Writings of Rabash, “What Are the Misfortunes that Come to the Wicked…”: The sages said: Misfortune comes into the world only when there are sinners in it, and it starts with the righteous…”

It is impossible to advance alone. A series of descents causes such great egoism to surface in a person that he asks himself, “Is it possible to come out of it at all?” That’s when a persistent need for coming out of it causes him to turn to the group. Only there, together with others, can he summon the force that will lead him to the outside.

All attempts to climb out independently will fail. You cannot do anything here alone. That’s because a person has to correct the breaking, the shame, and prepare the exit out of himself toward his neighbor.

Therefore, all the descents are intended to bring us to the realization of our own powerlessness so we would turn to the group, having no other choice. Then, with the group’s help we must acquire the realization of the Creator’s importance. This importance will force us to look for a way out and will bring us to the right decision: Only in the environment will we find the forces to advance.

The environment as we understand it is an artificial image. It only seems like some foreign element to a person, and that is done deliberately so he would be able to reject his egoism, his desire to enjoy.

Therefore, misfortunes come to us in order to reveal the “sinners” in us more and more, but at the same time they come down on the states called “righteous.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/11, Writings of Rabash

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We work above our matter, the will to enjoy. It has to grow all the time in order for us to grow, creating the form of bestowal and equivalence to the Creator above it.

That is why we experience the growing desire as a disaster. It comes when a person is ready for it. It is written, “The woe that comes to the sinners starts with the righteous.” In other words, the negative forms become revealed in those who used to be righteous, who made an ascent and prepared themselves.

Beginners who don’t understand the method yet are taken aback by this, “Why is it that after all the efforts I made, I am experiencing such negative states?” Suddenly the inspiration is gone and one feels indifferent to everything. However, with experience comes wisdom and a person realizes that the path forward lies through descents and opposition to the egoistic inclination.

The spiritual goal will always remain a question for me, “Why do I advance? Is it worth it for me to go against my egoism, my nature? Is it normal to work in such great descents, without any aspiration or motivation?” A person feels miserable and helpless, and experiences his state as unworthy and undeserved.

This is precisely the place about which it is written, “The righteous will walk where the sinners will retreat.” The entire matter is that we have to come out of our nature. We shouldn’t nourish it or tend to it, but raise it in order to ascend above it. Every time a person has prepared himself for an ascent, he is sent a new “burdening of the heart” so he would ascend even higher. That is how he advances on the spiritual path.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: If I cannot reveal the place of the breaking, does it mean that there is nothing for me to correct?

Answer: A person has nothing to correct except the breaking between him and other people who have the same aspiration to the Creator. However, why is it particularly with the people who aspire to the Creator? Can’t I correct my relationship with other people such as at work, in the family, or at the market? There are plenty of people around, and everyone needs to reach complete correction.

Then, why can’t I work with them? This is because their desires are not aimed at the unification of souls. Each of them desires only to fill their ego with something, and this is the animate level of egoism, not the degree of the human being. I do not reveal the breaking there.

The breaking is on the human degree. Meanwhile, I have nothing to correct on the animate degree. There, people are polite, pleasant, and kind.

Therefore, correction pertains only to those who aspire to the Creator. We might ask then: “Why is the whole world suffering? Why are we all entering a global, integral, and broken world now?”

This is because all the other people also need to be corrected to the extent that they can join or adhere to those who aspire to the Creator. They will not correct the connections between them on the animate level since, then, they would be like the communists in Russia. However, in the end, they will be forced to unite due to adhering to us and through us to the Creator.

We only correct the connections between souls on the level of man who is similar to the Creator. Therefore, this correction pertains only to the group of Kabbalists or those who join them in various forms to the extent that they are able.

Thus, Baal HaSulam writes in the end of “Introduction to The Book Of Zohar” that everything depends on Israel. “Israel” are those who aspire to the Creator, those who feel hatred between them and need to correct it. The whole correction depends on them.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Yitro (Jethro)”

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Question: How can I actually turn the desire that awakens in me to bestowal?

