Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 223

What Is the True Picture of the Creator?

We never speak about how things appear from the Creator’s side, what He feels, or what He is. We speak about what the created being feels from Him, or about how the created being imagines the Creator’s state, but not about His state outside the created being. At times we think all sorts of things about a friend that do not truly reflect who he is. We speculate about his thoughts, feelings, and troubles, and when we come a little closer to him, we discover that none of it was true. It was all merely a picture we had drawn in our imagination.

There is the matter of knowing something from within ourselves, from imagining that something is one way or another, and there is the true picture. We never see or know the true picture of the Creator. We can only know the Creator through ourselves, what we think about the Creator, how we understand the Creator, and so on. The truest picture that we are capable of attaining, without our vessels distorting what the Creator wishes us to feel from Him, is the state of final correction. The Host wishes to serve a five-course meal, each course perfect in every respect. We receive it and feel the Host’s attitude toward us through it. Beyond that is beyond our ability.

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 31 “What Does It Mean that Charity to the Poor Makes the Holy Name, in the Work?” (1991) (6.26.2002)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Recording of Rabash, Writings of Baal HaSulam“Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 6, Item 39

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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: What does it mean: “The Creator helps a person with a holy soul”

Answer: It means that after a person makes every possible effort, it is revealed to them that it is necessary to perform an action that is beyond human strength, above this world. They discover that what they are striving for, what they are touching, belongs, not to our reality, but to the one that is beyond the Machsom (barrier).

In other words, then it is revealed to them what the Machsom is. It is an inversion, a complete reversal in approach, in thinking, as it is said: “I saw the upside-down world.” Then a person sees that only the upper force, the Creator, can perform this action. By what means? By means of a “holy soul,” that is, by giving them completely different powers, thoughts, and abilities that they did not have before.

This is what is called the new soul—a “holy soul”: instead of the nature directed toward working for the sake of receiving with which He created man, the Creator now gives him a second nature that works for the sake of bestowal. This is the “holy soul,” when a person receives the strength to work for the sake of bestowal.

Question: Is this somehow connected to the group?

Answer: No, here we are talking about the relationship between a person and the Creator. Neither the teacher nor the group has anything to do with it. Both the teacher and the group are merely means for bringing a person into contact with the Creator.

Of course, he must constantly rely on them, be connected with them, but the essence lies in the relationship between the Kli of a person’s soul and the light, that is, the Creator. There is nothing else.
[360668]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/26, Rabash, “What Are Commandments that a Person Tramples with His Feet”

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Work without pleasure is called “labor.” That is, the person would not do this if he did not know he would be paid for the effort. (Rabash, Article 27 (1987), “What Are ‘Blessing’ and ‘Curse’ in the Work?”)

Before performing any action, a person always asks: “What will I get out of it?” Peace, money, honor, something that he needs. This can even be seen from the enormous variety of hobbies that exist in the world.

Nothing forces a person to pursue his hobby except pleasure. One person enjoys fishing, catching fish on a hook; another, on the contrary, enjoys feeding fish, and breeding them in an aquarium; a third collects a herbarium of leaves. We find nothing in this for ourselves, whereas for him it is exactly the opposite. And so everyone has his own way. Some collect things that we can understand: money, experiences, honor, knowledge, and so on.

Thus, pleasure can be clothed in the most diverse forms, but it must be there. If I do not see any pleasure, I cannot perform an action. I have to see some pleasure ahead. It may come in a month, at the end of my life, or even after my life is over. Many people are willing to work hard throughout their entire lives so that they will be remembered after their death. We see that human pleasures can even transcend the boundaries of time.

However, the very feeling of the pleasure that lies ahead already belongs to the present. This feeling, when I experience future pleasure now, provides me with the energy and the fuel to perform the action. I look at what will happen to me; I bring that pleasure closer to myself, as though filling my fuel tank with gasoline, and with that I can work.

But if I see absolutely no pleasure ahead, then I have no energy, not a drop of fuel to perform any action. The car stops, and that is it. Sometimes we feel exactly like this: “No matter what, I cannot even move.” Such feelings are given to a person who begins spiritual work.

Then the question arises: Which goal will be important to me? This depends on the surrounding society, where I grew up, what I did, and what kind of education I received. This is how my attitude toward everything is formed, and according to it—as well as, of course, according to my nature—I choose certain goals in life.

Goals are forms of pleasure that I wish to enjoy in the future, while I already enjoy them now through my connection with them.
[360592]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/26, Rabash, “What Are ‘Blessing’ and ‘Curse’ in the Work?”

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Our work before the Machsom and after the Machsom differs each time. After the Machsom, where there are Kelim [vessels, plural of Kli] of bestowal and Kelim of reception, everything is different. After I have attained awareness of the greatness of the Creator, the action itself is already performed differently. Before that, there is nothing to discuss, for I am striving in the wrong direction. First I must direct myself, and only then do I fly there. This must be done before everything else.

