Writings of Rabash, ““What Is He Who Does Not Have Children In The Work”: A tree that does not bear fruit is like a childless man who does not give birth to anyone. A person and the Torah are called barren if they do not have children.

Question: How can we refine the common intention that is aimed at help from above?

Answer: Help comes only in response to a desire to unite. That is why we study together to attract the Light of correction. All of us together must discern the desire to unite (the common prayer) because otherwise not one of us will have the right request or the strength to continue on the path.

A person has a basic desire: to feel good. Sometimes in addition to it the question about the meaning of life arises in him, which is a desire to acquire Light. That is when he begins studying the science of Kabbalah. Before he had this additional desire, he developed like an animal following the orders of his earthly desire. We take a person into account only from the moment when he aspires to something higher.

How does a person use all of the inclinations that are given to him? After all, development is only possible by virtue of a desire being added to him from the common Kli . But a person must include himself in it, similar to a tree that receives all the forces from the surrounding environment, such as the earth, air, sun, and so on. If a person knows how to accept everything for the benefit of his spiritual growth, then he will absorb this need from the environment and with it will request the Light that Reforms during the study.

This Light constructs one’s inner process whereby one’s inner qualities, objectives, and notions grow. That is how a person advances. He continuously thinks about how to receive an ascent from the environment. To do this, he has to lower his head before the friends and elevate them in his eyes as the best people of the generation. At the lesson he has to not forget why he studies. In the end, a person only receives an additional awakening from the group, but then the Light has to come and aim him correctly.

Thus, with the help of all of these factors, a person provides himself with the forces for growth. He has to check: Do these forces produce any fruits? On one hand, he advances in the left line, continuously revealing the evil inclination that the Creator made. Alternating with this, he reveals the Torah as a spice: He understands what to do with the evil inclination and how to discern the Torah with its help, which is the Light, the quality of bestowal.

Thus, as a person carries out the advice of Kabbalists, he reaches a certain sensation. Even if it is not a real vestment of Lights into vessels yet, nevertheless new details of perception emerge in him—specks of Light that clothe into Kelim. True, for now it is not felt as fulfillment, but as Surrounding Light—the Light that Reforms. A person is still on the path to the Source. He still hasn’t reached goodness, even to a small degree. Yet, he is moving forward.

Therefore, the most important thing is to fear that he will not have children, that he will remain without a strong desire, will stop halfway and wither by a dried up source. If you have a desire, it is necessary to discern the evil inclination in it, which is formless and opposite to spiritual advancement. Then one has to add the Torah as a spice, the Light that Reforms to this. If the Torah brings fruits, then it is no longer childless.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/8/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What can we do now to make the Creator happy?

Answer: Everything I do in the aspiration to unite with others in order to thereby give the Creator an opportunity to bestow to us—all of that means giving Him pleasure, even if I still haven’t attained the kind of unity inside of which He could bring His abundance.

Unification has to be total. Our Kli divides into five parts, and into five more, and so on until the 125th part. This is the smallest degree of unity between everyone, and it is already sufficient in order for the Creator to give us the corresponding dose of His Light, which we will feel.

Therefore, our entire work lies in preparing the Kli, the vessel in the unification among us. We shouldn’t work in relation to the Creator, but among us aspiring toward Him. Unlike Soviet Russia, we don’t unite for the sake of ourselves, but in order to give the Creator an opportunity to bestow to us. Then Israel, the Torah, and the Creator will really be one.

And that is enough. We work among us, keeping an intention to benefit the Creator, in order to prepare the vessels for His bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/11, Writings of Rabash

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Rabash, “What Is A Big or Small Sin in the Work”: The value of bestowal is determined by whom we bestow to. If a person bestows to a small king, it is a small work. But if a person bestows to a great king, his bestowal acquires value and brings him great pleasure.

Question: While trying to imagine that I bestow to a great King, I feel that I am deceiving myself. What should I do?

Answer: It is correct. First of all, value depends solely on you. The Creator exists, and either you do or do not reveal Him. It is up to you. Do you have a “sensor” to detect Him? That’s the problem.

Generally speaking, what does it mean, “to value the Creator”? Rabash cites Rambam when explaining how at the start of his path a person undergoes a process regarded as Lo Lishma (not for Her Name). In other words, I value the King if by being closer to Him, I will gain more. As in our world, I measure His value against the pleasure that I can receive from Him.

What then makes me change my values? It’s the Light that Reforms. If, by way of the group, I keep thinking about the change that must occur in me, looking forward to the Light’s arrival like a rooster anticipating dawn rather than fearing it like a bat does, then changes do come, and I start appreciating the Upper One because He is a Giver, not because I can gain what He will give.

