Relations between friends must be businesslike and directed only toward correction. This is how we test the group. No matter how many disturbances we are still destined to encounter, can we turn them into something useful? This is the greatness of the group.

And to what extent we will be able to receive numerous disturbances and turn them into strength depends on how we all resist these disturbances and help one another.

And all of this is in the mind. Of course, I may perform various material actions, but ultimately all these things lie within, because they build a spiritual vessel within us, which is no longer something material.

We are speaking about thoughts through which we increase desires that connect together, pass from one to another, and then all of us receive even more of these desires, and each one receives them from the other also in the form of a disturbance until he attaches them to himself. In short, each time it is work on attention, which is called intention.

As it is said: “A commandment without intention is like a body without a soul.” Thus, clarification means that a person must be sensitive to this each time. Everything comes only from inner attention to where my heart and mind are right now, on which point I am focused.

It is as if I am moving the beam of a flashlight from one thing to another, examining within the given situation how I must relate to it, what I must increase, what I should pay more attention to, how to attach this to myself, in which direction to turn, how to expand the existing connection.

This is inner work. Imagine how focused a person is on this within himself and to what extent he cannot be disturbed. Only through this does he grow.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/26, Rabash, “According to What Is Explained Concerning ‘Love Thy Friend as Thyself’”

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Question: When you are asked a question, what does it evoke in you?

Answer: A very strong reaction! Sometimes I suddenly start to boil over, or on the contrary, it throws me toward either a scientific presentation, or a psychological one, sometimes humorous, and so on.

A question causes very strong changes in me. Moreover, it can outwardly be, general or ordinary. There does not seem to be a difference between the questions, but inside, I feel a very strong storm tossing me from wave to wave. Therefore, the questions and answers produce huge inner work in me, a kind of inner disturbance.

Question: Does it look like you are getting some kind of injection of selfishness from this person?

Answer: Sure. Necessarily. This is exactly what is meant. I get a wide, strong contact with the audience that asks this question, and based on the breadth of this question, I connect to this audience. It is a lot of stress, like docking in space or something. And according to this docked module, I am already working.

Question: Do you get any content from this?

Answer: I get great satisfaction from clarifying the issue. Because this is an opportunity to fill those souls, those empty vessels that are now connected to me.

The question is the definition of emptiness, and I fill these voids. It gives me great pleasure; not egotistical, like ordinary lecturers. After all, I know how much people who listen to me will make progress even if they do not understand the answer. Even if they cannot realize it yet, it is already written down in their souls.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Answer to any Question” 9/12/10

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Question: How can I correct a disturbance?

Answer: You correct a disturbance by turning it into help. Don’t you remember how you once did this? You had a court summons, and you lived in constant fear of it. You were afraid of the police officer and went through various unpleasant things. That was a disturbance against the Creator’s oneness.

So what is the essence of the obstacle? To make everything dependent on the police officer or on the Creator? Here the principles “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” and “There is none else besides Him” come into play. The important thing is when and how to put these principles in order.

In the end, against the background of this disturbance, you were supposed to correct yourself toward an additional connection with the Creator’s governance who is present within this disturbance and is giving it to you so that you would strengthen your bond with Him.

Did it happen? Did you feel how much it helped? The same applies to all disturbances in the group work. When a person follows the spiritual path, he is sent many disturbances, including those connected with things such as court, societal pressure, pressure from the laws of society because they clearly are in the hands of the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/26, Rabash, “According to What Is Explained Concerning ‘Love Thy Friend as Thyself’”

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Question: You often say that a conversation can happen in silence, from heart to heart. Can you explain what it means to “speak with the heart”?

Answer: Through feelings. When you want to convey your feelings to someone, but it is very difficult to find the right words, then the best thing is if you remain silent.

And neither person feels uncomfortable. You simply stay silent. And in this way, gradually, little by little, you begin to understand one another without words. This is what is called “a conversation between hearts.”

Question: You said that you often sat in silence with your teacher. Did you ever feel that you needed to say something?

Answer: No, absolutely not. You just sit and think beside him, and he does the same.

Question: And he did not prompt you to say something? Nothing like that?

Answer: No, there was no need. Nothing was needed. These are such feelings, such moments, when everything is understood. And an inner connection takes place, a flow of feelings from one to the other and back again, without words.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 10/29/23

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Who are these “felons of Israel”? The discussion concerns a person’s relation to the Creator, since in reality there is nothing besides the Creator and the creature.

