It is written in the Midrash that after the Creator created the nations and they spread across the earth, He approached each of them and offered them the Torah, hoping that someone would want to accept it. But no one except the people of Israel wanted to accept it.

What is so undesirable about the Torah that no one wanted to accept it? Does it contain not only good but something bad as well. Otherwise, why would the Creator have approached everyone?

A person has only one desire called “Israel,” which corresponds to something called the “Torah.” Does this imply that Israel needs the Torah because it is inherently flawed? As it is written: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” But does only Israel have an evil inclination while the nations of the world do not?

Rabash writes that it is specifically Israel that is egoistic and opposite to the Creator and not the nations of the world. It is Israel that needs the Torah. Understanding this, Israel needs the Torah because the Torah is the force of correction. Anyone who feels that they lack the force of correction is called Israel.

This Hisaron (deficiency) comes from above. A person does not have to do the Creator’s work or create desires within themselves. But they must feel which desires are speaking within them at any given moment and work precisely with those desires. They must not remain indifferent and passive, but must use the means called the light of the Torah as much as possible.

To bring Israel, that is, those who want to correct themselves, to the goal (and here this also refers to the nations of the world who acquire the qualities of Israel and also desire correction), the right desires must gradually be developed within them. This happens only with the help of the light.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘He Who Is Without Sons,’ in the Work?”

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Question: In the article “What Is the Work of Man, in the Work that Is Attributed to the Creator?”, Rabash writes about awe before the Creator. Should we fear Him?

Answer: Who does not feel fear? Only those with no reason have no fear or those who have never really encountered life, who have not received blows, experienced suffering, or felt any limitations placed on their desires. But anyone who has already felt a boundary and knows there is a limitation feel a certain sense of fear.

We have a Kli, the desire to receive, and accordingly, there is pleasure. A Kli is created by pleasure, light, and corresponds exactly to the light in quantity and quality.

The Kli is the desire to enjoy. If the desire to receive feels it cannot enjoy because something restricts its ability to fill itself, fear and awe arise from this, from the faintest sense of some boundary to the greatest fear.

Fear results from the emptiness of the Kli. The feeling of an empty Kli can go in two directions: fear of an empty Kli either in receiving for my own sake or in my intention to give.

Therefore, there are two types of awe. A trembling directed at myself, at all the pleasures of this world, whether I have them or not (such as family, health, money, honor, and so on). And fear for the world to come, whether I will attain it. Sometimes fear for this world outweighs fear for the world to come, and then fear for the world to come is discarded.

Sometimes a person develops such fear for the next world that they are ready to give up this whole world to ensure the next. So, he goes to a monastery and subjects himself to various forms of suffering.

Ultimately, a person always seeks to overcome a certain fear, whether it is fear of this world or the next world. But both are sensations of this world experienced in the present. It only seems to the person that they are thinking about the next world. In reality, they are not. What they must overcome is their current negative sensation, a sensation they perceive to be linked to the future.

There is also awe about whether I bestow, how do I bestow, and how I fill my Kli of bestowal. In other words, am I filling the Creator’s Kli? Although it is completely unclear to me what His Kli is, because I can only gauge it through the sensation of my own Kli. To the extent I understand what bestowal is, to the extent I realize and feel what I am doing in relation to the Creator, to this extent I have a Kli of bestowal, and I fill it.

That is, this is also my Kli, my inner feeling. As for what is going on outside, I know nothing. All these feelings are inside us, and they all exist in the present, not in the past or the future.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/26, Rabash, “What Is the Work of Man, in the Work that Is Attributed to the Creator?”

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Question: Sometimes a desire is called Makom (place) and sometimes Ish (person). What is the difference between the two?

Answer: We can speak about this in terms of the internal and external. Sometimes we speak about an entire world (which, in essence, is a single person); at other times, we refer to things that are more internal or more external. For example, when one passage speaks about a Beit Knesset (synagogue), and another speaks about a person in a Beit Knesset, it is clear that these refer to states of the point in the heart in relation to all the other desires.

The point in the heart works in such a way that all the other desires gather around it, whether animalistic or human, and eventually even the desires of the Klipot. All of them become like one bundle directed toward a single goal, like the point of Moses that gathers all the other desires toward one goal and leads them forward.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/26, Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”

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Question: What does “a clear decision” mean? Aren’t a decision and a desire the same thing?

Answer: A decision is in the heart. It is not simply words written on paper and stuck to a wall. It is said: “Write them upon the tablets of your heart.”

Question: But each person has a different character. How, then, can a unified desire be created?

Answer: What does this have to do with character? Suppose that we, 80 people, want to build a house. Does it matter what character each person has and what problems each one has? We are all focused together on one goal.

Comment: But one imagines a palace and another imagines something else.