Answer: Suppose I am relentlessly worried by something since the morning. This unsatisfied desire gives rise to a thought that I have to calm it down. I am tormented by this problem, immersed in it, and am looking for a way to solve it.

I received all of this from Above. If my problem relates to something that is vitally necessary, then I have to solve it without paying too much attention to working with the intention. First of all I have to provide myself with the vital necessities. It is written about this, "Without bread there is no Torah."

However, if it is not something that’s vitally necessary, if it isn’t something I need on the animate or bodily level, then I have to try to transfer this thought to the right format. I received it from the Creator and it was in order for me to build the right reaction to it. It is "help against the Creator." It is against the goal, yet at the same time it helps me to react correctly, and by pushing myself off of it I can aim at the goal.

My goal is adhesion with the Creator. The Creator is good and does good and there is none else besides Him. He sends me all the problems and worries in order to help me. Therefore, above my worry, as if making a mirror image of it, I turn back to Him, who is good and does good.

I have to reach the sensation that my problem is help to enable me to understand the Creator’s attitude to me, which is opposite to the sensations that awaken in me. That is how I build the Creator’s image. By having a careful and accurate attitude, I will be able to identify why a certain worry or problem is being sent to me precisely in this form. I will see a reverse mold of it, the form of the One who is good and does good, and who engraved it in me.

By virtue of this "inversion" I will ascend to the degree of a righteous man and will justify the Creator in some regard. And by doing so I will get on the right track. The most important thing is to keep going, without falling asleep during any state on the background of any negative forms that the Creator sends me.

I can react to them correctly at every second if only I equip myself with the support of the environment. Without it my efforts are episodic, but with it I am constantly "in the loop." The group entirely determines the speed of my advancement.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/4/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: If in the end the whole path we have gone through becomes canceled, then what’s the point of all the actions we make today?

Answer: How else could you reach absolute love? How else could you build it if every subsequent level is built based on the previous one?

The entire path you have gone through becomes canceled similar to how you reveal that this entire world is imaginary. When you attain the end of correction and become part of the original point of creation, then the first state (the beginning of creation) and the third state (the end of correction) merge as equals. And the second state (the process of correction) ceases to exist. It becomes part of the third state together with the first state, as if none of it ever happened and all of it just seemed so to us!

All the changes took place only in our sensations. It was necessary for us to go through all of these states in order to be able to understand the Creator and feel Him, become attached to Him, and merge with Him.

All the worlds (Olamot) mean concealments (Alamot), and these worlds or concealments disappear! They were necessary only in order to create this gradually increasing concealment; the problems and suffering awaken us in order for us to gradually start attaining, from below upwards, the one and only existing state in reality. Nothing exists besides it.

All the states we go through are necessary for making discernments. They are 125 levels of discerning the perfect state in which you always exist. You are simply unable to attain it fully all at once, and therefore you do it gradually, in parts, each time understanding and feeling more.

It’s as if you’re “eating this meal” in parts; that is how you ascend up the levels of the worlds. In reality, these worlds do not exist other than in your perception. As soon as you attain everything, there is no more need for them.

However, don’t they seem to exist in me because I ascended up through them until the end of correction, until the final unity? That’s right, but this is only your sensation, the path of attainment. However, in reality there is only one perfect state, existing before and after you: Malchut, filled by the Light of Infinity, both in the very beginning and at the very end.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/3/11, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: What is the difference between the realization of evil that Kabbalists write about, meaning the unwillingness to unite with others, and the evil that a regular person feels in this world?

Answer: In order to reach the spiritual sensation of evil, you have to do a great deal of work because spiritual evil becomes revealed only after the Machsom. Below it there is no evil inclination. Right now there is no ego in you, just like in a small cockroach!

The evil inclination is the force that openly opposes the Creator; it’s the Pharaoh! It becomes revealed when you want to unite with the Creator and other souls with all your strength, but you discover that in reality this is hateful to you and repels you. Pharaoh stands against the Creator; the evil inclination against the good.

