It is written (Deuteronomy 4:2), “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, to keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you” (Rabash, “What Is Do Not Add and Do Not Take Away in the Work?”).

“You shall not add, nor take away” means advancing in the balance between the two lines. This is not a quantitative principle or a matter of the intensity of the work, that is, it does not mean do not hurry too much or do not be lazy. Rather, it means that one must always maintain oneself in a balanced state.

What does it mean to be in a state of balance? It means to facilitate the formation of the middle line, to prepare it so that the Creator can correct you.

How? First of all, try to remain in the right line at all times and not allow the left line to grow stronger and rule over you.

The right line is called “the importance of spirituality.” Spirituality, the goal, the quality of bestowal, the Creator, who possesses the quality of bestowal, and this does not mean simply someone great, but the force of bestowal, all of this must be important to me. And only after all this has truly become important to me can I enter the left line.

The right line, the importance of spirituality, is acquired only through faith above reason, not within reason. Within reason, the importance of spirituality can be attained only after crossing the Machsom. This is called complete, perfect faith: the light of Hassadim with the illumination of the light of Hochma.

Below the Machsom, we have as though the same state, a branch of that same root of faith. We are as though in a state of corrected faith and as though feel the Creator’s presence with our senses. This “as though” is attained through effort, and especially through our investment in the group.

When we complete this work and acquire faith according to our degree through the work in the right line, we then move to the left line and see that within reason we have nothing: our qualities are uncorrected, our thoughts are foreign, and the right line is diminished. It is then that we come to prayer and ask the Creator to help us.

If I have prepared the right line, raised the importance of spirituality, the importance of the goal, and faith that everything has been prepared for me from above, and then see in the left line that I myself am in a completely opposite state, not in perfection, but, on the contrary, in deficiencies and lowly desires, then, as a result of these two lines, the force of prayer arises. And then an answer to the prayer comes from above, the middle line.

In this work, we must constantly remain in balance between the right and left lines so that “his wisdom does not exceed his deeds.” That is, a person should not find himself in a state where he says, “I am incapable of doing anything,” or “I have no strength,” or “everything is in the hands of the Creator,” or, “Just leave me alone and do not tell me that everything depends on me. Nothing depends on me,” and so on.

This means that the left line must not become greater than the right, when I have no strength and think that all of this is impossible, or even that none of it exists at all. Nor should the right line dominate when I think, “Everything is in the hands of Heaven, and everything is decided there. I am nobody here. I do not exist; I am an empty place. Nothing depends on me; I am always entirely under His authority.” This is called the Klipa of the right line.

No! Both of these lines must be balanced. This is what has been given to us, and we must make every effort not to fall into either of the two kinds of Klipa, the right or the left. Rather, we must balance the two lines so that they contribute to the formation of the middle line.
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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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Question: How can a person come to a desire to engage in study Lishma?

Answer: Let us say that yesterday, I felt worthless, far from the Creator, that I was just wasting my time, that my life had no meaning, and that I would die just as I was born. In short, all these sensations existed within my desire to receive. Essentially, I had no goal in life.

But today, I remembered that there is a Creator, and if I am connected to Him, everything will be fine. So I need to establish a connection with Him.

How can I do that? They say there is no other way to grasp Him except to study and think about Him while studying. There is a certain source or force above that will bring me closer to Him, and in this way I will gain something. The upper light will come, the heavens will open, and I will gain something good.

So I held on to this thought, this intention; I came to the lesson, I am sitting here and thinking about how using the lesson as a remedy will give me what I want: a spiritual life, closeness to the Creator, everything great.

Why did I come to study before? I thought that if I simply studied the material, I would learn how to control the heavens and my fate. Now I understand that knowledge will not let me reach or feel the upper world, that can happen only help from above when the light comes and opens my eyes. I need this light; so I come and study. This is the beginning of Lo Lishma.

Then I come to a greater Lo Lishma when I start thinking only of my own benefit, but suddenly realize that even when I feel very pleasant and keep receiving constantly, it still does not bring me pleasure. There is a greater pleasure, more eternal, without shame and without the feeling that something is wrong. This pleasure comes when I bestow, or at least when I do not feel my ego, my evil.

Before this, it felt like I was drifting aimlessly, but now I want to stop thinking about myself, to disconnect from the self, and in doing so, disconnect from various problems. This is what I study for.

Then thoughts come: what does it mean to be disconnected from oneself? What is the purpose of this? What do I want to have? I desire something eternal and perfect. Who is He, the Creator? If I enter His presence, everything will be good in every respect. So here I am already establishing a connection with the Creator. Is it Lishma or Lo Lishma? Of course, Lo Lishma! It is for myself, so that I feel good. But I already want Him!

What does it mean that I will be with Him? If I think well of Him and He thinks well of me, then it will certainly be good for both of us. Thus, I am already thinking about how to give to Him, and through that, I will feel that He is giving to me. This is already a kind of Lo Lishma in the form where all my thoughts are about having a good feeling toward Him, because if I have a bad feeling toward Him, I will feel bad too.

