Rabash, in the article “It is Forbidden to Hear a Good Thing from a Bad Person,” writes that if you observe that the advice you have accepted promises to increase your efforts, then the direction is correct; conversely, if it serves to reduce your effort, then it is incorrect.

Accordingly, if the action before you requires effort, then, apparently it comes from a good side and is aimed in a good direction. And if it does not require effort, then, it seems, it is directed in a bad direction.
What are “efforts”? A person might plan a bank robbery with the sweat of his brow. This is no easy task. Several people work on it, they prepare everything, and try their best. Desire obliges.

So what exactly constitutes “effort”? Relative to what are they evaluated? If an effort is added to a desire in order to realize it and enjoy it without any connection with the Creator, this is the effort of the evil inclination.

You can sweat your whole life trying to earn what you have set as your life’s goal, but that does not count as effort. Efforts in spirituality is that which leads you to adhesion with the Creator, that which improves you in some ways so that you become like Him. Everything else is not effort.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/26, Rabash, “It is Forbidden to Hear a Good Thing from a Bad Person”

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Question: Why did some things happen in the material world first and only subsequently happen in the spiritual world, whereas in other cases it is the other way around?

Answer: Everything that belongs to the “preparatoration phase,” prior to entering the spiritual world, first takes material form and then the time comes for its inner fulfillment.

A person goes through two stages. He is born as an animal, and from the moment the “point in the heart” is implanted in him, we start counting his “human” life; the word “man – Adam”  is from the word “Adameh,” which means “I shall become like the upper.” It is a striving that stems from the point in the heart.

If, throughout the course of all his previous incarnations, he existed in this world merely as matter, without a point in the heart, acquiring desires for money, honor, and knowledge, it is completely normal and natural. But none of this counts. There is a certain “accounting” for this, but it has nothing to do with a person’s individual spiritual advancement.

Personal advancement begins the moment he feels his “point in the heart.” From this moment on, his work is called “the time of preparation for entering spirituality.”

The preparatoration stage can last 10, 15, or even 20 years, or it could take 5 years, and even, as Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” as little as 3 years. It depends on the person’s efforts. It may be that he will achieve some advancement, and then die until the next reincarnation. And who knows what will happen in this new incarnation. It all depends on his efforts. If he is lucky, he will join the group and increase his pace; if he is not, he will not.

It is said that everything depends on “luck” (Mazal). “Mazal” is from the word “Nozel – flowing.” The faster these drops “flow” into a person, the more his Kli is filled. If they “drip” slowly, a person will have to wait several lifetimes.

So we count the first stage from the appearance of a point in the heart to the entrance into the spiritual world, and the second stage is working in the spiritual world. This process corresponds to manifesting in matter in our world. All these things that correspond to the spiritual roots of the preparatory phase, have already occurred and nothing more is needed. The material realization here precedes the spiritual one.

When we talk about the stages of spiritual work: the correction of the Kli, the construction of the Temple, that is, about the second stage, from the Machsom onward, then spiritual work is required there first, and as a result of this, a person builds the material aspects of his life here, including the Land of Israel, which he develops to the degree he is in the Land of Israel internally.

In the same way the nation is formed according to their spiritual attainment, and finally, a Third Temple is built after a person reaches a state called a Temple.

Thus, the states corresponding to the preparation phase, starting from the point in the heart and up to crossing the Machsom, first occur in the material world, and then in a person, in his inner world. Whereas everything that has to do with the second phase, from the Machsom to the final correction (Gmar Tikun), first occur as spiritual stages within a person, society, and then in the material world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/26, Rabash, “Come unto Pharaoh – 2”

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Question: What is the difference between the states “goes” and “does”?

Answer: “Goes” means that a person has some urge to advance, when he thinks that in the next state, he will be closer to the Creator, closer to the possibility of bestowing. This means that he has an intention to come to bestowal in some form.

Here there are two states: the present one and the next one, and he is already moving between them, passing from one to the other. Therefore, he is called “one who goes.”

And another sits and appears to be he doing something. This means that he was given the opportunity to come here and sit with us. And still this is also called an “action.”

He has no aspiration to come to something. “Bestowal, adhesion, Creator”; these words can be pronounced just like that, but they do not come from the person’s inner feeling.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/26, Rabash, “What Are the Four Qualities of Those Who Go to the Seminary, in the Work?”

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Question: You try to give tasks to everyone, both men and women. Is it really possible to do without women’s desire?

Answer: No, it must be very clear. A woman is not a passive element in creation. Although compared to a man, she is more passive, this is only because she cannot independently implement her desire.

However, her desire itself is very necessary for men. And men will feel like men when women begin to feel a need for spiritual development and pressure them with this need. Then it will be like in a family when a wife compels her husband to take care of the family.

Question: How can we ensure that women do not go in the wrong direction?

Answer: In any case, one has to develop somewhere. I am not afraid of anything. And in general, what is there for us to fear? Life is infinite, nature is eternal, the Creator is one, and one force governs us. We are obligated to move only toward it, toward contact with it, and toward similarity with it.

Let us try to pass through all these stages quickly, easily, and pleasantly, as much as possible. The main thing is to constantly try to accelerate the pace of movement toward the goal. That is all.

When I am asked what I like about myself and what I do not, I say: “There is only one thing I like about myself: the striving toward the goal that the Creator gave me.” I must constantly feel pressure: I must, must, must, and feel that I am moving toward the goal, revealing it more and more correctly. I torment myself if I do not carry this through to the end.

Only this desire matters. Everything else is the evil that was also created by the Creator, but there is certainly nothing good in it.

Therefore, we should not pay attention to the various shortcomings that are revealed within us. They will naturally appear, and at the pace at which we move forward, we will feel them even more.

But a strong, good, kind, mature women’s organization, which I demand, will help us go through all the revelations of our internal shortcomings that we do not yet see. And by revealing and correcting them, we will come to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Women’s Desire” 9/11/10

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