They are both inside you and are revealed only one against the other! There cannot be one without the other.

On the other hand, the fact that you are now experiencing bad sensations while wishing to advance spiritually is not a spiritual realization of evil. There are many people in the world who feel even worse. Maybe it seems to you that this is a spiritual worry because you do not feel the spiritual world and do not understand it, but in fact, all of this is still taking place inside egoism.

Of course, this is no longer the regular egoism of the consumer, but suffering due to your inability to unite with others, repulsion, and unwillingness to even think about this, the lack of desire to correct yourself. For now spirituality seems to you like something attractive for your egoism. This is already a time of preparation for entering the spiritual world, but for now you do not have the right spiritual notions. None of this is spirituality. Spirituality can only be “for” or “against” the Creator Himself, for His good or for my own. But I have to be against Him!

Spirituality is either Pharaoh or the Creator. I am in the middle between them in Klipat Noga where I choose: good or evil, “for” the Creator or “against” Him.

There is nothing more than that! The world we now see around us does not exist in spirituality. This reality is unreal; we live in an imaginary world. The still, vegetative, animate, and human levels in this world actually exist only inside of our egoistic desire.

Why is this world imaginary? It’s because it does not have any connection with the Creator! It lives by a small spark of Light that somehow enlivens it. That is why there is no good or evil here.

The sensation of evil that you feel is only due to a lack of animate, egoistic fulfillment. All of your high thoughts, desires, fantasies, and dreams are the whims of your developed, oversized ego that demands whatever it wants and forces you to suffer.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/10, “Peace in the World”

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Question: If we are at the lowest state and there is nowhere to keep falling, then what kind of development of events do all of Baal HaSulam’s prophecies talk about, where he writes about the possibility of a third and fourth world war and so on?

Answer: This is only a revelation of our state, a revelation of evil, rather than a descent. If our state can get even worse, it is simply be a revelation of “sinners,” meaning broken Kelim or desires, or Reshimot (informational data) that are even more broken.

After the breaking in the World of Nekudim, we are in a completely broken Kli or desire, but Reshimot become revealed from it gradually, step by step. First the finest Reshimot are revealed, then increasingly coarser ones, until the final, worst Reshimot are revealed.

We are now at the lowest layer of this desire where the worst Reshimot are being revealed. These Reshimot belong to the human level and they are very heavy, which is why the most difficult states are now being revealed.

However, precisely these Reshimot can awaken us to correction. Yet, if we do not realize them correctly, it will lead us to great catastrophes. Still, this is not deemed correction, even though in relation to spirituality, revelation of evil is revelation growing closer.

We are already in the dark. If the darkness starts to become clearer, it is already the Light shining and clarifying it. But if we do not clarify anything, it is the worse thing possible.

When the Light begins to shine on our present state, we start to see darkness. Feeling darkness is already the opposite side of the Light. In Aramaic “night” is called “Orta,” which comes from the Hebrew word “Light.” Darkness is opposite to Light, but the Light itself illuminates our flaws and that is why we feel darkness. This is already revelation.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: What does it mean that a person has to agree and desire for the upper one to act upon him?

Answer: We were created of the will to enjoy and all the actions of correcting this desire are done by the Light. The Light corrects the Kelim or desires, orders them, and gives them the sensation of the abyss between the desires and the Lights, the gap between the levels, the sensation of lack of fulfillment. The Light awakens and shakes up the Kli or desire.

It turns out that I must only cause the Light to come forth and work on me. This is my only action and means to accelerate my development.

One way or another the Lights works, influencing Reshimot (informational data) more and more. Then the Reshimot come out of concealment and are realized at a specific rate called “Beito” (in due time).

When I make special actions in the group, the study, my inner work, and my search, I thereby awaken the Lights, causing them to influence me with greater force and speed. But I don’t do anything more than that.