And so, gradually, a person starts to unravel all this until he reaches a state called the greatest Lo Lishma, which does not let you sleep. I want to love Him, I want to be connected to Him, to give myself to Him, and lose myself in this, because I am sure this will be good for me. If I am so devoted to this, it means I already have a certain level of Lo Lishma from which I can move on to Lishma.

Every time I demand attainment of Lo Lishma from my studies in a different form, at a higher level, until I reach a state where Lishma enters it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/26, Rabash, “What Should One Do If He Was Born With Bad Qualities?”

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The only thing that was created is the desire to receive. Over thousands of years of the existence of humanity, the desire to receive in a person has grown both on the corporeal and spiritual level, and when it reached the third and then the fourth stage of the development of Aviut (the depth of the desire to receive), it underwent shattering during that stage.

Everything necessary is contained within the shattering. What is missing is only the upper light, the reference point by which we can measure all the fragments that survived within us in the shattering and give them their correct form; that is, see their proper use, which is opposite to the way they currently exist within us.

While remaining within one’s nature, a person cannot escape it because he is inside nature, and it determines his thoughts, behavior, desires, and direction: what he will be drawn to and in what way. And the light that comes from afar as surrounding light affects the shattered vessels and gives them understanding of the difference between them and the surrounding light.

At first, this understanding passes through stages of development called Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, and Dalet. Initially, a person strives toward the light. He thinks that with its help he can fill himself, using spirituality for his own benefit in his usual way, just as he previously tried to obtain all corporeal and human pleasures for himself using his surroundings for this purpose.

Now he intends to use the spiritual environment in the same way, for his own benefit. But the light affects him in two opposite forms: sometimes it awakens a passionate desire for the spiritual world and increases his desire to receive inside him, while at other times it shows him to what extent this passionate desire is unattainable for him.

Through this game of the light with the Kelim (vessels), a person begins to feel that his attitude toward spirituality must be different from the way he used to relate to his previous desires of this world when he used them openly, with both the vessels of his fellow person and the pleasures contained in his fellow person before him.

The light teaches him that the true form of pleasure lies within the quality of the light itself. It means that a person begins to receive the charm of holiness. In other words, he sees how much his Kelim have grown and, consequently, how much his suffering has increased. Then he seeks salvation from this suffering.

That is, the desire to receive buries itself (its own ordinary method of seeking fulfillment) and sees that the suffering it experiences corresponds to the magnitude of the desire to receive. A person begins to see that the desire to bestow can become his salvation: “Better death than such a life.” He cannot free himself from this desire, which is constantly increasing, and he cannot obtain any pleasure through it. Therefore, he begins to desire vessels of bestowal.

We awaken to connection with the Creator from within the great Kelim of reception which, precisely in our time, are beginning to rise from the shattering and demand correction and fulfillment. And what we have in addition is the reforming light—the light that brings us back to the source.

This gives us the opportunity to use the power of the light itself and strive toward the Kelim of bestowal, not because we want to escape trouble, but because of the importance and unity that we perceive in the quality of bestowal. In other words, the light conveys to us the greatness of the source.

It follows that what we must correct now is our attitude toward the Creator. We must draw closer to Him and adhere to Him, which is possible only through equivalence of form. And we can accomplish this only with the help of the reforming light. For this, we need to study from correct books within a group.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/23/26, Rabash, “What Is ‘Anyone Who Mourns for Jerusalem Is Rewarded with Seeing Its Joy” in the Work?”

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After the destruction of the Second Temple, a few people remained, such as Rabbi Shimon, who began writing books and advising the nation on what they should do. They directed this nation that had disconnected from its spiritual level to adhere to a system based on physical actions corresponding to spiritual ones.

Previously, everyone prayed with a prayer of the heart; now,  a prayer book was written for them. Many things that did not exist before were now defined by instructions on how to act at the material level. It was necessary to define the boundaries of the “animal,” which no longer sensed the limits set by the spiritual world and was seeking its own enclosure—to provide a framework for its existence. This was done through the book Shulchan Aruch and other texts.

Thus, the situation that persisted for millennia can be described as the lesser evil. A person existing on the material level, who has no contact with spirituality and no perception of the surrounding light, naturally believes that nothing else is possible.

He thinks that by observing the Torah and the commandments, he is doing everything possible. Indeed, in a way, he is doing everything possible. He has no sense that any further correction is possible. Correction of what if the point in the heart has not yet manifested itself?

That is why some have one Torah and others have another. For some it is external, for others it is internal. When we speak about the inner part of the Torah, we are talking about why a person needs the Torah in the first place: either for internal correction, which is triggered by a point in the heart, or for external correction, which is prompted by the desire to know what to do with one’s hands and feet, and what words to say.

For example, you have a book about slander. Let us take just one stipulation: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and suddenly you need all these books and encyclopedias to know exactly what can be said in connection with this and what cannot.

