The evolution of the will to receive pleasure is a lengthy process. The whole wisdom of Kabbalah tells us about changes in the will to receive (desire). Baal HaSulam explains that in this process, desire (absence) always precedes fulfillment (existence).

First I feel a lack of something, and then I acquire what is missing; thus, one follows the other. At the same time, the lack, or will to receive (desire), is more important than the fulfillment since desire determines fulfillment.

In spirituality, this law acts exactingly, without concessions and favors, and if the creature doesn’t wish to climb the next step, it will not ascend; it won’t even come close to it. Everything depends on the preparation, based on the feeling of lack and absence of fulfillment. This is why “absence precedes existence.”

According to this law, all levels of creation are developing: from still to vegetative, animate, and speaking. Man, too, is born at the animate level, and then evolves and ascends to its designated level. The same is observed in the development of our inner world. As diverse as humanity is, so are its desires, which are also classified by four degrees: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking (within the human).

What then does a speaking level in humanity look like? They are the people or desires aimed at equivalence with the Creator, at the ascension to and adhesion with Him. In order to gain a strong desire, aspiring to this exalted goal, we must exist on both sides: sometimes rejecting the spiritual world, not comprehending, feeling, or agreeing with it, and other times, yearning for it and seeing something profound, good, and vital in it.

So absence and existence give way to one another, Light and darkness, and only thanks to both of them, the correct, wholesome desire are formed. For this reason, we enter the group with the understanding that there is no other way but in unification. Only among the friends do I grow a new desire to become equivalent to the Creator, and not just appeal to Him egoistically. In the group I absorb the value of bestowal, and at the same time, I discover how intensely I hate it.

If I am not afraid, and am willing to bear the revelation of my own evil, then this is called absence which precedes existence, the preparation to liberation. Having found himself at the mountain of his own hatred, a person demands existence, equivalence to the Creator. And then the reforming Light comes to bring him back to the Source.
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From the lesson on 10/22/10, Rabash’s Articles

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Question: If there is only one soul, then why is it necessary for 600,000 souls to attain mutual guarantee among them?

Answer: We attain the single soul precisely from this division into parts. It is impossible to attain what the common soul is without going through the breaking.

In order to understand this picture, we must first reveal it as broken and try to gather it back together. When you work hard and reach the understanding that you cannot do it on your own, without the Upper One, then you will reveal the One who can help you. And together with Him you will put this “puzzle” together.

Then you will find out what He did and why He broke the common soul. He did it for your sake so you would put the broken parts back together and in the process understand how they have to be arranged and what connection they should have. It’s as if you are putting together a car from thousands of parts and you have to understand why every part is necessary and how it has to be connected with others, and in what order.

When you put it together, you understand that in order for the engine to work, it needs the force of life! That force of life is called the Creator. Thus, we come to know Him from His actions. Otherwise we would never be able to understand Him.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/10, “600,000 Souls”

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It is considered a vice to feel yourself, your soul, instead of the single common soul. Yet some people might consider this a great attainment, since I am nevertheless in the spiritual world, together with the Creator, even though I’m separate from others. However, if a person attains spirituality, he feels that this state is not good because he is separate from others and there are two parts in existence.

It’s even worse when there is a third part, the Creator, because everyone must be one whole: the person, the method of correction, and the Creator. However, there are different sins on every level and you are still far away from these “criminals.”

Initially only one soul was created, so how can this perfect will to enjoy created by the perfect Light be divided into parts? How is this separation even possible?

Now do you understand that we are living in an unreal world? Only in our imagination does everything divide into parts this way: the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels, as well as all sorts of colors and sounds. None of this exists in spirituality!

True spirituality is one common sensation, the Simple Light. All the other separations we feel now come from our lack of perfection.

We artificially left the perfect state and that’s why we feel a world where everything is divided, split, separate from others, and opposite. However, if the Creator is one, then several creatures cannot come out of Him, but only one.

Baal HaSulam writes the following in the article, “600,000 Souls“: “Indeed, there is just one soul in the world, as it is written about the creation of man: ‘The Creator breathed the spirit of life into him,'” which means there is one desire and one Light.

A person who aspires to return to the Creator is called “Isra-El” (straight to the Creator) and he attains the one ,single soul. I attach to myself the people who seem to exist outside of me and I attain this as one, single soul, Adam HaRishon, just as it was created by the Creator. It is filled inside by the Light of Infinity, the Creator.

