Question: How can we raise the impact of a blow from the animal level to the spiritual level?

Answer: You can raise the impact from the animal level to the spiritual level only if you start to understand exactly what the benefits of “love of friends” are. As I start to suffer from not having this love, I already begin to transfer the blows from the animal level to the spiritual level. At least from one area to another.

The compression of time depends only on the transition from quantity to quality. Each new blow should be as purposeful and high-quality as possible. The more precisely I figure out for myself what spirituality is, how much its definition does not describe me, how much it runs contrary to me, and how much I do not belong to it and experience it as a blow, the more time I save and the more I avoid mere animalistic blows.

We need to focus on merging our “I,” the actions, process, and the Creator. This action contains everything. The only thing left is to reveal who the Creator is. Is it someone who bestows gifts? Or is this property the pure force of bestowal that allows me to disconnect completely from my own self, from the desire to receive, and from what will happen to me as a result? This scrutiny takes me from quantity to quality.

Otherwise, there is no way to shorten the time. Years will pass, but everything will seem to be repeating itself.

The Creator sends blows to a person according to how much he can withstand. That is, to the extent a person is oriented toward the truth, to the extent he has prepared himself with the help of a group, family, and inner preparation to see the truth, to this extent it is revealed to him and he is shown how far he is from this state, but only enough to keep him from escaping. This is called the willingness to suffer.

If a person does not yet feel his evil revealed, he is not ready to withstand it. Then the Creator treats him like a baby for now, waiting for him to prepare himself to truly draw closer to the truth.

Therefore, we must understand that in any case, our path does not lead to what we desire within our original animal desire to receive, but directly to the opposite. And nothing in this feels good or pleasant within the desire to receive.

But we are gradually discovering this. Even when I talk about it now, it still seems to us that this is not so. It seems to us that we may have lost a little bit by having to get up at night and come here, but we will win somewhere else. We have some kind of loophole for our desire to receive, a way to calm it down. This is not yet called a blow. A blow is when you cannot justify what is happening in any way, nor explain it to your ego.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/26, Rabash, “What Are Commandments that a Person Tramples with His Feet”

Question: Is it possible to discover spirituality when working with friends in a professional setting?

Answer: At work, there are no friends, whereas in the group, everyone is a friend. I don’t understand where the difficulty lies. If you are honest with yourself and with your friend, you will not experience any difficulties. Remove all the external coverings from yourself and from your friend, and imagine that everything is completely pure and that nothing exists except the goal.

So what is the problem? There are working relationships, and there are relationships between friends. For example, I may shout several times a day, to the point where I am ready to kill someone over work-related matters. But does that affect my attitude toward that person as a student in any way? The more someone does, the more criticism he receives; that is clear. What connection is there between the two? Naturally, when people work together, there are more opportunities for friction at work, but it is precisely on this foundation that the other relationships are built.

People do not understand that the revelation of deficiencies, Hisaronot, is the best thing that can happen, because without them, there is nothing through which to advance! If you have no Hisaron (deficiency), you have no possibility of taking even a single step forward. In the process of correction, if a deficiency has not been revealed, if the wound has not been exposed, and you have not discovered how bad you are, how can you become good? After all, we do not create anything new within ourselves in this world; we only correct ourselves.

All our work, as a whole, is called correction. Therefore, we must first reveal the evil and correct it, then reveal more evil and correct it again. If nothing has been revealed, there is nothing to do! After all, correction and advancement are possible only to the extent that something has been revealed. Therefore, the more evil that is revealed, the better!

It does not bother me when someone shouts, as long as he is not shouting against our common direction of advancement. And if he also criticizes along the way, that is welcome. Such criticism, if it is truly genuine, profound, and examines matters from every angle, can never be destructive. After all, it is an analysis through which we begin to clarify who is right, who is wrong, why things are the way they are, and how we should act.

If everything is connected to the goal, only good can come from it, and there is nothing to fear. On the contrary, dig deeper. Just do not remain in this state all the time and begin to derive pleasure from suffering. That happens too. But the revelation itself is a very good thing.

It is known from medicine and psychology that pain and pleasure are essentially the same; that is, suffering and joy are experienced by the body in the same way, and one cannot exist without the other.

