis means falling into a descent for several days and being unable to get out of it, realizing the depth of your fall and the terrible state you have uncovered within yourself.

No! It can happen in such a way that it takes place within a single moment and you will not even feel it. In spirituality, you do not even know how or when all of this will come together.

Never worry about attaining a bad state! You should care only about constantly being in a state of ascent and in thought of the Creator. The clarification will come from this.

The light clarifies the Kli (vessel) and gives it the ability to conduct an analysis.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/24/26, Rabash, “Who Testifies to a Person”

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Connecting the Qualities of the Creator and the Creation

571.01Question: What does the correct connection between the right and left lines mean?

Answer: Correct connection consists of taking the qualities of the Creator and the qualities of creation so that, based on them, creation can attain the Creator. What happens at the end of correction? The entire right line and the entire left line, and everything that is revealed in the process of attaining them, become united into one. What am I doing now? Now I use them to the extent that I am able to, to begin the correction and ask for it.

How is this done? Baal HaSulam says that you must connect yourself, your qualities (“Who am I and what am I?”), with the qualities of the Creator (“Who is He and what is He?”). In other words, your present action should be directed toward bringing these two together.

Start doing this now and observe what your inner resistance is like, the explosions that arise within you. This is how the forces for prayer are created within you. The fact that today you cannot connect these two lines, but you nevertheless make an effort to connect them, that itself is a prayer.

Prayer is not at all the state in which you have already connected everything: everything is, thank God, fine, and now you are in control of the situation. All these actions merely precede the prayer.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/26, Rabash, “What Is Do Not Add and Do Not Take Away in the Work?”

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The Power of the Surrounding Light

938.03We must create a group in which each of us will inevitably become impressed by the laws of the upper world. We need to brainwash ourselves, so to speak, completely artificially, understanding that we do not want this, but doing it nevertheless, like a child who repeats everything after an adult.

This is called going above reason, above oneself. It is impossible to cross the Machsom with our egoistic qualities. Only by artificially becoming similar to the spiritual world can we create an environment in which it is as though we are already there.

When on this side of the Machsom we create this environment through playing, to the same extent we draw the surrounding light upon ourselves and it pulls us into the spiritual world. There, we attain the revelation of the Creator. As soon as we feel the upper one, we immediately want to be included in Him and become completely similar to Him.

In other words, all our freewill consists of placing ourselves under the influence of the surrounding light. And this is what we must do each time.

After the Machsom, at every spiritual degree, we will have to evoke the illumination from the higher spiritual degree upon ourselves, from the AHP of the upper one, which will act upon us as the surrounding light and pull us upward.

The light as if draws us into the next, more advanced state in which the Creator is revealed. And there, we are already under His authority and become like Him.

In other words, the light builds the Kli, corrects it, and carries out absolutely all the changes within the Kli. We only need, like a child, to adjust ourselves so that the light can pull us inside. But this is our action: it is artificial, acted out, directed against our egoism, and we must understand this and act accordingly.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/26, Sitrin Convention, Sukkot 2003

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The Group—the Commonality Between Us

938.02The group is something spiritual that exists between us. It is our common conception, our common thought, our common idea. However, the group is not simply my attitude toward each person but also my attitude toward what will manifest within us as the Creator.

If we begin to relate to one another in this way, a feeling will arise between us that will be called the Creator. Then we will feel the light, the good attitude, and this is how the Creator will manifest within us.

We will see that He is there, within this group, in the relationships between us. And by entering into these relationships, I draw closer to Him and unite with Him to such an extent that I lose my “I.” This is what is called crossing the Machsom. It is as though you jump over to the other side, while your “I” (egoism) remains outside, on the other side.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/26, Sitrin Convention, Sukkot 2003

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The Group is a Force Leading to the Attainment of the Creator

938.03Question: Is the group a law just like the Creator is?

Answer: The way a person imagines the group and the Creator is how it is for him. The Creator is not something outside of us. It is the way we imagine this property.

Question: The Creator is a property of bestowal. So what is a group?

Answer: The Creator is a property of bestowal, and a group is people like you whom you perceive as an example. In some ways, as far as your life and existence are concerned, they serve as an example to you.

Because the Creator is concealed and you cannot imagine Him no matter how hard you try, you try to build an image but cannot.

