Question: Does a person have the right to expect results from his work?

Answer: You must! Otherwise there is no incentive to work. In any case, we need to advance. We still need energy to move forward.

We cannot neutralize our desire, but can only change the intention from for our own sake to the intention for the sake of our friend.

Here we must rise above individuality, above ourselves, and think of how to connect the whole creation into one whole. Today we are beginning to see how much we need to understand nature as one aggregate whole.

All this is built on aspiration, on desire. The more our desire increases, the higher we rise.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/19

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“Behold, a ladder was set on the earth.” What is a ladder? It is a degree on which all other degrees depend, meaning the Nukva [female], which is the rest of the degrees (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 371, “A Ladder Set on the Earth”)

We see before us an opportunity to ascend to the Creator, and this opportunity is called a ladder. Therefore, we use it in every possible way.

Looking at this ladder and striving to connect with it, we are constantly trying to climb it. This is the key to our correct development.

Question: Can the ladder be associated with the qualities of the Creator and the opportunity to express ourselves in these good qualities?

Answer: Yes, during our spiritual work, we can constantly ascend and be in such connection with the Creator that ultimately our path ends with us lifting the Creator above ourselves, ascending to Him ourselves, and feeling only the upper world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/24, Writings of Rabash “A Ladder Set on the Earth”

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Question: How can you properly direct pride in the right direction?

Answer: This trait is our inherent nature, our sense of “self” that separates us from the Creator. My “self” stands between me and the Creator and acts as a barrier or screen. Therefore, I need to transform my “self” into a screen that facilitates interaction with the Creator.

To the extent that I aim to rise above my “self” and connect with the Creator, not by annulling myself completely, but by rising above myself, I perform a restriction (Tzimtzum) on my egoism. This means I refrain from using my ego and begin working toward becoming similar to the Creator, striving to be like Him.

This is essentially our work: to transform the separating screen into one that controls our ego, confines it, and allows us to work above it. We develop a spiritual screen and reflected light that enables us to calculate how to bestow upon the Creator and, to some degree, become like Him.

Thus, pride is necessary, we should not destroy it; instead, we should transform it into similarity with the Creator. Our pride, our “self,” and our ego remain intact, but we clothe them in various forms of resemblance to the Creator.

We already use this principle in our everyday lives. For example, we don’t behave in public like small children running around naked and doing whatever they please. We adopt various societal norms, “dress” ourselves in these behaviors, and project a certain image. The same applies in the spiritual realm.

If we want to resemble the Creator, we reveal Him by becoming like Him. When we clothe ourselves in His likeness, we become Adam, meaning “human,” derived from the word “Domeh”—similar to the Creator.

Therefore, our pride remains within, but we continuously “dress” it in new layers of similarity to the Creator. As we do so, we gradually become more human, just as in the physical world, where a child grows into a mature, educated, and respectful adult.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/19, “Questions and Answers”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “The Awakening of the Group”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”

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3rd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “To Bestow in Order to Bestow”

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Selected Highlights

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 30

What Prayer Does the Yearning for Rain Belong To?

The yearning for rain, such as that of farmers in the Negev, is a prayer, but it is not one that belongs to those engaged in spiritual work, nor is it a middle prayer. For those of us on the spiritual path, the middle prayer constantly changes as it is influenced by all the events we experience. If we can feel only one prayer in our heart, then we are called “holy still.” If we do not consider our heart as a prayer at all, then we are simply an animate organism.

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Kabbalah and religion are completely opposite concepts. Kabbalah teaches that one must change oneself, whereas religion suggests that performing external actions is sufficient to achieve everything necessary in life and you to attain paradise and all kinds of blessings in the next world.

According to Kabbalah, heaven and hell are states experienced by a person in our world while being in the body. However, one has the opportunity to rise above his body so that it no longer controls him. In this case he will perceive reality beyond the body and will not need to die to experience this.

If one does not reach a state above the body, his death only leads to the most minimal spiritual state, which cannot even be called spiritual. It is merely a state of some detachment from egoism but not the possession of a spiritual quality.

The focus is on the soul of a person who desires to correct it. In our world there is nothing higher than this, and if a person strives for it, you cannot prohibit him.

This is the issue between Kabbalists and the religious who put up a barrier: “Follow the rules up to this point, but do not engage in the development of the soul.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/19, “Questions and Answers”

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It is specifically when one becomes worthy, when he inverts reception into bestowal, called “receiving in order to bestow,” there is peace between them (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 240, “Discernments in States”).

A person desires to transform reception into bestowal, and the Creator performs this action.

Therefore, our task is to feel that we want to be in the desire to bestow and to ask the Creator to create this desire within us.

If all the members of the ten wish to receive for the sake of bestowing to the Creator and unite in this shared desire, a vessel (Kli) is formed between them that is worthy of correction and generates equivalence with the Creator.

Question: How can we, in the ten, become worthy of receiving for the sake of bestowal?

Answer: You will certainly achieve this. The Creator will give to you, and you will receive not for yourselves, but for all the other friends in the ten with the purpose of connecting it into one movement back toward the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/24, Writings of Rabash “Discernments in States”

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When studying Kabbalah in a group of like-minded individuals, we gradually uncover our nature, how much we are governed by egoism. We see it somewhat from a distance, as if from the outside, and then we can begin to do something about it. Essentially, we try to resist our egoism and unite with our friends in the group to resemble the Creator.

However, all these efforts are merely tools to help us realize that we cannot achieve anything on our own. Only by turning to the Creator, to this force that is opposite to us and willing to help us, can make a difference, but only to the extent that we genuinely desire to change. Otherwise, there is no other way.

Without this, our progress will only come through suffering. In other words, instead of asking the Creator to correct me from the start, I might simply endure suffering, which then also acts as a kind of request.

Thus everything we can do boils down to either asking or suffering. Both suffering and requests reach their target, the Creator. To the extent that we reach out, He draws closer to us, transforms us through His presence, and we change to resemble Him.

So we have two paths to transformation: through suffering, where the Creator changes us even without our conscious request, but only in proportion to the suffering we endure; or by consciously asking Him, where He changes us even before we begin to experience real suffering. This is the essence of our work.

Why do we study the wisdom of Kabbalah? To understand what we need to become and to begin asking the Creator long before we feel suffering. This is called the “path of light” or the “path of Torah.” If not, we are destined for the path of suffering.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/19, “Questions and Answers”

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Question: What does it mean that a person has performed a Zivug (a connection between the force of reception and the force of bestowal)?

Answer: If a person has a desire to bestow and arranges things so that the desire to receive is revealed before him, then when these two desires are combined, a Zivug occurs between them, meaning a combination that brings light into both states.

Question: We understand that without the help from above, we cannot perform a Zivug. How is our active participation expressed in this process?

Answer: Your active participation is expressed in the fact that all of you strive to unite with one another in order to reach a common desire to bestow.

Question: Does going through all the states mean experiencing each and every perception of the friends?

Answer: Not entirely, they experience many states that you do not need to go through. You only need to see how you can help a friend, connect with him, and unite.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/24, Writings of Rabash “Discernments in States”

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