There is a reason for the popular saying that if you never quarrel with your wife, you do not, so to speak, renew the love between you. These are not merely words; there is truth in them. Everything can be understood only through its opposite. If there were no criticism of the work, it would continue in the same manner. But after criticism, you realize that you need to work through the issues and approach the work more professionally.
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From Daily the Kabbalah Lesson 8/24/26, Rabash, “Who Testifies to a Person”

The ten must be in the synagogue at once, and not come one at a time, since all ten are as organs of one body, in which the Shechina resides (Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”).

All of reality includes the Creator and the creation. The creation must independently reveal the perfection and eternity of the Creator; otherwise, it will not have a Kli through which to enjoy this state.

Revealing the Kli is what we need, because the state already exists and we are in it. As Baal HaSulam writes, we are like a person sitting in a dark basement where all the treasures and all the pleasures he needs and even more than he could expect are present, but there is not enough light, not enough of a Kli, for him to see the state he is in.

This Kli can be revealed only on the condition that there is a Hisaron for it, a need for precisely this state. If the desire is for other things, a person will not be able to reveal the state that, in the Creator’s view, is “good and does good,” and fill himself with it. Therefore, in Kabbalah, a person who has attained equivalence of form with the Creator is called “one who does not follow the counsel of the wicked.” What does this mean?

“Wicked ones” and “evildoers” constantly come to a person; that is, his uncorrected desires awaken within him, and each time he examines, analyzes, and sorts them, and “does not follow their counsel.” His ego burns within him all the time, and it is precisely thanks to this “help against him” that he continually renews his state in relation to the Creator and thus grows.

This continues until he gathers all his desires into one great desire directed toward a single thing. Once he reaches the innermost part of all his desires and directs them toward acquiring Kelim of bestowal, he arrives at the prayer “from the depths of the heart.”

At that point, he already has a complete, perfect desire, which is called Beit Knesset (synagogue; literally, “house of assembly”). A “house” is a place of reception, while an “assembly” is a state in which he gathers all his desires into one, directed toward a single goal.

It is clear that the desires are diverse, ranging from animalistic and human to the spiritual, but they are all focused on one goal. This is the state described as a person being in a Beit Knesset. The Creator sees that there is someone in the Beit Knesset who is ready for prayer and demands correction from Him. Then the person receives correction for all his desires, and to the extent that they become similar to the Creator, he attains the Creator’s degree.

Where does he obtain the strength to descend into all his inner “wicked ones” and arrive at the decision that, with their help and on their basis, he wishes to attain adhesion and become similar to the Creator? How can he gather all his desires under a single intention for the sake of bestowal?

We learn that a person receives these desires from the upper one, through the surrounding light. But where will he obtain awareness of the importance of correcting them? From the environment. In proportion to the number of “wicked ones” that are revealed to him, which he feels within his body, he must strengthen himself with the help of the group and receive from it an awareness of the importance of the goal. Then he is assured of the ability, with the help of the surrounding light, to purify these “wicked ones” through the intention for the sake of bestowal.

This, in general, is the main idea of the article “There Is No Assembly of Fewer Than Ten.” We understand why it is written that there is no assembly of fewer than ten. This is a state in which the person examines the properties he has acquired from the Creator down to their very depths and directs and aligns them according to his desire to receive correction for them for the sake of bestowal, as in the ten original Sefirot.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/26, Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”

If I have established that the Creator is bestowal, then I must investigate this concept, understand it, draw closer to it, and attain it, so that it alone governs me instead of my own nature. And I must do all this through my own efforts. So how can I achieve this?

I am told that the quality of bestowal can be revealed to me in a group among a few people who are striving toward the same goal. Through working together, you can explore it from both the positive and negative sides, in different kinds of relationships.

Why should you choose friends who are also genuinely striving for the quality of bestowal, that is, students who study Kabbalah and want to reach the Creator? Because then you can help one another: “Each one shall help his friend.” Everyone can set a positive or negative example for others, as well as provide them with strength and support.

In this world, there is no other way for us to advance than to see our neighbor as the goal. Moreover, your neighbor can help you and become a source of strength and support for you.

Otherwise, you will follow the old path described by Baal HaSulam. In the past, a person seeking to attain the quality of bestowal would be content with bread and salt and water, living in poverty, and suffering so as not to give their desire to receive anything beyond what was essential for survival. Everything else they had, they would give to others in order to break their desire to receive in this way. If you want to follow this path, go ahead.

However, today the desire to receive can no longer be corrected through such actions. Our actions must be carried out with the help of the light that reforms, not by breaking ourselves in this way. If you were at the level of Aviut Shoresh or Aleph, you could work with your desire to receive and correct it in this manner. But given the degree of Aviut we have in our generation, we are no longer capable of doing so.

