Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 275

What Does “The Torah Is Sustained Only in One Who Puts Himself to Death Over It” Mean?

The meaning of this statement is that the light of the Torah, which is generally inner light, enters the spiritual Partzuf. “It is sustained in one who puts himself to death over it,” that is, one who has put to death his desire to receive in order to receive “for it,” that is, “for the Torah.” In other words, in accordance with the Torah, we have made our desire into a desire to bestow, like the light. Then the Torah is sustained within us, and we ourselves become light. This is called “death,” that is, death of the intention to receive.

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Question: What does it mean to look at everything with the goal in mind? What should we look for from the perspective of the goal?

Answer: The problem is that until certain concepts take shape within us, we will not understand what we are talking about. That is why Kabbalah is called the hidden wisdom. Sometimes I feel sweetness, sometimes pain, moisture, cold, trouble, or sadness.

Through my own sensations, I already acquire Reshimot, and I can understand another person when they act in a certain way, explain something to me, play music, or show me something. Based on my own experience, I understand them. But if I had never felt any of these things myself, I would never understand what they were talking about. That is the difference.

The essence of the hidden wisdom is that, first of all, we need to equip ourselves with various concepts, all kinds of impressions and sensations that do not simply exist within a person naturally. They come to a person during the period of preparation, before the Machsom, through work in the group, study, dissemination, and other activities.

We go through different states and experience inner explosions. In this way, we gradually begin to make sense of our impressions in the realm of spiritual sensations. Although this is only an approximation, it is already something resembling the beginning of a person’s spiritual development. The more of these states you experience, the better you will understand what is being discussed. Without them, it is very difficult to explain.

The fewer concepts you have, both in terms of their depth and their number, the harder it is for you to picture what is being described. Do you know how an image is formed on a screen, for example, from pixels or dots? If some of the dots are missing from your screen, if the screen is insensitive and has only two or three dots, then I can give you only two or three concepts corresponding to those dots, and you will say that you do not understand me.

Add another six hundred, six hundred thousand, six million, or a billion dots, and you will see a huge number of additional details in my picture. Then a single word will be enough to explain everything to you. One symbol can give you an understanding of the entire screen with its billions of pixels, and you will be able to construct a colorful picture, a vast, beautiful, eternal, and perfect one.

This depends not on me, but on you. That is what we are talking about: everything depends on the Kelim, while the light is in absolute rest.

Everything changes within a person, too. Sometimes there are a few pixels on your “screen,” but even so, you can grasp something. At other times, this is concealed from you. Why? An update is taking place: the previous picture is erased, and a new one is being created.

When they want to give you a new picture, that is, additional sensitivity, greater “resolution,” it is impossible to add it on top of the previous one. It is like the state of acquiring ten new Sefirot, when the entire previous picture must be erased. This is the state in which you find yourself in complete confusion, unable to understand what is happening to you.

Then a new foundation comes to you, with several new points of sensitivity, and you can see a clearer picture. But in the interval between these processes, you are completely confused.
[362852]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘Every Day They Will Be as New in Your Eyes,’ in the Work?”

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Question: After entering into a covenant, can a desire arise to break it?

Answer: No, after a covenant has been established, such a desire cannot arise. This state is preserved forever. In the spiritual world, every state remains forever; the Creator safeguards it. The upper light is already present at that degree and gives it life. It can never become less than this.

There is an expression: “In holiness, one ascends but never descends.” It may seem to you that you have violated the covenant, but this is only how things appear as a result of your descent before ascending to the next degree. In other words, you fall more deeply into the left line than you did at the previous degree. But this is not considered a violation of the covenant.
[362825]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/26, Rabash, “What Is Making a Covenant in the Work”

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Question: How can one avoid sinking into asceticism or reclusive behavior on the path toward bestowal for the sake of bestowal?

Answer: We will not fall into all of this, and we will not confuse our path with reclusiveness, various fasts and diets (which are mistakenly believed to be connected with Kabbalah), wearing white clothes, and other such things.

After all, we are speaking not even about our sensory organs nor about the electrochemical reactions and processes taking place in our brain. Behind all of this stands a desire! We do not know at all what it is. It is a spiritual object. There is a certain transition from electrochemical processes to the desire to the sensation within this desire. One might wonder, what connection is there between the soul, the desire, and the body?

But the more we talk about these things, the more we feel how abstract they are and how unrelated they are to the body. You ask: how can one avoid falling into asceticism on the path toward attaining faith, toward the ability to bestow for the sake of bestowal, that is, avoid beginning to restrict oneself in food, drink, and so on? But these things are simply unrelated! Eat a double portion, drink as much as you like, sleep, this has nothing whatsoever to do with acquiring the intention to bestow for the sake of bestowal.

There are people who, by nature, need to eat much more than others (incidentally, Kabbalists consume a great deal of food!). Does this mean that someone who eats less is more righteous? By what do you measure righteousness? By the amount of food eaten? Suppose a person goes on a diet because his doctors advised him to, and he himself also believes it is the right thing to do. Do his properties become better?

This is a very common mistake. Many people believe that there are certain external actions connected with the body that can “purify” the body, make it more “righteous” and pure, and kill the desire to receive. This does not happen!

Through external actions, you can improve or worsen the condition of the body, but with the desire to receive, everything is completely different. Through such actions, you can make, if one may put it this way, “corrections” to the desire to receive only at the animate level, through habit. For example, I train myself not to consume sugar because I have diabetes. I train myself to such an extent that I no longer perceive sweetness! If I eat something sweet, it is unpleasant to me—the habit becomes second nature.

But does this make me more righteous? Of course not. After all, I have not stopped enjoying. By not putting sweets in my mouth, in accordance with my new habit, I do not even feel that I am depriving myself of anything. Moreover, since I do not eat sweets and know that by doing so I am not harming myself, I feel that I am gaining, that I am receiving more. What kind of correction is that?

If I now persuade myself that it is worth studying the wisdom of Kabbalah because through it I will become healthier, learn the future, change my fate, find the meaning of life, and attain goodness what am I thinking about: a loss or a gain? Of course, a gain.

Then all I have to do is convince my desire to receive to do this by means of the group’s opinion, various proofs, and my inner reaction to people who have already attained something and raise the future world in my eyes. Then I will rush toward this goal like a thief who runs ahead of everyone else and shouts, “Stop the thief!”

That is why this is not correction. In this way, we advance toward correcting the desire to receive, while the correction itself is performed upon us automatically, without our participation, through the light that reforms.

It is as though I move forward with the desire to receive and attract the light, which changes me into my opposite.

Therefore, we are speaking about a single system that can turn a person into the opposite of what he was before, because it attracts the light that reforms, which transforms the first of the four phases of direct light into the second, its opposite. Only the light can do this; I am powerless here. I need only to bring about the arrival of the light to me, and that is all.
[362714]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/12/26, Rabash, “His Law He Contemplates”

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