Instead, you decide to make the group a binding force for you, a higher force that will lead you to the attainment of the Creator who is concealed and inaccessible to your imagination. If you could picture Him, you would not need a group.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/26, Rabash, “Go Forth from Your Land”

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Joy Is the Result of Good Deeds

293.1Question: How can I check whether my effort is not only quantitative but also qualitative?

Answer: What can be an indication that I have made a correct, qualitative effort? It is said: “The result of good deeds is joy.”

If a person comes to joy after making an effort and truly giving everything he has, then the joy he feels comes from the effort itself. Not from what he receives as a result of it, but from the fact that he was given the opportunity to make the effort, that he makes it, and that he knows it is having an effect.

Whether I see it or not, it works. Nothing in creation ever disappears. Baal HaSulam says that even the suffering of a tiny flea struggling to obtain its food also joins the collective suffering that builds the Kli of the final correction. This is because the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels all must become included in one Kli.

But this should bring us to joy: that we are truly on the right track, at least to some degree of awareness of the goal, and that we feel our moments are not passing in vain. And the result of this is joy that we are nevertheless connected with Godliness.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/26, Rabash, “What Does It Mean that Oil Is Called “Good Deeds” in the Work?”

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What Our Chosenness Consists Of

947Question: During Sukkot, we must strengthen our strength of purpose and focus on it. Does this mean that the exchange of Reshimot (spiritual records) must reach its peak during this period?

Answer: We still have to go through many states. In principle, these states should serve only to connect us for the sake of one goal. In other words, we need only think: “We are all together—toward the Creator!” That is all. This is the only thing. That is why we chose our slogan: “We are all one Kli!”

If we constantly think about this and focus on it, then I hope that many will feel it clearly, while the rest will feel it subtly. This will be a sensation of being “above the Machsom.” It will create the conditions within us that will enable us to advance further, at least during the coming months until Passover. Or perhaps at Passover we will add something more (some now and others later), but it will be a group on an entirely different level.

Everything has been given to us for this purpose. We see how all of it comes to us from above. We even feel how we are being pulled. Whether we want it or not, today we are already being regarded above as people fulfilling their duty. And if we speak about what it means to be the chosen people, we can say that we are the chosen people. We have been chosen today (and this is what “being chosen” means) in order to raise ourselves and then raise everyone else.

There are people who, practically speaking, are capable and ready today, have exerted sufficient effort, and can at least sense these states, pass through them, and then, after some time, actually realize them.

There can be no leaps. Everything depends on how much you accelerate the events. In any case, you must pass through everything; otherwise, you will not have a Kli. You must scrutinize everything, feel it, and live through it inwardly. Of course, it is possible to live through this in a second. There are states in which a single second already gives you an impression.

But you must pass through all these states. Therefore, those who have more or less passed through them are ready today, while the others will sense them from a distance and imagine them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson for the holiday of Sukkot, 9/25/26

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Sukkot: Seven Days of Correction

213After Yom Kippur and before the beginning of Sukkot, there is a preparation for correction that begins on the first day of the holiday of Sukkot. During Sukkot, we build a special, unique, somewhat auxiliary Kli (vessel) for ourselves. That is why we sit in a hut, a Sukkah, which we build from specific natural materials.

The walls do not matter much, because we erect them artificially. But the roof must be made from what is called “Psolet, Goren ve Yekev,” the refuse of vineyards, fields, and plantations: straw, hay, palm branches, or similar vegetation.

This is not merely a custom. All of this is based on spiritual roots. A person builds a temporary dwelling for seven days because at this point only the ZAT, only the VAK, only part of our soul, the egoistic desire, is being corrected. The correction of the remaining three higher Sefirot, Keter, Hochma, and Bina, will be added on Purim, when we arrive at Purim through Hanukkah.

What is Purim? It is the reception of the entire light into a completely corrected Kli. It corresponds to Gmar Tikkun, the final correction and fulfillment. In contrast to this, when the Kli is completely empty but ready for correction, there is a state “like Purim,” “Ki Purim,” which is Kippur, Yom Kippur.

During Sukkot, for seven days we gather in the shack, which is made according to special rules and specifications. In the Talmud, which was written in the third century CE, there is an entire tractate devoted to this subject, aptly named Sukkah. When the Temple was destroyed, in order that people would not forget how to observe the laws, everything was recorded by the sages of the Great Assembly (Anshei Knesset HaGedolah).