The sages of the Gemara and those who came before them prepared the surrounding light for us as a force that enables us to recognize evil and correct it.

Therefore, instead of giving everything away for the benefit of humanity, working for others 24 hours a day, living in poverty and suffering, and “toiling in the Torah day and night,” that is, doing what we are incapable of doing, we have been given the light that reforms. It is not that one method replaces the other; the previous method simply does not suit our current state. We cannot act that way.

When the desire to receive is small, people can live in poverty, striving for a kind of “nirvana.” But this does not work when the desire to receive is great. Besides, why did they live that way? Because they had no other option. If they had had more than a cup of rice a day, they would have occupied themselves with something else. All these methods arose from poverty, not from an urgent need to attain the upper one.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/26, Rabash, “The Rosh Hashanah Prayer”

Question: What does it mean to have faith in the sages?

Answer: What is faith in the sages? What, for example, compels you to go to a doctor? You know that you are ill, and there is someone who understands your condition better than you, knows its causes and how to resolve it, that is, how to achieve a positive outcome from this state.

I, as an animal, can only sense my present state, but there is a sage who “sees what is coming into being.” He knows the origin of my current state and how to reach a better state that will be emerge from the one I am in now.

I must turn to such a sage. What does it mean to turn to him? It means having faith in what he tells me, even when it contradicts my own reason and understanding. When an ordinary doctor tells me to take a certain medicine, I take it. Of course, public opinion and so on influence me here. On our path, we need faith in the sages.

Faith is a force that helps me rise above my desire to receive, that is, to to stand against my own nature and my own intellect. Suppose a doctor tells me that in order to recover, I need to put my hand into fire. I must acquire the force of faith in this doctor that will allow me to go against the impulses of my animal body, because otherwise it simply will not allow me to do so.

I must now acquire an additional force, a special force of the upper nature, which will help me act in accordance with the doctor’s opinion and put my hand into the fire. Just as in nature there is a force that does not allow me to put my hand into the fire, so now I must receive a force in order, on the contrary, to do it. That is, this additional force is higher and stronger than my nature. I must receive it from above, for I do not possess it myself.

This is called a new creation that comes to a person. Faith in the sages means above my reason; I acquire the sage’s reason, wisdom, and proceed in accordance with his reason.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘We Have No Other King But You,’ in the Work?”

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 278

What Should One Do When Darkness Takes Over from Within?

A person who is in a descent goes about in the society like a dead man walking, barely functioning and barely dragging himself along. In such a state, he cannot do anything by himself, not even feel that he is behaving like a dead man or feel that the process is acting upon him, but it indeed acts on him. Therefore, he is compared to a dead man, because he does not feel that it acts. Meanwhile, the society resuscitates him and gradually gets him back on his feet. The society must believe in this and continue reviving him for another half a day, another day, another two days, and it passes.

The question is to what extent can we surrender ourselves to those who take care of us, to the society. That is, to what extent we disconnect our thoughts, our head, and let our body do whatever the friends ask, as though we have no head of our own. This is also how we learn in Kabbalah. What does it mean to be “small”? It is when the great one constantly makes all the calculations and the small one carries them out. This is how it is in spirituality. It is not like in our world, where the small one, the child, is the head, and the great one, the mother or father, merely carries out his requests. We surrender ourselves to the upper one and receive the head of the upper one through devotion. Afterward, we develop our own head, but our gaze is always directed upward, at the head of the upper one, to learn from Him, to be like Him.
From a Talk on the Article “What Is “He Who Has a Flaw Shall Not Offer [Sacrifice]” in the Work?” 6/19/2002.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 277
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 276
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 275

It is written in the Midrash that after the Creator created the nations and they spread across the earth, He approached each of them and offered them the Torah, hoping that someone would want to accept it. But no one except the people of Israel wanted to accept it.

What is so undesirable about the Torah that no one wanted to accept it? Does it contain not only good but something bad as well. Otherwise, why would the Creator have approached everyone?

A person has only one desire called “Israel,” which corresponds to something called the “Torah.”Does this imply that Israel needs the Torah because it is inherently flawed? As it is written: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” But does only Israel have an evil inclination while the nations of the world do not?

Rabash writes that it is specifically Israel that is egoistic and opposite to the Creator and not the nations of the world. It is Israel that needs the Torah. Understanding this, Israel needs the Torah because the Torah is the force of correction. Anyone who feels that they lack the force of correction is called Israel.

