Question: What is the difference between methods that suppress the desire to receive and Tzimtzum (Restriction)?

Answer: In the process of correcting the Kelim (vessels), we reach a state where we restrict the desire to receive, stop using it, and then begin to use it by receiving in order to bestow. What is the difference between restricting the desire to receive and the Eastern methods and other similar approaches that suppress this desire?

The moment a person begins to study Kabbalah, he begins to develop his desire to receive. Nowhere is it written that we must suppress it. Nowhere!

Instead of working directly against this desire, you should work on drawing closer to the Creator, so that the light will correct the desire to receive. The greater this desire becomes, the greater the light you will need in order to correct it. Thus, you attain greater lights for correcting a growing desire to receive each time. This is how you advance.

Through study and by attracting the light, you come to see that every one of your desires is essentially opposed to spirituality, opposed to the Creator, because it is directed toward self-enjoyment.

You reach a state where in order to move from an intention for your own sake to an intention for the sake of bestowal, you must stop using the desire to receive in its natural form. Then you begin to use it in a different way, for the sake of bestowal. Between these two states lies an action called Tzimtzum (Restriction).

What is Tzimtzum? I do not restrict the desire itself, because I cannot suppress it. Under the influence of the light acting upon me, I see that using it in its previous form is evil. And because I see that it is evil and opposed to the Creator, I stop using it in that way. I cease using the former type of fulfillment and move to a different method of using the desire.

The purpose of the Tzimtzum is not to destroy the desire to receive, but to stop using the old form of reception and transition to a spiritual form. My concern should be only with correction, with making the desire to receive similar to the Creator’s desire, meaning that it acquires an intention to bestow. That alone should concern me.

We should not focus on our desires themselves. We should not worry about what desires we have, even the most terrible ones, all of them come from the Creator. I must understand that their revelation within me is a sign that I am capable of correcting them. That is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the method of reception: It teaches us how to work with the vessels of reception.

All other methods, without exception, are based on suppressing the desire to receive, on receiving as little as possible.

Why are these methods so appealing? Because a person immediately feels that life has become easier. Look at how many people in the former Soviet Union nostalgically remember how good life supposedly was in the past.

There was nothing particularly good about it, but a person knew he had a fixed salary, a home, a job from which he would not be fired, children who would attend kindergarten and school; everything was planned. There was a sense of security about the future. Of course, I did not have much, but neither did anyone else. Everything was suppressed by the government, and “shared suffering is half a consolation.”

Even today, many people would gladly return to those times and to what they had then. Why do I need today’s freedom where everyone does whatever they want? Everywhere there is envy, arrogance, and hatred, whereas before it seemed different. The culture was different, everyone was alike, and everything was planned out.

If not for human egoism, which constantly burns and grows, such a system could perhaps be maintained. In China, it functioned even more successfully for thousands of years. But it is impossible to remain in such a state forever.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/26, Rabash, “What Is Above Reason in the Work?”

In our work from below upward, we should not undergo a descent, for “one is raised in holiness, and not lowered.” We merely acquire an ever-higher degree, even if at times it seems to us that we are entering a worse, lower degree in our sensations.

The fact is that our sensations are in the desire to receive, in our ego, and therefore we measure, weigh, and determine that which exists in our egoism. Thus, this sensation is not directed toward the purpose of creation.

I may be rising higher in relation to the goal of creation, yet within my egoistic vessels of reception I feel that I have nothing. If I have nothing, then it seems to me that I am farther from the purpose of creation, for the goal is that I should have everything! But this “everything” is in vessels of bestowal, whereas in the vessels of reception I have nothing.

Therefore if a person analyzes his state with intellect, he can justify the Creator. However, if he is unable to justify the Creator or control his state, he evaluates it according to his sensations—sometimes it feels good, sometimes bad.

If he determines his state according to his mood, he can be regarded neither as a righteous person nor as a sinner. He should be related to as an animal, because an animal acts solely on the basis of sensations, whereas a human being acts on the basis of intellect.

What does it mean, on the basis of intellect? It is necessary that intellect controls the sensations. Of course, a person is not a machine; he has intellect and a heart. But his correction consists in the fact that evaluation on the scale of “truth–false” is more important to him than evaluation on the scale of “sweet–bitter.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/1/26, Rabash, “These Are the Generations of Noah”

What is the best time in the process of spiritual work to exert effort and advance? Any time. There is no time that is not meant for this! In every state, a person has an opportunity to take a step toward the purpose of creation, toward adhesion with the Creator, toward eternity, perfection, and attainment—to bestowal. But in each state, this can be done in a different form.

There are states in which a person can do nothing but raise a prayer, yet prayer itself includes both gratitude and a request. And there are times when a person can only thank the Creator. But gratitude itself also stems from a deficiency (Hisaron), an unfulfilled desire; otherwise, to whom, for what, and about what would one be grateful?

It is impossible to turn to the Creator without two aspects being present in that appeal: a negative one and a positive one. Otherwise, there is no appeal at all! We learn that the advantage of the light is revealed from within the darkness, and that any concept can be discerned only in comparison with its opposite.

Black letters are visible against a white background, against the background of light. Thus, every Havchana (discernment or gradation in sensation) that a person feels, sees, or expresses always consists of two opposites.

Therefore, in our lives, while on the path, although we are startled each time we are flung from one state to another as if by a sling, we must nevertheless remember that within creation there is always both the nature of the created being and the nature of the Creator.

Thus, from any state I can look through the eyes of the created being or through the eyes of the Creator. Then it turns out that with respect to every phenomenon, I am seemingly capable of making different decisions. I can go above reason and decide that nothing else matters to me, or I can tell myself that I am incapable of moving from where I stand. I can justify every state, or on the contrary, I can reject it completely.

So where is the truth?

The truth is at the end.

Before we arrive at the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun), where all opposites unite, there is no truth. There is only the path and the states along it. Therefore we can never judge anything with absolute certainty, to do so would be childish.

We must always be aware that we are the sensing part of reality, and that everything that happens to us is necessary so that we may become wiser, feel more deeply, acquire experience, gather Reshimot (spiritual informational records), and continue onward with them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/7/26, Rabash, “What Are the Times of Prayer and Gratitude in the Work?”

Question: How should one work in charity below the Machsom (barrier)?

Answer: Very simply. I want to come to a state where all my actions are in no way connected with thoughts about myself.

Rabash says that this manifests in us in relation to the group. The more a person invests in the group, the more it returns to him as the acquisition of the power of charity. There is no other form of donation in this world.

It is said that charity saves one from death. This refers to charity as a spiritual action because death is reception for the sake of reception, whereas charity is the correction for the sake of bestowal that saves one from death. In Kabbalah they do not speak of life and death in the sense that is accepted on the material level. Everything is eternal; there is nothing temporary.

What is death? Death is separation from the upper one, and charity is the correction of Binah, which connects you with the upper one. Therefore it is said that charity (Tzedaka) saves one from death. If you acquire the power of charity, you enter the spiritual, and begin to live. And if you are not giving charity every second, that is, if you have no powers of bestowal, this is called death.

If it were not written that charity (Tzedaka) saves one from death, then no one would give donations. And it is good that they would not.

I must perform actions with an intention through which I merit life. Why do I need the powers of Binah, of bestowal? Baal HaSulam writes in the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot that a person must not simply stumble upon the power of charity, the power of bestowal. I must not bestow aimlessly.

What is the purpose of creation? That I will enjoy spiritual life. Therefore at the time when I give charity, I must think that I am passing from Binah to Keter, that I receive everything for the sake of bestowal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/9/26, Rabash, “Man Is Rewarded with Righteousness and Peace through the Torah”