In any case everything comes from the Light. I can only speed up its influence on the Reshimot that are inside me. Then my development is called Ahishena (accelerating time). And doing this is our entire work.

However, this can only happen on the condition that instead of advancing by the lengthy and difficult path where the Light influences me by bringing me all kinds of suffering that I have to flee, gradually realizing the purpose of the suffering, instead of that, I can awaken the Light so it will influence me more strongly, provided that I agree with all the unpleasant and horrible things it brings me.

Let the Light bring me all of that; all I want is to ascend above it by the force of the environment. From the environment I receive the strength to be above the suffering. Then, if I prepare in this way, the Upper Light can influence me and cause me to advance and develop.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The Light always brings me a sensation of the gap between the Light and the desires. It always gives me a bad sensation and it cannot bring me anything good. Firstly it always gives me a realization of evil, which is the truth. As much as I am able to ascend above the sensation of “bitter versus sweet” to the analysis of “true versus false” in order to clarify the truth in spite of the bitter taste, to that extent the Light is able to influence me.

But where will I get the strength to hold on to the truth so strongly even when I feel bad? I can only receive this additional force from the environment. Therefore it’s pointless for us to cry out to the Light. The Light influences us to the degree we are ready for it. It can wait a thousand years until we are prepared by way of very slow, gradual development, or it can drastically increase its influence at every second if we are ready for it.

There is no delay from the Light’s end. The delay depends only on how ready I am to tolerate the gap between the Kelim and the Lights, to be “above knowledge,” above the bodily suffering, when I am ready to be in the truth even if it’s bitter. Indeed, it really is bitter not to use the Kelim of reception, the desire for one’s own sake, while remaining in the intention of bestowal.

Therefore, we do not have any other means to speed up our development other than to connect with the environment. However, connection with the environment is also extremely painful. I cannot overcome myself. I can spend thousands of hours pleading with my friends to unite, but it will all be nothing but words. After that I stumble across my inner wall and am unable to do anything more than words.

However, if we at least try to do this together, then each person receives an impression from the others and thus reaches the point of truth: that he is unable to do this and must break precisely through this wall. Then he demands it from the Light that Reforms.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Is it possible to attain peace in our world and the upper worlds? “Peace” means absolute fullness and perfection, which is not when I feel good but a moment later am already unsatisfied. If it’s perfection, then it’s forever.

Is it possible to attain this, and is it programmed in nature, or is it just some unrealistic dream I have while in fact, I won’t ever feel good? Furthermore, if peace in the world is possible, then how can we reach it?!

We see how the situation in the whole world is deteriorating. It would seem as if humanity has all the opportunities to develop toward goodness, but instead it slides down into an abyss, unable to locate the right path no matter what.

Man constantly entangles himself in greater and greater problems. Everyone knows how to reason beautifully and intelligently, but in actuality it turns out that we are unable to reach any good results, and that applies to the general and the individual cases.

So why is it that nature always places us into a situation that’s opposite to peace and perfection? And if we are meant to achieve this in the end, then how can we?

Baal HaSulam writes about all of this in his article “The Peace,” which we are now starting to read. There cannot be peace in the world as long as there are people left who are unsatisfied with something. That would already be a lack of perfection.

The world develops with each passing day, becoming an increasingly more integral system, all of whose parts are interconnected like cogwheels. No one has freedom to move one millimeter in any direction and in any sense, whether it is one’s desire, thought, or action, without influencing everyone else.

That is why there cannot be peace and perfection in the world as long as there is even one unsatisfied person left, who disagrees with the current state being perfect. This is the law of the integral system. We are all connected as organs of one body where the illness of even one organ is felt in the entire organism.

On the other hand, making progress toward peace is a gradual process both with regard to the whole world and any of its parts. The world today is like a sick person who is lying on the operating table waiting for open heart surgery. Of course, in this situation the doctor won’t pay attention if the patient complains about a small scratch on his leg. That is why the world’s correction will happen gradually.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/10, “Peace in the World”

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