The law, however, states one thing: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Make an effort to do this, that is all. What books could we be talking about? However, when moving from inner work to outer work, you must give each thing an external definition so that you know which forms of its manifestation are prohibited, then the amendments begin to multiply. Internally, there is only one law: the law of adhesion, of similarity of form.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/26, Rabash, “One Should Always Sell Everything He Has and Marry a Wise Disciple’s Daughter”

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A person is constantly influenced by the desires around him, even without radio or television advertising. Our thoughts move from place to place, from one thing to another.

You can go somewhere without even knowing where you are and feel the character of that place by the change in a certain tension compared to the place you were in before.

That is, a person does not exist as an isolated individual. On the contrary, he has nothing of his own except a point that catches and everything he perceives is received from the environment around him.

All thoughts, all desires, everything a person has, comes from his environment. Everything depends on how far one distances oneself from what harms and moves closer to beneficial influences.

This, too, depends on the environment a person is in: how much it awakens him to this.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/23/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘Anyone Who Mourns for Jerusalem Is Rewarded with Seeing Its Joy,’ in the Work?”

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 211

Can Eternity Be Felt Only at the End of the Spiritual Path?

Eternity can be felt starting from the very first spiritual degree where we already sense a part of the end of correction. Why? It is because that lowest degree, degree 125, is the same end of correction, but reduced 125 times. That is, we feel what exists in the end of correction, but through many screens. We have a kind of awareness of it, in all of its details, but in a vague way.

Nevertheless, we are within that sensation and begin to identify with the soul instead of with the body. Our life changes. Even our attitude to life and death changes completely. When we begin to identify with the soul, we feel something of eternity.

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 35 “When a Person Knows What Is Fear of the Creator” 35 (1985) (8.15.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 2

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“One should always sell everything he has and marry a wise disciple’s daughter” (Psachim, 49). This means that he should sell all the possessions that he has acquired through his labor. That is, he should give everything and relinquish everything, and in turn take the daughter of a wise disciple (Rabash, “One Should Always Sell Everything He Has and Marry a Wise Disciple’s Daughter”).

The “Wise” is the Creator, and the “wise disciple’s daughter” is the Kli of a wise disciple, the intention to bestow. And indeed, the vessels are acquired. But in order to acquire the “wise disciple’s daughter,” a person must sell everything he has.

If, instead of the desires for all other fulfillments, he prefers the desire for the Creator, then he will attain Him; otherwise, he will not. Our path consists of gradually replacing all our desires with one single desire. By separating this desire from all the others that are opposite to it, we increase it, and then, from the “wise disciple’s daughter,” we come to the “Wise.”

Rabash speaks about the means: Segula (a special remedy), Torah, and Mitzvot. He writes that a person who comes to religion becomes worse than he was before.

Clearly, he does not mean someone who has returned to religion and become “righteous,” nor does he mean what is commonly understood by “religion.” Rather, he means one who wants to attain the middle line (Daat, Tifferet, Yesod) and works toward it, trying to go above reason, although the body tells him that this path is unsuccessful and unclear, and that he is only becoming worse than he was before.

Nevertheless, a person wants to remain in religion, to attain Daat, Tifferet, and Yesod through Aviut Shoresh, Aleph, and Bet (the zero, first, and second phases of egoism), and each time acquires more and more vessels of reception, subdues them and advances above them.

At the same time, a person feels that he is indeed becoming worse and worse, because the measure of his egoism is being revealed to him more and more. And all the desires that intensify within him at that time, he must replace with one desire, the wise disciple’s daughter.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/26, Rabash, “One Should Always Sell Everything He Has and Marry a Wise Disciple’s Daughter”

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Question: Is there really a law of the boomerang?

Answer: In general, everything good and everything bad that we do comes back to all of us and, of course, our loved ones. And somehow, we must still track these things. Perhaps we should try to draw some conclusions for the future.

Question: So is there such a simple formula, that the evil one does returns to a person in one form or another? Does this law exist?

Answer: It does. That is, one must constantly choose very carefully what one does, what one engages in, and toward what one is heading.

Question: What about my bad thoughts concerning others?

Answer: The same applies to that.

Question: Will they come back to me?

Answer: They definitely return.

Comment: If only a person could feel this, perhaps they would be more cautious.

My Response: For this, one must constantly restrain themself. Every person must restrain themself and control their thoughts, desires, and intentions in general.

Question: Is it right to restrain oneself? That is, to say to oneself: “This is a bad deed; I will not go there.” Is that how it should be?

Answer: Yes, even in one’s thoughts.

Question: Even in one’s thoughts? But this is very difficult.

Answer: In our terminology, this is called intention.

Comment: But I don’t have control over my thoughts. We have spoken about this before.

My Response: It does not matter. You are not free in what is sent to you. But what you do with it afterward—that is where your choice lies.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 7/28/26

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