My Response: It does not matter what each person imagines and what each envisions. We, of course, cannot compare the states, intentions, and internal analysis made by each of us. And in general, it is not the group that should do this; it is each person’s personal matter. But we want each of us to participate in this to the extent that they can.

Certainly, no more is demanded of a person than what was initially given to them from above from birth. One person can, for now, think only for one moment a day; another, after a month of study is entirely immersed in it; a third might engage in yet another way.

One perceives more with the mind, another with the heart. For some it may feel like an act of self-coercion, while others feel a sense of inspiration. We are not discussing the specific, personal states of each one; we are talking about a collective effort without delving into particulars; it does not matter in what state each of us is.

Perhaps for one person, the greatest investment they can make, the greatest sacrifice they are capable of, is that today they will sit for ten minutes and listen to me attentively, while for the rest of the time they will be as if dead. For them, this will be a great effort. Whereas for another, studying all day might require only a standard, routine level of effort.

The effort is what counts; therefore, in this case, the first contributes more than the second. We cannot check these things, and it is not we who should do so at all. Moreover, we are forbidden to speak with one another about personal states.

We must strive for the unity of desires, not by speaking about how each of us relates to the Creator, but simply speaking about the Creator Himself rather than our individual relationship to Him. In other words, we should speak about the importance of the goal rather than where I am now in relation to it.

Therefore, one must make the friend’s words important to you. Invest as much effort in it as you invest in your child, and you will see how important it will be to you. “Buy yourself a friend.”

Set the goal to be at the lesson as a single group, with a single intention, and a single unified effort.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/26, Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”

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Question: What is Ohr Makif, surrounding light?

Answer: Surrounding light is the light that intends to enter the Guf (body), that is, the Kli (vessel), and clothe itself in it when it is corrected by the screen. The Masach, the screen, is the intention to bestow.

If currently lack the intention to bestow, then the light is outside of me and shines upon me from the place where I should be when I have such an intention. What should I do so that it shines upon me?

Surrounding light exists for everyone in this world, a place is reserved for each person near the Creator, on the highest degree. How can I draw this illumination that is above the Parsa to myself? Only by creating something similar to the state I will eventually be in above the Parsa within myself.

There, above the Parsa, I am connected with that light, with that source that I study, that is, with the other souls, with the Creator, as it is said: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” What can I do here, below the Parsa, so that it will be in some way similar to that state, and I would attract this illumination to myself?

Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot” that one who studies and strives to understand what he is studying, even if he does not understand, thereby attracts the surrounding light. Because knowledge is the inner filling of the surrounding light, that is, the state in which a person is there together with it, for Israel and the Torah are one.

It does not matter that for now I imagine adhesion according to my level; but it, too, pertains to that eternal, great state, and if by means of what I study, I want to come to adhesion with the Creator, through this I attract the surrounding light.

If all the souls are there together as one body, as one man with one heart, then here, below, I must do this together with several friends, and this, too, will be a similarity. That is, one must make the state below as similar as possible to what is above.

So we make an effort and somehow build this similarity. But where will I get the feeling of the importance of this action? The group does not merely exist so that I can sit with the friends and contemplate this state.

The group is meant to give me awareness of the importance of being in this state; that is, first I must hear that this is the most important goal from them, that there is nothing else in life besides it, and that the whole world and all of life are given to me only for this.

This is what I must hear from them instead of conversations about fashion, about football, and a thousand other things. Because the feeling of importance that I have will never be enough. There are, of course, special people who can manage without this; there have been such cases, but we are not among them. We are people who must make this effort with the help of the group and carry out our task, the task that all of humanity begins to undertake from this day onward.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/26, Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”

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Question: How can we connect the various processes described in the Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) to my own personal need, to what I specifically lack?

Answer: In the actions described in TES, you study what happens within you. For example, Nukva rising to Aba ve Ima is a part of the desire to receive that is being corrected by the forces of bestowal of Bina, the upper force that gives this desire, connecting to it the intention to bestow. This is how you should view every action.

But we are not going to interpret TES in this way, analyzing what this particular desire to receive does in this specific action, what type of desire it is, what correction it receives, and so on. We are not capable of doing that.

When you ascend to this degree, you will experience all this within yourself; you will feel what is happening to you. Then, as you read TES, the actions described in it will arise within you.

Or, conversely, you will discover in TES what is happening within you. This process is called “man’s soul will teach him.” You will feel all these actions within it.

However, for now, you are merely reading about how these actions take place within your soul, while you yourself remain in an unconscious state, unaware of them. And so, without feeling these actions but wishing to attain the sensation of them, you strive toward them and catch a faint illumination from them. This is what is meant by the surrounding light coming to you.

