We must infuse every action we perform with the principle “There is none else besides Him.” By doing so, we are already in unity with the Creator, albeit on a certain level, but nonetheless it is a true state of unity.

We will come to know Him in a more sensory form with greater awareness until He is revealed in His complete fullness, a state known as final correction (Gmar Tikkun), the world of infinity, which is our goal.

But how will this be revealed? Precisely through small actions. What am I doing right now? Do I understand that what I am doing now comes either from the absence of connection with the Creator or from the presence of this connection?

Even if you have to lie to yourself to convince yourself that you must do it. For example, I am forced to steal. If I do not steal, I will have nothing to eat, I will have no strength, no energy, I will not be able to satisfy my needs, I will not be able to study. A person constructs all kinds of justifications even for not very good actions.

But for now, this is of no consequence because one cannot act otherwise. Even through such means one is connecting oneself with the Creator. It is essential to internalize the Creator, that you bring Him within.  Do not attempt to conceal these matters from yourselves.

Otherwise it is as though you were erasing the Creator from some part of your life, banishing Him from there. No! He is always present within all my actions, even the ones that are least praiseworthy.

Question: What does it mean to internalize the Creator? Does it simply mean thinking about Him?

Answer: Yes! Think! And you will see how suddenly, within these very actions, you will begin to behave differently. The Creator agrees that instead of being concealed from you, you should search for Him in every place where you may be. There is nothing more terrible than erasing Him from your field of vision. Invite Him into the worst, the most indecent, the most dishonest action.

Rabash writes about this: When a person regrets having left holiness, they decide that from that moment onward they will try with all their strength to ensure that it does not happen again.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/26, Rabash, “The Meaning of the Strict Prohibition to Teach Idol Worshippers the Torah”

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Question: How do we connect material (animalistic) actions to the goal?

Answer: It is very simple! Which of my animalistic actions can I not connect to the goal? I examine that there are some things I must do: work, sleep, eat, wash, and care for my body. I need a family, a wife, and children. I have to provide them with everything because that is how the Creator arranged it.

So if He arranged everything this way and I am executing it, then on one hand, it is a necessity. On the other hand, I must perceive all this as coming from Him, He obliges me to do this; therefore, all these actions are linked to holiness.

It turns out that I spend 20 hours a day doing what the Creator forces me to do. So how much do I devote to spirituality? Two and a half hours in the morning here in class, another half hour to get here, and another half hour back. This amounts to three and a half hours. In addition, maybe half an hour during the day in the evening or at lunchtime. That is it! Meaning, I spend 20 hours a day doing things that are not directly related to spirituality.

But if I know I do this because it is the will of the Creator so that in these actions I feel that everything comes from Him, that He obliges me to draw closer to Him with their help, then all these 20 hours turn into a means of moving toward the goal.

That is how I go to sleep, and through it I advance. I eat, and advance through it. In this way, any action turns into something that brings me closer to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/26, Rabash, “The Meaning of the Strict Prohibition to Teach Idol Worshippers the Torah”

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Question: What constitutes the maximum state of Lo Lishma (for the sake of receiving) from which we move transition into the altruistic state of Lishma (for the sake of bestowal)?

Answer: A person achieves 99% of bestowing and only 1% receiving. This is the maximum state of Lo Lishma; the final 1% of reception feels like 100% for them. This is how a person sees it, this is how one is calibrated so that sensitivity to this last percentage surpasses everything else.

It is written that “the Creator is exacting with the righteous to the hair’s breadth.” The evil inclination appears first like a strand of a spider’s web and later as cart ropes. To the righteous, it seems like a high mountain, but to sinners it seems like something insignificant. It would seem that all that is needed is to jump over a ten-centimeter groove, but for the righteous, it feels like a leap over an abyss. In reality, the opposite is true; the righteous have only a hair’s breadth to overcome, while sinners still face a towering mountain.

Question: Is there suffering involved in the sensation of Lo Lishma?

Answer: Of course. A person has invested much effort, studied, and worked in a group only to suddenly see an unassailable summit looming before him. The higher we ascend as we correct our egoism, the larger the egoism seems.

After all, we acquire a subtle sensitivity to it, see even a small flaw as if under a magnifying glass. This happens in any profession a person masters.

As for suffering, at the beginning of the journey it has a more material character, and then it becomes purposeful, or spiritual.

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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/12, Baal HaSulam “The Peace”

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Question: Who is called an idol worshipper in Kabbalah?

Answer: You! Because every minute, even without sensing it, you are sculpting idols right out of thin air.

If you do not connect everything that happens to you with the one force called “One, Unified, and Unique,” if you do not always relate these events back to a single cause and regard everything else (save it) merely as manifestations of that one force, then you are engaged in idol worship.

Suppose your wife says something unpleasant to you. You must understand that this came from the Creator, and she is only a puppet through whom the Creator demonstrates His attitude toward you.

