Question: What if I have invested too much in a friend?

Answer: You speak as though you have acquired a friend, as if you invested efforts in him, and now he treats you well. “I gave him a candy, and now he is my friend.”

But in our understanding, a friend is someone who helps me connect with the Creator. A friend is an additional force through which I draw closer to the Creator, who is essentially my friend. And I invest my efforts in the group precisely in order to receive from it the strength to connect with the upper one.

Thus, I do not need to constantly maintain good relations with everyone so that they would all be my friends in the corporeal sense where people treat me well and I treat them well.

In the group, very difficult states are possible, states that are sent by the Creator. We cannot measure our true state by what is happening in it. We may go through turmoils and upheavals where everyone is in states of misunderstanding and hatred, when one cannot understand the other, etc., and still these states are beneficial, and we are truly talking about a group of friends.

They are called friends because each one wants to give to oneself and to the other in order to draw closer to the Creator, and everyone understands that this is the system.

The question of whether we are friends or not is not verified by human senses: I look and do not see anyone here who is a friend in the corporeal sense; the only thing that is real is the shared goal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/26, Rabash, “Make for Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 1”

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Question: How can you help a friend who has fallen into trouble in the corporeal sense?

Answer: Suppose a friend comes to me and tells me about some trouble he is facing. It does not matter what exactly; let’s say he feels unwell. Relating to him as someone from the group, as a force with which I advance toward the Creator, I take his trouble and begin to pray to the Creator with his unfulfilled desire (Hisaron). This is called: “He who prays for his friend is answered first.”

I must take his Hisaron and his problems instead of my own and turn to the Creator with them as if I have no problems at all. If I truly had none, there is little wisdom in that.

But if I also have very big problems, and yet I take the friend’s problems instead of mine while maintaining awareness of what I am doing, meaning I put aside my ego a little and work toward the Creator with the friend’s Hisaron, then this is purely spiritual work.

Question: And what about the direction of the friend’s own work?

Answer: What concern is that of mine? I ask the Creator to improve his state, meaning to advance him toward the goal, because the lack of advancement toward it brings him these misfortunes. This may manifest in anything from owing a $10,000 debt to some illnesses or disaster.

I must accept the friend’s corporeal level as my own spiritual level. What does that mean?

By suppressing my own desire to receive, I take the friend’s desire and work with it. This means that I work spiritually; I am work in bestowal to someone else. If I take any corporeal problems of a friend, no matter how mundane, in place of my own troubles, my own requests, and arrange them in such a way that I truly ask the Creator for them, then this is called being “the leader of the people.”

A leader of the people is one who takes all the troubles of the people instead of all his own problems and turns to the Creator with them, desiring that they be fulfilled and not himself, that they receive everything, from their current state up to the end of correction, and he does not. And he is ready for this.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/26, Rabash, “Make for Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 1”

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Comment: A person who is in a state of descent feels as if they and their desire to receive are one and the same.

My Response: In a descent, a person truly identifies with the desire to receive. They are immersed in it, completely under its control, and do not even sense that it is bad. It is similar to how the people of Israel did not feel bad in Egypt. They felt fine there and did not sense the burden of the work.

“And the sons of Israel sighed from the work,” that happened later, when another Pharaoh came, who turned evil. Before that, he was good: we work, but we also enjoy our efforts. This is how a person feels.

Question: If such a state exists, should the group come to a person and describe their state to them? Or should the person come to the group and ask for help?

Answer: The group can give a person various things, including general advice, because through this, a person develops.

For example, we are affected by reading articles about states we have not yet reached, or perhaps were in a little, or perhaps will be later. We need to awaken the upper light upon ourselves so that it constantly brings us new states. The group can speak about this.

How does it influence you? It is by reminding you that the Creator is great? But other people also shout something similar in their own way. How can that influence you?

The group must convey, through various impressions, the understanding that attaining the eternal and perfect state is the only thing that stands before you.

You have a point in the heart; you come to the group not knowing anything. But if you engage it with your point in the heart, the group acts upon you like a mother’s womb upon an embryo. It develops you. And all you need is to annul yourself, annul yourself before it.

There are people who come, and no matter how long they sit in the lessons, they understand nothing. Then they go to work in the kitchen for a month or two and this becomes their form of self-annulment before the group. And suddenly, they begin to feel that the group is influencing them. This happens under the influence of the light.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/26, Rabash, “What Is the Preparation to Receive the Torah in the Work?-2”

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Question: How can it be that a feeling like envy is a force that advances us toward the goal?

Answer: It is not just envy that drives me to my goal. There is nothing bad or good about me at all because that is how I evaluate my qualities and states. In reality, there is nothing that was created in vain, nothing unnecessary for attaining the goal.

We may feel ourselves to be anything at all, but as we learn, we descended into this world from the highest degree, and everything that exists in us now will later, with the help of screens (Masachim), become the very best qualities.

Therefore we should not engage in correcting character traits but only in striving toward the goal—and then all our qualities, all parts of the desire, will serve only as help.

A person must not hide or suppress any of his desires; this is not the method of Kabbalah! Kabbalah says the opposite. If a person suppresses something within himself, he thereby kills a part of the creation within him.

We must only follow the law: “The light contained in the Torah returns one to the source.” That is, during study and during various activities in the group when all my thoughts are about correction, the surrounding light (Ohr Makif), the light that returns to the source, shines upon me. There is no other way of correction.

A person should not think that he is capable of evaluating which of his qualities are good and which are bad or what kind of correction each requires. Otherwise, he will begin to approach correction selectively, and decide what to correct in himself and what not to correct. There is no greater foolishness than to claim that he understands anything about this!

A person must act only where he has a point of free choice, that is, to organize for himself an environment that will influence him. In any case, he needs some external force that will pull and push him forward.

The external force is either the environment or the Creator. But unfortunately, I cannot yet influence the Creator so that He will help me; I do not yet have a desire sufficient for Him to respond. He responds only to a complete, perfect desire.

It is precisely the environment that builds within me this complete desire, so that afterward I may turn to the Creator, and then the light will return me to the source.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/26, Rabash, “What Does It Mean That Before the Egyptian Minister Fell, Their Outcry Was Not Answered, in the Work?”

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