In reality, it neither comes nor goes; it does not go anywhere at all. It is simply your aspiration toward the state in which you will feel a certain action that gives you an illumination from it. It is as though you perceive this state from afar. This is what it means when we say that the surrounding light comes to you. Gradually, this light sanctifies and purifies you and brings you a little closer. And then a little closer still, and a little more.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/26, Rabash, “What Are Commandments that a Person Tramples with His Feet”

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Between the Creator and the creation, there is an action that can be attributed to a person; it is called awe. If a person is rewarded with it, they receive everything else from above.

Everything has already been prepared above and is literally ready to pour down upon a person, but only to the extent that they have awe. Abundance, perfection, eternity, goodness, and pleasure—everything that has been conceived and prepared is waiting for them. All that is missing is the Kli known as awe.

Rabash calls this Kli a blessing (Bracha) through which abundance, reflected light, and the screen (Masach) come from above. Opposite this stands the Sitra Achra (the impure force or Klipa), which present an interesting dynamic. The Sitra Achra is not interested in merely receiving, since this is not its root.

Merely receiving is a desire created by the Creator; yet, an equivalent also exists in holiness opposite it, because one always exists opposite the other. The nature of the Sitra Achra is to steal, to derive pleasure specifically from stealing.

While working in various places, I have often seen someone bring work from home to do during his regular working hours. Then he enjoys himself twice over: he does not do his job and, at the same time, does something for himself. This adds flavor, as the saying goes, “Stolen water is sweeter.” What is the difference, after all? It is the same water. Water is water. But when you transfer it from one domain to another, an additional pleasure appears.

There is a joke about an Italian princess who, sitting on a balcony and eating ice cream, says, “It is a pity this is not a sin. If it were also a sin, the pleasure would be many times greater.”

We see that theft is a special concept. It is a transfer from one domain to another, originating in the upper root, where the shattering and mixing of the Kelim (the desires) took place. Therefore, the work becomes twofold: to leave one domain and enter another. This contains an additional measure of the abundance that the creation must reveal.

If I receive into my Kli in the ordinary way, what enters it is the light of Nefesh. But if I take something out of one domain and forcibly transfer it into another, working against the former domain, this contributes to the expansion of the lights to the level of NRNHY. This is the essence of the difference between a robber, a thief, and someone who simply takes. A great deal is contained in these concepts.

Just as the Sitra Achra derives pleasure from “snatching” something from holiness, there is also a commandment to steal from a gentile. This sounds very strange. If you say this phrase to someone without explaining it, it is unclear how to interpret it.

The commandment to steal from a gentile means transferring something from one domain to another. This works in both directions, because the shattering and mixing of the Kelim, their inclusion in one another, took place.

One could say that the very concept of intention arose from this. What matters is no longer what I want to receive into this Kli, but how I receive it, in what form I transfer, extract, and draw in what I want to have in my Kli. If I truly receive it by taking it out of the Sitra Achra, then there is holiness in this. But if I simply want to fill my Kli, then this is not even the Sitra Achra; it is still within the boundaries of our world. This is not yet called holiness.

In other words, two systems must exist—holiness and Klipa—so that, precisely through opposing one another, each reveals its own spiritual measure. If we attained the lights without extracting them from the Sitra Achra, they would be small lights, NRNHY de Nefesh. But because we extract them from the domain of impurity and forcibly transfer them into holiness, NRNHY de NRNHY is revealed in them.

This is the essence of theft. It is a very important concept in spirituality. Theft corresponds to the sin of Adam. The sin made it possible to enter the NRNHY of the impure forces, and afterward the possibility arose to extract from there and be rewarded with the complete light of NRNHY of holiness.

From this, we can understand what Rabash writes in the article “What Action of a Person in Spiritual Work Is Attributed to the Creator,” that is, which action is attributed to the Creator and which to the person. A person’s intention to bestow upon the Creator despite the struggle with the Sitra Achra is his action.

To know the measure of bestowal, one must first become thoroughly acquainted with the forces opposite to it. Then, through these forces, to the extent that a person extracts from them the ability to bestow, he builds his own bestowal. In other words, there is a double gain here.

This is the central idea: how one thing is acquired at the expense of another. Thanks to the Klipa, we acquire the ability to work independently and ultimately attain the highest NRNHY.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/26, Rabash, “What Is the Work of Man, in the Work that Is Attributed to the Creator?”

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When I begin to examine my internal system and the external system outside of me, and how I might use the external system to control the inner system, I discover that, apart from the external force acting upon me, I have no other point of contact with my own development.

Then I realize the necessity of a group (a small, limited, united environment) that remains under my influence and control that allows me to analyze my states, my level of development, and the nature of the influences on me.

Then I think about what, in fact, I can determine in this environment. After all, I need to develop from my current state to a more advanced one, to rise a little above my current level. This means I will gain more power, a greater form of giving than I have now.