But if you attribute everything to her, you are “making an idol.” You should relate it to her, and through her to the Creator. There must be two here.

One should understand that the director of this entire play is the Creator, and that in this way He presents Himself to us precisely so that we may unite all His various and even opposite manifestations into one form, into one source, the Creator.

But this is possible only on condition that you use the entire world in order to unite it within your perception into one whole and connect it to a single source.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/9, Baal HaSulam “Characteristics of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: Suppose I want to determine my next action in accordance with the Creator, and there are two possibilities where one suits my will to receive more and the other less. Can I combine the more suitable ones and say that I am thinking only about the Creator?

Answer: It is not for nothing that it is written: “I the Lord, who dwells with them in the midst of their Tumaa [impurity].” The question is: If He really is present in your impure matter, and you are fully aware that you are engaged in such an act, then the presence of the Creator sanctifies your impure action. These actions turn into corrections.

And even though you see that for now you cannot rid yourself of these actions and you remain in them, you do not merely settle into complacency, you simply use them for advancement.

Comment: But this negates the advancement, it shows how much I am not on the path.

My Response: Who told you that if you see to what extent you are not going the right way that this is not advancement? Even the fact that you agree to remain in a lowly state, provided you remain with the Creator, that you reveal these matters, that they are important to you, and that you are capable of connecting the sacred with the Klipa and saying that there is a connection, it is as if you enjoy twice—from the Creator, who is together with you, and from the very action.

If you clarify that it is precisely He who is inside, then you have a connection that saves you and pulls you out. There is nothing more terrible than you forgetting about the Creator. This is the worst thing! And the fact that a person cannot rise above his Klipa is a result of the connection between the surrounding light and the person’s Reshimo (informational gene). Such is the state, and you cannot change it.

Only after you have finished the clarification of your Kli and have thoroughly verified it, do you begin to move away from evil, because you simply are unable to be in the bad. And as soon as you feel that this really is evil, you naturally move away from it.

Comment: But I do not feel this.

My Response: Excellent! You do not feel it now, but you will gradually feel it! You have no choice. If the Creator is not with you, if you do not feel His presence, if you do not somehow connect Him with your spiritual advancement, if you understand that the state in which you are is opposite to spirituality, but you agree with it and are now gnawing yourself over it, you will never be able to come out of this.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/26, Rabash, “The Meaning of the Strict Prohibition to Teach Idol Worshippers the Torah”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 7 “What Is ‘Man’ and What Is ‘Beast’ in the Work?” (1991) (1.27.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Preparation for Convention

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Question: Is annulment before the upper a path of coercion?

Answer: It is said that there is no coercion in spirituality. Yet, it seems that annulment before the upper is coercion from the upper toward us. If we look at it through the lens of the Passover Haggadah, the Creator adds the evil inclination to Pharaoh and then strikes Pharaoh.

The poor Pharaoh does not know where to escape. He cannot go anywhere, because he is 100% made of opposite qualities. So, where can he run?

Thus, it appears that there is no more miserable or terrible state than the way the Creator treats Pharaoh. Is it fitting for the Creator to relate this way to His creation with all its qualities?

Question: I am asking not from the side of the Creator but from the side of the created being. Is choosing the opinion of the upper an act of coercion, opposite to my own opinion? After all, with that tiny force I draw from the group, I force myself to go against myself.

Answer: From the side of the person, it is exactly the same. Pharaoh is everything within us, our entire nature. Can I do anything with it if it is 100% this way? You say: “My so-called choice of the Creator is not really my choice. It is simply an action I take out of helplessness.”

When I receive blows, and as a result begin to see even slightly that if I move into another state, perhaps even acquire another nature, I will be able to escape these blows, then it is precisely this that compels me to make a certain choice. But is this called free choice?

That is, the desire to receive seemingly “chooses”: it would rather die than continue to feel the blows, to the point that they are worse than death. Better not to feel myself at all, as if I do not exist, just not to feel this suffering.

A feeling of such despair is created within us that it becomes easier not to feel anything than to endure the blows. Can this be called choosing connection with the Creator, with spirituality, with eternity? Who says that this is free choice, that there is freedom of action without any coercion?

On the contrary, it is said: “You have not a blade of grass below that does not have an angel that strikes and tells it, ‘Grow!’” or “He is forced until he says: ‘I want.’” There are many such expressions describing states where only through blows and suffering does the desire to receive agree to renounce itself, to annul itself. In this, there is no free choice.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/26, Rabash, “What Is Heaviness of the Head in the Work? ”

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In Rabash article, “The Meaning of the Strict Prohibition to Teach Idol Worshippers the Torah” it is stated that “it is forbidden to teach Torah to idol worshippers.” This is not very clear. After all, the Creator created creatures some of whom are smart, some stupid, some of bad character, some of good character, some are lazy,  and some are energetic.