There was such an assembly consisting of seventy great Kabbalists. It was a kind of supreme institution called Knesset HaGedola. “Knesset” means an assembly, while “Gedola” comes from the word “great,” from the word “Hochma”. This means “great” not in width, which corresponds to Bina, but in height, which corresponds to Hochma.

They wrote down and specified what the Sukkah should be like and the internal state it corresponds to. The tractate says that the distance between the walls must not exceed three handbreadths (Shlosha Tefachim).

Why? Because when Reshimot emerge from the Kli, when the Kli receives and then the light exits it, this light ascends to the upper and manifests in the lower. Then it rises even higher and manifests again in the lower, but the third time it is no longer felt at all. In other words, when passing to the third level, the connection between the lower and the upper completely disappears. Therefore, a distance greater than three Tefachim is forbidden.

Thus, in our world we have a reflection of how a person prepares such a Kli within himself in which there is no interruption of more than three levels between the exiting and entering lights. In other words, a person wants by every possible means to remain connected with the light. Under these conditions, he builds his inner Kli and begins to receive the surrounding light (Ohr Makif) into it.

This Ohr Makif shines upon him throughout seven stages, while it purifies within him the seven Sefirot: Hesed, Gevura, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. Therefore, each evening, while sitting in the Sukkah, we say: “Today we invite Abraham into our Sukkah,” because Abraham corresponds to Hesed, this is his quality. “Today we invite Moses into the Sukkah, Joseph… David.”

In other words, each day corresponds to a particular spiritual degree, a particular spiritual quality that we are correcting in our soul. This is what each day of the holiday of Sukkot symbolizes.

By correcting all these seven Sefirot during the holiday of Sukkot, we receive only VAK, a small illumination of the light of Hochma. This is the light that can exist in a Kli that is not yet completely corrected.

Then, after Sukkot, on the eighth day, the remaining light enters us. This is called Simchat Torah , “Rejoicing of the Torah.” It is called rejoicing because when one drinks wine (Ohr Hochma), the light of Hochma enters. “Torah” comes from the word “Ohr,” “light,” or Ora, “illumination,” the general light that fills the Kli.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson for the holiday of Sukkot, 9/25/26

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Justifying Everything that Happens to Us

232.1Question: We have said that a person’s work for the Creator is something imagined. Then what does the article “There is None Else Besides Him” mean when it says that everything that happens to a person comes from the Creator?

Answer: When talking about spiritual work, we say that at best we raise MAN upwards. But even in corporeal work, all our desires rise upward.

For example, I am thirsty. This desire is sensed above. If something hurts, even the unconscious desire for it to stop hurting rises up too.

What does “rises up” mean? It is connected to the Creator, since in essence, all desires, all pains, and all causes of something good or bad come from Him. Even before something happens to me, He sends it. Therefore, He automatically feels my reaction. He caused it, and He knows in advance how I will react.

As a result of my reaction, a mechanism activates that affects me again and causes a new response to the previous one. I get different signals from Him all the time, and I always react to them somehow, whether consciously or not, whether I think it came from Him or not. I am constantly receiving some kind of influences from Him that pass through me. That is how I grow and advance.

I feel some things intensely and others less so. There are things I directly attribute to the Creator and there are things I am unsure if they came from Him, or I simply do not think about them. I begin to add intention to some influences and perceive them as coming from Him for my benefit, but sometimes I cannot justify Him and think He is bad.

When do I think He is bad? When I disagree with what is happening and start shouting back, “Why are You doing this to me?” The righteous agrees with everything that comes from above. He has been corrected so much that he is similar in form to what comes from the Creator and always feels goodness.

It is known that “There is None Else Besides Him,” and everything happening to me now comes from Him; whether I react or not does not matter. Everything that happens to me now and until the end of correction (Gmar Tikun), the entire system works automatically.

We say that nothing changes in the actual events. “The world follows its course.” You have a path, and you must go through all the actions from this moment to the end of correction because your Kelim (vessels) are broken and must be gradually corrected until everything is completely corrected. The only thing up to you is the intention you add to what is happening, how you feel about what you are going through.

This is precisely our work: to be righteous and justify everything that happens to us. To the extent you can justify these actions, you move past them. But if you cannot justify something, you linger in that state until you gradually understand it more deeply, with all the causes and effects. But as soon as you can justify it, you will immediately move on to the next action, to the next state.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘Every Day They Will Be as New in Your Eyes,’ in the Work?”

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