However, in order for me to carry this out more easily, I am given the group through which I relate to the common soul. The group is the part of the soul closest to me, an intermediate means through which I can work.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/10, “600,000 Souls”

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In the beginning of the spiritual path people aren’t yet able to distinguish what is happening to them. The current sensation is the truth for them. They are unable to look at themselves from aside and discern the external influence that comes from the Creator. They don’t yet see the walls of the “laboratory” they are in.

When a person is on the side of the will to enjoy, he automatically reacts to what is happening: He jumps from joy or vice versa, falls into melancholy. He is buried under the states of his egoism.

However, as he works on himself inside unity with the group, he grows estranged from his own desires and acquires the opportunity to analyze: What are the causes of his states, and how does he relate to the group, the study, and the Creator? Instead of feeling like a test animal, he shifts to the side of the Creator who shows him what He is doing to him.

This enables a person to become human, to rise above the animate degree of his desire to the human degree. Now he understands that the purpose of the unpleasant states where he is devoid of energy, Light, and inspiration is to attract his attention to the Source, the Creator.

Why does the Creator send him these states? It’s in order for him to draw closer to the Creator with a request. That is the only way He can awaken me. The pleasant sensations force me to forget about Him, while emptiness does the contrary: gives rise to questions. When I am treated badly, I want to know why, but when I am treated well I have no care in the world about why it is so.

That is why I am awakened through troubles, and at that time I have to understand that these are appeals from the Creator. It is His way of showing me that I depend on Him; He calls me to Him in order for us to come forward against Pharaoh together.

That is when I begin to realize that there is no evil and I am grateful for the “evil” just as for the good and even more so because precisely it helps me to advance, to come closer to the Upper One and to demand corrections from Him. If a person takes the right position for evaluating his state, if he uses the sensation as an object for analysis, then he acquires faith above reason, which always enables him to move forward.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/10, “Show Me Your Honor”

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The Book of Zohar states, “Everything will be clarified in thought.” The Creator is an all-enveloping thought. He controls our desires with His thought and we need thought in order to use our desires. Unlike the Creator, our desire is primary and our thoughts are the result of the desire.

The plan of creation is similar to a field that fills all of reality and is one thought. Interestingly, many astronauts and astrophysicists who spend a long time studying extraterrestrial reality and who research cosmic space and objects start to feel that the cosmos is an expression of some kind of thought. And that is, in fact, so.

This thought creates creation, controls it, and brings it to the desired goal. We are the expression and result of this thought, which forces us to act. Our freedom of will lies in our ability to gradually rise to the level of this thought, to reveal the plan of creation, to start moving together with it in one direction, and to carry out all the actions not by being forced, but willingly and consciously.

Then we will attain the plan of creation even before it is actualized. We will think together with the Creator instead of receiving desires from Him and realizing them only afterwards. That is, we will go from being a passive part of creation to being an active part.
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From the lesson on 10/21/10, “The Power of Thought”

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Question: The plan of creation is awfully sublime, and here I am – just a small, simple man. How could it be that my thoughts matter?

Answer: You simply don’t know who you are; that’s why you think you are small and unable to influence everyone. If you start ascending up the spiritual ladder, you will discover that you personally have the opportunity to be responsible for the entire plan of creation instead of the Creator, and you can relate to all of creation as if you were Him.

There are seven billion people, a countless number of stars and objects in the universe, the entire vegetative and animate world, and one Creator! Do you want to replace Him and treat everything the way He does? Go ahead! If you are ready to replace him, you have the opportunity. This is called unifying with Him, becoming equal to him. This is called becoming human.

That is why we say that the Creator treats the creatures kindly and lovingly, and if I want to replace Him or become His partner, I have to treat the creatures the same way He does. There is a law: Love your neighbor as yourself. If I treat my neighbor with love, that means I equate myself to the Creator and am in adhesion with Him. Then I carry out the action that He carries out in relation to others.

From the lesson on 10/21/10, “The Power of Thought”

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Question: You say that there is just a psychological barrier standing in our way. What is it exactly?

Answer: We aren’t able to understand that bestowal, rather than reception, contains enormous, eternal pleasures, which we can’t even fathom. Suppose someone placed a cup full of poison in front of you and told you, “Drink it, die, and enjoy!” You cannot put these three things together. That is called a psychological barrier.