Is it man’s fault that he was created with bad or good qualities? Before the Creator, everyone is the same. What difference could there be? We know that the laws of the Creator are straight and just. He had to have given everyone equal opportunities to advance toward Him because no one is superior to another.

However, we see a wide variety of creations. Why are idolaters forbidden to study the Torah?

There is Israel and there are idolaters. Israel is “Yashar El,” one who is aimed straight to the Creator, wants to be connected to Him, does not run away from this connection, and wants to see the Creator constantly as a goal before him, as the most important and the greatest.

An idolater (Ovdei Kohavim uMazalot) is someone who worships the stars and fate, looking for reasons for everything that happens in all sorts of places and things around him. But you cannot blame a person for that. It depends on what stage of development he is at.

So why is there a strict prohibition on idolaters to study the Torah? It is because the Torah can be both the elixir of life and the potion of death. After all, if a person takes this force and uses it in the wrong direction, he moves away from the goal. But the main thing is that he strays from the path. The more he moves away, the more confused he becomes, the more troubles and obstacles come his way.

Of course, these setbacks and obstacles are designed to bring him back. But he no longer understands what is happening since he is moving in the opposite direction with a large deviation from the right path.

It is simply salvation from above that he is brought back to the path, given an awakening in the right direction again, but in any case, this is a path of great suffering. It may take a long time for him to come to his senses again, return to the right path, and discover once again that there is a goal to strive for.

But until he has built the right intention toward the Creator, toward the goal of creation, until this is fully clarified, he is forbidden to use the force of the Torah for advancement. It is like an aiming device that lets you accurately aim a gun at a target to avoid causing harm instead of helping.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/26, Rabash, “The Meaning of the Strict Prohibition to Teach Idol Worshippers the Torah”

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We have one single Kli (vessel), called Malchut. This Kli is incapable of receiving in the form of bestowal. One may use it in a manner resembling a vessel (Kli) of bestowal, but in order to truly transform the Kli into one that receives for the sake of bestowal, an enormous amount of preliminary work must first be done. This preparatory work is called the general correction of the Kli.

For this purpose, a screen is built over it so that all the desires within Malchut operate in the mode of not receiving for one’s own sake. In each desire, the greatness of the Creator and the greatness of the goal must become so significant that none of the desires would wish to remain in a state opposite to connection with the Creator.

When you feel within all your desires that not a single one wants to detach from the Creator, then in each of them, you sense that separation lies in receiving for oneself. The moment you take for yourself, you instantly become separated from the Creator. Then a fear appears within you, like a burning fire, and this is called being under the power of the restriction.

After you are equipped with such a shield, it becomes possible to begin giving each desire the form of bestowal. What does this mean? You ask the Creator to learn the manner in which He bestows upon you from Him. You learn, not what He gives you, but precisely how, in what way. And the Creator explains this to you through His actions. This is called: “From Your actions we shall know You.”

How does an infant behave? He only wishes to receive milk from his mother without knowing how it happens, what is done for it, or how it is fed; it makes no difference to the infant: “This is simply what I deserve.” Later, the baby begins to understand where all this comes from and how it is carried out. If a child wants to resemble its parents, he or she first examines exactly how they act and what they do.

Likewise, you must study the actions of the Creator. It is not simply that the light comes to me from the Sefirah of Yesod; before that, there are many different actions through which the Creator influences me. Then, from my former desire (when I wished only to receive the light) a new desire develops: to use my natural desire to receive in order to build a system like the one the Creator possesses when delighting me.

The Creator has nine systems through which He delights me with pleasures suited to me. And my system, the tenth point called Malchut, receives these pleasures and enjoys them. Now, based on the fact that I enjoy them, I want to build a system that functions exactly like the system of the Creator.

Thus, I must acquire this entire system from Him, only in reverse form, reverse relative to my desire to receive.

How does Malchut, after having received one of the many pleasures corresponding to a specific desire and using it, perform an act of bestowal? It literally acquires the first nine Sefirot. But what does “acquires” mean?

It is not as though the first nine Sefirot are simply attached to Malchut and then used together, as we usually depict. All these first nine Sefirot must become integrated into the system of the desire to receive, which must absorb this form within itself. In other words, the desire to receive adopts the inner form of the system of the Creator.

We are not speaking about Atzmuto (His Essence), but about the Creator (Boreh), meaning His relation toward me. Thus, I truly absorb all His systems into myself and, according to my desire to receive, transform them so that they operate for the sake of bestowal from within it rather than from within the desire to bestow.

The desire to bestow begins from Keter deYesod. But I begin from Malchut and invert these first nine Sefirot into reversed nine Sefirot, and thus, there are now direct and reflected light. Now I possess ten Sefirot of reflected light. This corresponds to Malchut becoming Keter, while Hochma turns into Yesod, which now influences Keter that has become Malchut for it.

When a person completes all this work, they truly become like the Creator, not only in their actions but also in spiritual status.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/26, Rabash, “What Is the Difference between Law and Judgment in the Work?”

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