I worked with airplanes for several years in the Israeli Air Force. Imagine an airplane sitting on the ground completely unoriented regarding the cardinal directions; the pilot in the cockpit does not know where he is, the directions are unknown to him. He exists within a three-dimensional sphere, knowing nothing about it.

Should he fly? No; in this situation, it is better for him to remain in place because moving even a millimeter could lan him who knows where. So, first of all, he must check the location of the goal toward which he needs to head.

And so we direct ourselves: this is our goal, in the direction of it we now apply effort, and only then do we begin to move.

However, this goal is concealed; the Creator is hidden. I don’t have the slightest notion of similarity of form; it does not attract me; the issue doesn’t even exist for me. The group must provide me with this Hisaron, this need. My point in the heart only feels that something is missing.

The first nine Sefirot must reveal what is lacking in my point in the heart. They must tell Malchut: “This is what you lack.” And these first nine Sefirot, in relation to me, are embodied by the group. Nothing else will help me.

If my friends do not provide me with this, I must seek another group. Either I organize them so that they give me the importance of the goal, or I must leave them and seek another group where the importance of the goal already exists; and if not, then I will bring it there. And the group will hear that this is important and that work must be done on it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/26, Rabash, “What Is ‘Return, O Israel, Unto the Lord Your God,’ in the Work?”

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 222

What Is the Difference Between Before and After the Barrier?

Before the barrier, a person passes through two principal and very important stages:

1) Double concealment
2) Single concealment

These two stages provide us with all the vessels and discernments, which we later enlarge in spirituality and upon which we dress additional discernments. The transgressions and mistakes that we make on our spiritual path toward the barrier are the actual vessels that we will use later.

The difference between before and after the barrier is not only in these vessels. The point is that before the barrier, when we are in concealment and the Creator is not revealed, we might sometimes feel something in relation to the Creator. Our sensation of the Creator is that of the surrounding light (Ohr Makif) and not of the inner light (Ohr Pnimi), because we still lack a screen (Masach).

After the barrier, we acquire a screen. The acquisition of the first screen is called crossing the barrier, and afterward additional screens are added. Then, according to the strength of our screen, we can receive inner light, which is a clear and tangible sensation of Godliness.

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Question: Could the reason for the feeling of heaviness in the work be that a person reveals the Creator as the main active player, and refuses to accept this?

Answer: All the states, from the initial one until the moment of revealing the Creator, are difficult states. A sense of lightness, ascent, strength, confidence, potential, and realization can be felt only from the presence of the Creator.

Only when He appears before you will “our heart rejoice in Him.” Everything that happens before this (no matter in what form) will always be difficult, heavy, and sorrowful. This is intentional, but if a person agrees with these uncorrected states…

Question: But he cannot agree. Does the feeling of heaviness come as a result of a person’s inability to accept that the Creator governs all of reality? And the further a person advances, does it become more difficult for him to accept this?

Answer: I do not know how to express it. In any case, until a person has passed the barrier, it is difficult for him; only each time we feel the heaviness and powerlessness differently. It is impossible to express this in words. We are speaking about a transforming perception; the concepts of heaviness, sorrow, and laziness change.

And nevertheless, it is difficult in the sense that it is difficult to work with anything in the desire to bestow. We feel as though it is difficult for us to work in the will to receive, but in fact we are not speaking about this desire because, if we felt the goal in the will to receive, we would work with full strength. We lack nothing except the sense of the goal.

Each of us at least once in our life experienced enthusiasm in business, or in the pursuit of something interesting or useful, or in attempts to obtain something very necessary. And so it is now. Just show us some worthwhile goal, and we will run after it.

However, this time the goal is in the desire to bestow, the higher degree that reveals its reverse side to us. Therefore this is how we feel it.
[359720]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/26, Rabash, “What Is the Prohibition to Teach Torah to Idol-Worshippers in the Work?”

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Question: How can I move from regretting my own situation to feeling sorrow for the state of the whole world?

Answer: This is not the right question. Just as sorrow about my own state accumulates in me, so does sorrow about the state of the entire world. It all depends on a person’s inner work. The development of one’s Kli gradually leads to a state where one feels that one’s Kli is not only what is in one’s own belly, but also what is within others.

Just as parents feel dependent on their children, where what ultimately happens to the child also happens to their parents, so too does a person begin to feel like a father toward his children, that what is happening in the whole world, with all of humanity, is essentially what is happening to him.

He perceives this naturally; other people’s desires become joined to his own, and nothing can be done about it. This is how the Kli grows. You can’t artificially start taking an interest in someone else’s affairs. You suddenly remember something about it, then you forget, but that is all artificial, driven by self-benefit.

But a state arrives when you suddenly begin to feel, to some extent, concern for all of humanity, truly as if they were your own children. This happens in accordance with the degree of correction within the desire to receive. And there is no way around it, just as parents cannot free themselves from caring for their children.
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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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