Now I value Him because He gives; I value bestowal, yet not bestowal to me, but the very property of bestowal. I wish to be similar to it. This new range of values changes a person greatly. The Upper One becomes truly Higher for him: exalted by nature, the King, whose value lies in the fact that He is a Giver.

In that case, I look up to the Upper One not because I receive from him but because I can become like him. I want Him to give me His attribute, allow me to become similar, closer to Him since closeness is determined namely by similarities of qualities, not by how much I can gain from Him.

The entire difference between corporeality and spirituality lies is our attitude toward the Upper One. Do we ask Him to reform us?

The Creator is at absolute rest, and everything is up to us now: If we wish to change in His Light, we will. If we wish to become like Him in our properties, we will, to the point of complete adhesion, absolute love.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/10, “What is A Big or Small Sin in the Work”

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Question: What does it mean to “raise the importance of adhesion with the Creator?”

Answer: We have to consider which perspective we are using to observe our path, ourselves, and the world: our point of view or the Creator’s? It’s up to us to decide.

If I look at it from my own perspective, then “every person judges according to their own flaws,” and I am unable to see the truth. However, if I see everything from His point of view, which I have to achieve by becoming similar to Him in everything, then from that point I appreciate and see all.

I also begin to understand that love is equivalence of form. I assume all of His nature, and it becomes like my own, above my entire ego, above all the hatred and complete resistance. Only then am I able to understand which desires in me are meant to be corrected.

If I evaluate everything from my own perspective, I don’t see what needs correction, what is important to me at the moment. I can only see it if I am able to detect the end point, as it is written: “The end of an action lies in its initial thought.”

Question: But what prevents a person from seeing the end point?

Answer: He is not dreaming of adhesion with the Creator, he is not concerned about how to bring contentment to Him. This is what makes it difficult.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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If you gain what you so passionately desire by going through a lot of pain, you give thanks for the bad like for the good. Obviously, it isn’t the path of Light, but such is reality. We, however, have to advance only by way of the Light, as it is written: “In Your Light, we shall see Light.”

Why can’t I feel this evil long before it hits me? Why can’t I run ahead of the blow? I know it is possible! If I enter the group, I receive an awareness of my evil from the friends. It isn’t the Light that comes from Above which reveals it to me, but I discover and recognize it on my own.

Making efforts to unite with the friends, I see how unable I am to do so and feel my total uselessness. At the same time, however, I receive the greatness of the goal, cry to the Creator for help, and advance.

Having received the Surrounding Light, I turn to the group again, only to feel resentment once more, and cry out to the Creator again. He provides the Light that Reforms. The Creator draws me closer to Himself and holds me up. I begin to feel, understand, and attain more, thereby moving ahead. Then, the cycle repeats.

This is a non-stop, unbroken action that must be performed at an infinite frequency, and you are to be constantly in it. Moreover, your plea to the Creator and to the group, as well as receiving the Surrounding Light, occurs automatically. One follows the other.

You simply “press the pedal” to move in the right direction. As to how all the “cogwheels” spin in the “engine,” you are not interested in that. So, why wait for the blows?
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/10, Writings of Rabash, Letter 24

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Question: What criteria of advancement do we have? A month goes by, then a year…. How can I tell that I’m not standing in one place?

Answer: All of our work is done in relation to the group. As a result I have to be convinced and agree to see it as the place of the Creator’s revelation.

This understanding awakens in me and I can measure it. If it becomes increasingly clearer to me that only in our common, single desire will we all reveal the Light that Reforms, the Creator, unity, and the end of correction; if I feel that this is so with my whole being, that means I advance.

You can almost check it using a ruler. That’s how clear-cut everything is in this endeavor.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/8/10, The Zohar

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The most important thing that all of us and each one of us have to try to do, using all the artificial means (meaning against our desire), is to evoke a “need” to be included in the group. Each of us has to convince himself that the group, or its inner spiritual part, is in a completely corrected state, and this is the “place” where the Creator becomes revealed.

This place is already ready and waiting for you to be included in it. To the degree you do include yourself in it, you reveal the Upper World in that place.

Every person who tunes into it will receive everything: the spiritual world, eternity, perfection, and the Upper Force. All of this is there, inside it! This “place” is in the state of the final correction, Gmar Tikkun, and all the friends exist there as the greatest people of the generation, above everything. However, in order to make it easier for me to become included into that place, I ask everyone to influence me, and that is called an environment.

In other words, there is an environment and there is a place. The environment has to push me so I will get inside that corrected place. Moreover, the environment can be lying to me at all times, and that doesn’t matter. After all, they are not inside yet either, but are somewhere along the way. I am being deceived in Lo Lishma as if I aspire to bestowal and love.