Everything else that appears before our eyes exists only within this imaginary corporeal world. If I realize that in my connection with the Creator all my actions, or part of them, are not directed for His sake but for my own benefit, then I call myself a felon of Israel.

A person may think that they are righteous, that they are working for the good of the country, society, or family, but of course this is self-deception. If they do not work for the sake of the Creator, then it means they work for himself. And if they wish to work for the Creator, they must first direct themselves toward Him and only then turn to all the means available to them in order to use them for connection with the Creator. Then even in disturbances they will be able to see help for strengthening the connection with the Creator. Everything depends on the intention.

Therefore, one who directs oneself straight to the Creator and wishes to clarify his or her state must examine one’s relation to the Creator from all sides, and from this decide who he or she really is. If a person calls oneself a felon of Israel, that is, directed not straight to the Creator but in the opposite direction, it means that one has made a deep analysis of one’s qualities and intentions. This is already a very high degree, a springboard toward correction.

Before a person becomes a felon, he cannot become righteous, as it is said that “a person does not perform a commandment unless he first violates it.” First there must be the revelation and recognition of evil, and only afterward will there be distancing from evil and good deeds.

A felon of Israel is a state in which a person can see whether he has deviated from the direct direction toward the Creator (Yashar-El). To a person who strives to become Israel, the light comes and shows him that in fact he is opposite.

If he tries to direct himself precisely to the Creator in a straight line without deviating even slightly to the right or to the left, then he discovers that he is turned to face exactly the opposite direction, not toward the Creator, but toward himself.

As long as a person deviates from the direct line toward the Creator, one will not even fall into a Klipa. Various disturbances only arise for a person in order to return him or her to the straight line, straight to the Creator. But if a person aligns oneself precisely with the Creator, then one will see the Klipa. Therefore, until a person directs oneself straight to the Creator, he will not see himself as a felon.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/26, Rabash, “The Felons of Israel”

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The group is my mirror. To the extent that I build it, it builds me. Both my attitude toward it and its attitude toward me are detached from my desire to receive, which helps me build relationships of bestowal rather than expand and fulfill vessels of reception.

If I were working directly with the Creator, I would certainly use the vessels of reception. Baal HaSulam writes that if the Creator were revealed, I would rush toward Him shouting, “Stop the thief!” The desire to receive itself would tell me how wonderful it is to work for the Creator; I would want to be close to Him, to do something for Him.

After all, if He fills me with a sense of confidence and pleasures, then why not work? Why not perceive Him as good and great? We always want to be near greatness.

Thus, the desire to receive would strive toward the Creator for personal benefit. But if instead of the Creator I have a group in which I do not find great personal benefit, power, confidence, or a strong influence on me, then within it, there are conditions that allow me to work not with my desire to receive, but in the direction of bestowal. I want to grow vessels of bestowal within myself, and therefore, I turn to the group.

It turns out that the shattering of the vessels is the opportunity to work with the desire to receive of others, those external to me, as though with the Creator. That the Creator placed before me someone else, someone “other,” aside from Himself is truly my salvation.

In this case, I can genuinely practice how to be a giver and not a receiver. I can determine whether I am giving or receiving. I can perform exercises that later will allow me to enter into a relationship with the Creator in which my attitude toward Him will truly be one of bestowal.

The group helps me exit my desire to receive because it is not a supplier of pleasures for me. Whereas, if I were working with the Creator, I would only work with Him as the source of pleasures and would never be able to exit my desire to receive.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Saboteur Was in the Flood, and Was Putting to Death,’ in the Work?”

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Question: When should we work on recognizing the greatness of the group and when should we work on recognizing the greatness of the Creator?

Answer: In essence, I should work on recognizing the greatness of the Creator. After all, I have business precisely with the Creator. He is my beginning, He is the provider of strength, and He is my goal.

However, I travel this path against the backdrop of my desire to receive. I must recognize and cultivate the Creator within myself starting from the opposite state. Therefore, in order to turn off my “I,” my ego, my interest in Him when I appear as the one who receives, uses, and enjoys, I obviously set Him as my goal, but I cannot use Him.

I cannot maintain connection with Him if my desire to receive reveals pleasure, support, and fulfillment in Him. Then instead of Him, I need someone to work with and to be able to use this work to advance my intention for the sake of bestowal. In essence this means a group instead of the Creator.

Why? A group can provide criticism of my work. By itself it does not initially satisfy my desire to receive. As I get to know the group, I do not feel pleasure, confidence, eternity, or perfection. But if I work on this and want to reveal these properties within the group, then I begin to sense them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Saboteur Was in the Flood, and Was Putting to Death,’ in the Work?”