This Hisaron (deficiency) comes from above. A person does not have to do the Creator’s work or create desires within themselves. But they must feel which desires are speaking within them at any given moment and work precisely with those desires. They must not remain indifferent and passive, but must use the means called the light of the Torah as much as possible.

To bring Israel, that is, those who want to correct themselves, to the goal (and here this also refers to the nations of the world who acquire the qualities of Israel and also desire correction), the right desires must gradually be developed within them. This happens only with the help of the light.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘He Who Is Without Sons,’ in the Work?”

Question: In the article “What Is the Work of Man, in the Work that Is Attributed to the Creator?”, Rabash writes about awe before the Creator. Should we fear Him?

Answer: Who does not feel fear? Only those with no reason have no fear or those who have never really encountered life, who have not received blows, experienced suffering, or felt any limitations placed on their desires. But anyone who has already felt a boundary and knows there is a limitation feel a certain sense of fear.

We have a Kli, the desire to receive, and accordingly, there is pleasure. A Kli is created by pleasure, light, and corresponds exactly to the light in quantity and quality.

The Kli is the desire to enjoy. If the desire to receive feels it cannot enjoy because something restricts its ability to fill itself, fear and awe arise from this, from the faintest sense of some boundary to the greatest fear.

Fear results from the emptiness of the Kli. The feeling of an empty Kli can go in two directions: fear of an empty Kli either in receiving for my own sake or in my intention to give.

Therefore, there are two types of awe. A trembling directed at myself, at all the pleasures of this world, whether I have them or not (such as family, health, money, honor, and so on). And fear for the world to come, whether I will attain it. Sometimes fear for this world outweighs fear for the world to come, and then fear for the world to come is discarded.

Sometimes a person develops such fear for the next world that they are ready to give up this whole world to ensure the next. So, he goes to a monastery and subjects himself to various forms of suffering.

Ultimately, a person always seeks to overcome a certain fear, whether it is fear of this world or the next world. But both are sensations of this world experienced in the present. It only seems to the person that they are thinking about the next world. In reality, they are not. What they must overcome is their current negative sensation, a sensation they perceive to be linked to the future.

There is also awe about whether I bestow, how do I bestow, and how I fill my Kli of bestowal. In other words, am I filling the Creator’s Kli? Although it is completely unclear to me what His Kli is, because I can only gauge it through the sensation of my own Kli. To the extent I understand what bestowal is, to the extent I realize and feel what I am doing in relation to the Creator, to this extent I have a Kli of bestowal, and I fill it.

That is, this is also my Kli, my inner feeling. As for what is going on outside, I know nothing. All these feelings are inside us, and they all exist in the present, not in the past or the future.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/26, Rabash, “What Is the Work of Man, in the Work that Is Attributed to the Creator?”

Question: Sometimes a desire is called Makom (place) and sometimes Ish (person). What is the difference between the two?

Answer: We can speak about this in terms of the internal and external. Sometimes we speak about an entire world (which, in essence, is a single person); at other times, we refer to things that are more internal or more external. For example, when one passage speaks about a Beit Knesset (synagogue), and another speaks about a person in a Beit Knesset, it is clear that these refer to states of the point in the heart in relation to all the other desires.

The point in the heart works in such a way that all the other desires gather around it, whether animalistic or human, and eventually even the desires of the Klipot. All of them become like one bundle directed toward a single goal, like the point of Moses that gathers all the other desires toward one goal and leads them forward.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/26, Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”

Question: What does “a clear decision” mean? Aren’t a decision and a desire the same thing?

Answer: A decision is in the heart. It is not simply words written on paper and stuck to a wall. It is said: “Write them upon the tablets of your heart.”

Question: But each person has a different character. How, then, can a unified desire be created?

Answer: What does this have to do with character? Suppose that we, 80 people, want to build a house. Does it matter what character each person has and what problems each one has? We are all focused together on one goal.

Comment: But one imagines a palace and another imagines something else.

My Response: It does not matter what each person imagines and what each envisions. We, of course, cannot compare the states, intentions, and internal analysis made by each of us. And in general, it is not the group that should do this; it is each person’s personal matter. But we want each of us to participate in this to the extent that they can.

Certainly, no more is demanded of a person than what was initially given to them from above from birth. One person can, for now, think only for one moment a day; another, after a month of study is entirely immersed in it; a third might engage in yet another way.