We have to remember that the second part of every action always belongs to the Creator. We are working on the desire and He carries it out. Like a child I say, “I want this.” And He gives it to me, again and again. That means we have to always demand the most important thing in life, knowing that we will receive it.
[24584]
From the lesson on 10/17/10, “Arvut“

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It is possible to follow a commandment only if you initially hated someone but then managed to correct this with the help of the Light that Reforms, the Light which can be attracted only through the study of Kabbalah in the group (in the right environment) by attaining a state of “mutual guarantee.” In this case it is considered that one “performed a commandment” and maybe not just one but all of them, and thus reached a personal “final correction.”

However, for that, we have to follow certain conditions: perform actions that lead us toward unity in the correct environment and get impressed by the environment rather than do something that occurs to us. Each time, I strive to choose a better environment that can transfer to me its values and to implement them as if they are my own.

In other words, I cancel myself in relation to the opinion of others and strive to be “included” in them, meaning into the system of spiritual principles that they follow, rather than in them as ordinary people. If I manage to do so, we act as one, follow our common direction, and implement the same principle. This principle will turn into our prayer (MAN, Mayin Nukvin or Female Waters) to which we will receive a response (MAD, Mayin Duchin or Male Waters), the Light of correction, and will establish a contact with the spiritual world.

This contact will be founded on our unity; no one can attain spirituality on his or her own. Spirituality exists only within the connection, in the Creator, the force that connects our souls.

Therefore, I cannot grab “a piece of spirituality” from the group, leave them behind, and go home with it. I remain within this unity and increase my input into it even more. This is where I reveal spirituality. If I think about myself and, therefore, separate myself from others for a fraction of a moment, I return to the sensations of this material world which is what I feel now.

Why don’t I feel anything at the moment? It is because I am not bonded with others. As soon as I connect with others, I begin to sense spirituality, whereas when I disconnect from others, I sense corporeality.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: I am worried. We just read about the state at Mount Sinai and different types of concern. Soon, I will turn 60. You once said that people’s age in the story of the giving of the Torah was from 20 to 60 and emphasized these numbers. Does it mean that I am going to be thrown off the train?

Answer: It isn’t up to us when we will awaken to spirituality, to the awareness of the importance of Arvut (mutual responsibility or guarantee), to worrying about our spiritual state and about switching from caring about ourselves to caring about others, about the Creator. All these spiritual degrees are concealed and depend on the development of many souls. We cannot say yet why everything occurs the way it does.

Next to you sit twenty year olds. Later, you will discover that according to the root of your soul, your current state is the optimal state for your spiritual development. The fact that right now you are concerned about going in the right direction and about the purpose of this world means that it is the most beneficial state for you and it cannot be otherwise. Now, everything depends on you, on how you will realize the calling from Above by exercising your freedom of will.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “What is Mutual Concern” 10/13/10

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Question: Is there a difference in the spiritual development of women and men, and what constitutes this difference?

Answer: If we look at the historical process, we see that as soon as Abraham began to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah, he received an order to adhere with his female part: “Listen to what Sarah tells you.” Everything is determined by the female part. What a man reveals is revealed by him in the woman, meaning the male part of the soul in the inner female part of the soul and the man in the woman. Rabash wrote and spoke repeatedly about the fact that in the corrected society, in a corrected family with a man and a woman, the husband and a wife are in the process of revealing the Creator between them. The husband perceives the wife through the Creator and the wife relates to the husband in the same manner. They constantly feel that the Creator dwells between them. That is, I know that I received her from the Creator. And if I perceive her as a part that can help me reach the Creator, then I am truly realizing myself.

Question cont.: In other words, my wife is my partner on the spiritual path?

Answer: She is not just a partner. I see her as a companion chosen for me by the Creator. And if I treat her this way, I don’t just address her. I address her and the Creator at the same time and feel that she relates to me in the same manner. It seems like an unnatural contrast, but it is very natural because it is very goal-oriented. It turns out that at every moment of my life, from the most intimate to the most common situations in the family, and even more so in public and in the world, we begin to treat each other like the Creator dwells between us. We feel that this Force needs to bind us together, fill the voids between us, and correct the rejection and hatred that rises up between us. The Creator Himself comes to fill this space and unite us with each other. We can begin to realize this in the family, the closest place for every person, and continue it throughout the whole world.
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From Kabbalah For Beginners, "Men and Women" 10/14/10

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