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Question: I still don’t understand where our world is, where the spiritual, higher world is in relation to it, and where the Creator is.

Answer: It’s all very simple! Everything that was created is a desire to be fulfilled, to enjoy. It senses everything it can sense within itself, through its own sensations. As long as the desire is egoistic, what it senses is called “this world.” When it becomes altruistic, what it senses is called “the upper or spiritual world.”

The desire consists of five parts, 0-1-2-3-4 levels, the magnitude of the desire, by quantity and quality. Moreover, the greater the quality, the lesser the quantity, just as in our world there are many ordinary stones but few precious ones. Within these four types of desires, a person perceives the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels. The zero part is “me,” the point of reference.

At the very center of the desire is the “I,” from which a person senses the world, their own desire, but it is perceived as existing outside of that “I.” Ordinary perception of the world is called egoistic (consumeristic).

Where is the Creator? Wherever the “I” makes room for Him!
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Question: What if the same obstacle returns again and again, constantly intensifying?

Answer: The same obstacle cannot return each time anew. It only seems to us that it is the same obstacle.

For example, a court case may last two or three years, and a person feels as though he is constantly trapped in the same closed circle. But it is not the same obstacle. It is the same external circumstance, yet each time the size of the desires and their form are changed; it is just that we do not perceive it.

In fact, it is very good when it comes this way. It is a very clear sign from the Creator, who wishes to strengthen His connection with the created being. He sends him fear of seemingly terrible things and even intensifies it.

It is similar to a small child who becomes frightened when told, “There is a bear behind the door, be careful!” A person looks at the whole world with fear, thinking, “What will happen?” And although intellectually he understands, he can do nothing with his feelings. He is very afraid.

Only connection with the Creator can sweeten this animal sensation of fear and shift it onto different rails. But this is still not at the human level, not yet for true scrutiny of the connection.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/26, Rabash, “According to What Is Explained Concerning ‘Love Thy Friend as Thyself’”

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Question: Are there different feelings of evil with respect to the Creator and with respect to the friend?

Answer: For our will to receive it makes no difference whether it is dealing with the Creator or with a friend. There is no distinction because it always forms its attitude from its own uncorrected vessels.

If a person directs his attention to something outside his will to receive, whether it is the Creator or the friend, the measure of correction and the magnitude and quality of the will to receive, determine his attitude toward that object. There is no difference.

Therefore, we can use the group and according to our reaction to it and according to our mutual relations with it, examine and critically analyze our will to receive, demand correction, and carry them out. After all, if something has a direction aimed outside the will to receive and stands beyond it, then it is the same with respect to the group and with respect to the Creator.

However, when it concerns my attitude toward myself, then of course it matters whether we are speaking about the group or about the Creator. What pleasures can the group give me compared to the Creator?

Everything depends on the degree on which I stand. It may be that I perform a restriction with respect to the Creator and say, “What is the Creator to me? What matters to me is the respect of the group.” Or, on the contrary, I may already restrict my attitude toward the group: “What do I need the group for? I want the divine.” But it is me who wants.

When a person tries to work without turning to himself at all, he discovers that if it is not for himself, but outside himself, then it does not matter to him for whose sake it is done or to whom exactly it will bring benefit. If it is outside of me, if neither at the beginning, nor during the action, nor afterward do I receive any response within myself, then what difference does it make which of a thousand possible factors I am now bestowing to if the results remain there and do not return to me?

What difference does it make what these factors are? From the perspective of the will to receive, I cannot analyze them; I have no connection with them. It turns out as though I throw something out of myself into space, and that is all.

But how do I evaluate my bestowal? Is it great or small? Of high quality? The fact is that I measure only the extent to which it is detached from me. As Rabash writes, there is an awareness of the greatness of the Creator before a person disconnects from himself, and there is an awareness of the greatness of the Creator after he disconnects from himself.

In the second case, I work in a state where I do not feel my acts of bestowal at all. I detach them from my “I” as though casting them into space.

Why do I do this? Because society gives me the sense of the importance of such actions. In other words, I acquire a feeling of the importance of something that is outside my will to receive, a Kli, an unfulfilled desire, and suddenly I feel that I must fill it by bestowing outward from myself. Thus, a certain desire outside of me becomes filled.

If a person works on this, he gradually passes into a state in which he can truly touch what it means to act not for himself, above reason. And this comes gradually.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Saboteur Was in the Flood, and Was Putting to Death,’ in the Work?”

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