To imagine a greater form of bestowal, I cannot take an example from myself or my environment; I need an example from what in Kabbalah is termed the AHP of the upper. In other words, the Creator Himself must enter the picture I imagine and show me this form, just as in our world the big one shows the little one what to do.

Then the little one carries out the action, and through this process begins to understand the big one. Thus, we ultimately arrive at an understanding, an intellect, that emerges as a result of action.

So, there must be:

• I,
• the world, or the group, friends, and
• the Creator as the Giver of true form.

It is in accordance with this form that I structure the group. Neither I nor my environment understand or can reason about what our corrected form is. I am beginning to understand what it means to give more than I do now. And this is something new that I did not have.

Here you can ask: “You have received this understanding from above, but you said that your next form, in fact, already exists inside you, encoded in your gene. All you need from the outside is strength.” This next form exists in a broken form in a Reshimo, and to identify this Reshimo, you must see what it should be in its corrected form.

This form exists inside you, in your genes, so you can recognize what the Creator is communicating to you from the outside. We can only perceive from the outside what we have internal prerequisites for. If I have a certain awareness of the meaning of something inside me, and I see a corresponding external phenomenon, then I understand it.

For example, I once got a blow. Now, when I see someone else get a blow, I understand what it means, and I can imagine what they are feeling right now, how it affects them, what accompanies it, and what it leads to. After all, I have already gone through it; it is recorded in me. However, the form in which this happens to him does not necessarily have to be inside me.

Thus, the Reshimot we have inside, in the seed, in the kernel, in the soul, are not yet enough to give me a picture, an image of how I should look in each particular state. This is why I need the Creator to give me what is called a “picture of the Creator” before my eyes, and each time He shows me some semblance of a higher stage than mine.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/26, Rabash, “Rosh Hashanah”

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Question: What should our approach be toward a friend in the group that seems to be showing disregard for you or others? How can we elevate him, the group, and the goal in our own eyes?

Answer: Our teachers wrote extensively about how we should relate to our environment. I do not think there is a Kabbalist who has not written about this. However, they offered only brief guidelines, either because these matters were self-evident to them or because other writings on the subject already existed.

Moreover, writing was expensive—where could one even get paper? Rabash told me what a challenge that was. Today, of course, we have paper in abundance. Nevertheless, we see that each of the Kabbalists touched on this subject in one way or another.

When we perceive our environment as something indispensable for advancing toward spirituality, many questions arise. We encounter a thousand different situations, and I do not think it is possible to provide a prescription for every single one. However, based on everything the Kabbalists have written and the principles they have established, it should be clear to us how to respond to one phenomenon or another.

You are asking about a friend who shows disregard for others. If this is someone who has always been together with us, but now I suddenly notice that he is acting dismissively, he may be undergoing a crisis.

In that case, I must help him. I should gather several other friends and take care of him as I would care for someone who had fallen from the tenth floor and lost spiritual consciousness. He is sick, he is unconscious, and I must somehow help him continue on his path from this state until he recovers.

However, if this state has become permanent for him, and he prefers various social circles that are completely contrary to our spirit; if he comes here with different opinions and wants to instill ideas in us that are not found in the books we consider holy (primarily the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash), then that is the end of it!
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/26, Rabash, “What Are “Blessing” and “Curse” in the Work?”

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A person arrives to the desire to become like the Creator through their own inner development. But if the group discusses this and begins to value it, they thereby evoke a collective surrounding light. This influences everyone, and makes each individual more sensitive.

There is no need to actively exert force from within the group. If the group focuses its attention on these details of perception, the individual, through the general illumination from above that the group evokes, naturally gains heightened sensitivity to them.

For instance, suppose we decide to raise the level of awareness of the importance of a particular matter within the group, for example, the idea that everyone, without exception, start a family. We would not pressure the bachelors; we would simply discuss the topic in a positive, light, framing it as an essential standard for everyone, something absolutely necessary, and so on.

You don’t address them directly or pressure them, nothing of the sort. You will find that they will not be able to remain here; they will either leave or get married.

I am not suggesting we actually do this; it is only a neutral example. They will not be able to remain here because the opinion of the group, combine with the light from above that we have drawn upon us in by focusing on this specific aspect, would exert such an influence that they will immediately see everything clearly.

Or, suppose we elevate a certain property relating to the group or to the Creator to the greatest height possible for us. You will see how the entire group’s sensitivity to that quality intensifies. No punishments are needed here. A person will feel an internal fear of being left behind. The group exerts pressure.

Unfortunately, for now, we have yet to establish and demand adherence to some of the most crucial principles that ought to be literally burning within the group.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/26, Rabash, “Go Forth from Your Land”

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