However, the environment constantly makes me believe that this is necessary. As it “works on me,” I suddenly acquire the force to carry out this action and enter that “place.”

This place is already prepared ahead of time. We are already in it, in the third, final corrected state. Therefore, all we need is this:

1. Every person has to look for ways to convince himself to become included inside the group, into the “place” where he will reveal the Upper World, the Creator, the entire true reality.

2. Everyone has to “play” the corrected society for one another, which invigorates everyone and pushes them to become included in it, cancelling themselves before it.

From the 4th pat of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/8/10, “A Handmaid that is Heir to Her Mistress”

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When a person desires to enter the group and to unite with it, then precisely there, inside the interconnection with the friends, he reveals the four phases of the expansion of Direct Light, the ten Sefirot, the forms and degrees of unity that the Kabbalists describe. The stronger he merges with the desires of the friends by the principle of loving his neighbor as himself, the more the Light is revealed inside him, filling these desires. This is the revelation of the Creator to creation.

As Baal HaSulam writes in item 155 of "Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot," we have to desire for the material we study to become revealed and come alive inside us. We study the correction of creation so that inside these texts we will reveal the Light, the Creator, the goal of creation.

To correct creation means to correct a person’s connection with his environment. All the worlds lie on the path between myself and the group, on the line of connection between us. The higher I ascend, the more connected I am with the friends. The power of our interconnection corresponds to the degree of my inclusion in the group. To this degree I reveal the spiritual reality and acquire the vessel of the soul.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/10, The Zohar
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A person thinks that he has to independently overcome his ego, advance toward spirituality, and aim himself toward “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” This, however, isn’t so!

In our world, we are always waiting for a small child to complete an action independently by either following our example or thinking of something on his own, such as building something out of blocks.

In spirituality, we are developing on a degree that is above the physical world. There, we must obtain a second nature, while in the physical world all we have to do is advance, learn about what is already within us, and realize what is ahead. This is because everything already exists in its final state; the entire reality is disclosed.

We have to somehow “grab on” to spirituality, begin sensing, seeing, and revealing it. For now the spiritual world is unclear to us.

We have to understand one very simple notion which happens to be extremely difficult to implement: When we speak about overcoming, aspiration, attaining the goal, revealing the Creator, and our efforts, all of these things must be in our plea to the Creator in order for them to be heard. We can’t do anything except correctly ask the Creator.

For now we haven’t reached the point of realizing that “there is none else besides Him,” that He is in charge of all actions, and that we are simply the objects of these actions. We can only raise MAN (Mayin Nukvin – “female waters”) so that the Creator will carry out these actions.

We’re still relating to spirituality in the same way that we relate to this world, where we feel we can do things with “our own hands.” We scatter our efforts in different directions instead of appealing to the Creator.

If we aren’t formulating an inner plea to the Creator, then we aren’t aspiring toward bestowal. After all, it’s quite evident that we aren’t capable of bestowing on our own. This is why we have to appeal to the Creator. The group can’t correctly realize and explain to each person what action we must all make together.

It is said: “The sons of Israel cried from this work.” They wanted to build the beautiful cities of Pithom and Ramses themselves. After building them, they saw that everything was consumed by their egoistic desire to receive pleasure. That’s when they called out to the Creator so that He would make changes.

In other words, we’re only expecting it to happen. But the executing force that will change us will come only if we ask it to come. We can hear these things hundreds, even thousands of times, but only the Upper Light can give us the ability to perceive them.

However, the group’s opinion can bring us closer to this. If each person will constantly try to remind himself and even force himself to think that we have to unite in our plea to the Creator, then this is considered to be everyone’s effort. It is the prayer of the many (Tefilat Rabim) that will open the path to spirituality.
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From Preparation to the Lesson, 11/19/10

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Question: What does raising MAN mean?

Answer: MAN is a plea to become like the Creator. It occurs when a person feels helpless, as though he’s in a middle of a desert. He is stripped of all things, he’s withered, and others can’t help him. He understands that he has no chance of reaching love and bestowal. He feels weak and “surrounded by lions,” desires that are “devouring” him. His life is in danger and he is unable to get out of this state and enter bestowal.

The whole world is at a person’s feet except for bestowal and love for his friend or the Creator. It doesn’t matter what pleasures the ego fills itself with; if the quality of love and bestowal doesn’t stand behind all of these things, the person is lost in the desert. In this desert, this empty ego, a person’s spiritual desire becomes so powerful that it makes him cry out, and this cry reaches the goal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/10, The Zohar, Introduction, Article “The Rose”

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