One perceives more with the mind, another with the heart. For some it may feel like an act of self-coercion, while others feel a sense of inspiration. We are not discussing the specific, personal states of each one; we are talking about a collective effort without delving into particulars; it does not matter in what state each of us is.

Perhaps for one person, the greatest investment they can make, the greatest sacrifice they are capable of, is that today they will sit for ten minutes and listen to me attentively, while for the rest of the time they will be as if dead. For them, this will be a great effort. Whereas for another, studying all day might require only a standard, routine level of effort.

The effort is what counts; therefore, in this case, the first contributes more than the second. We cannot check these things, and it is not we who should do so at all. Moreover, we are forbidden to speak with one another about personal states.

We must strive for the unity of desires, not by speaking about how each of us relates to the Creator, but simply speaking about the Creator Himself rather than our individual relationship to Him. In other words, we should speak about the importance of the goal rather than where I am now in relation to it.

Therefore, one must make the friend’s words important to you. Invest as much effort in it as you invest in your child, and you will see how important it will be to you. “Buy yourself a friend.”

Set the goal to be at the lesson as a single group, with a single intention, and a single unified effort.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/26, Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”

Question: What is Ohr Makif, surrounding light?

Answer: Surrounding light is the light that intends to enter the Guf (body), that is, the Kli (vessel), and clothe itself in it when it is corrected by the screen. The Masach, the screen, is the intention to bestow.

If currently lack the intention to bestow, then the light is outside of me and shines upon me from the place where I should be when I have such an intention. What should I do so that it shines upon me?

Surrounding light exists for everyone in this world, a place is reserved for each person near the Creator, on the highest degree. How can I draw this illumination that is above the Parsa to myself? Only by creating something similar to the state I will eventually be in above the Parsa within myself.

There, above the Parsa, I am connected with that light, with that source that I study, that is, with the other souls, with the Creator, as it is said: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” What can I do here, below the Parsa, so that it will be in some way similar to that state, and I would attract this illumination to myself?

Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot” that one who studies and strives to understand what he is studying, even if he does not understand, thereby attracts the surrounding light. Because knowledge is the inner filling of the surrounding light, that is, the state in which a person is there together with it, for Israel and the Torah are one.

It does not matter that for now I imagine adhesion according to my level; but it, too, pertains to that eternal, great state, and if by means of what I study, I want to come to adhesion with the Creator, through this I attract the surrounding light.

If all the souls are there together as one body, as one man with one heart, then here, below, I must do this together with several friends, and this, too, will be a similarity. That is, one must make the state below as similar as possible to what is above.

So we make an effort and somehow build this similarity. But where will I get the feeling of the importance of this action? The group does not merely exist so that I can sit with the friends and contemplate this state.

The group is meant to give me awareness of the importance of being in this state; that is, first I must hear that this is the most important goal from them, that there is nothing else in life besides it, and that the whole world and all of life are given to me only for this.

This is what I must hear from them instead of conversations about fashion, about football, and a thousand other things. Because the feeling of importance that I have will never be enough. There are, of course, special people who can manage without this; there have been such cases, but we are not among them. We are people who must make this effort with the help of the group and carry out our task, the task that all of humanity begins to undertake from this day onward.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/26, Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 277

How Should We Connect the Examples Given During the Lesson?

If one example cannot be connected to another example, one should simply let go of one of them. During the study, examples from our lives are given to illustrate a particular case. An example cannot be stretched to apply to a thousand and one other forms and states.

Sometimes we speak in one line, sometimes in three lines, and sometimes we speak to a person who is simply within an animate desire and teach him how to come out of the animate desire and observe it from the outside. Such a person needs to have some sensation of Godliness, so that he knows what it means to observe himself from the outside. Psychologists also speak in such terms. On the lower degrees, this is still understandable to every person. Therefore, the same example should not be used in every case, but only in the case to which it was attached.

In order not to become confused, it is always worthwhile to translate examples into the language of Kabbalah. It does not matter which language they are translated from, whether the language of laws and Halachot, the language of Midrash, the language of Aggadah, the language of the Pentateuch, the Tanakh, or any spoken language, all of these should be translated into concepts such as Sefirot, Partzufim, Behinot, Aviut (coarseness), Zakut (purity), and so on. If all these concepts are brought together into one language, it becomes possible to compare them somewhat and turn them into a kind of science or unified approach. Otherwise, confusion arises. There needs to be a common basis for them all.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 276
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 275
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 274

Question: How can we connect the various processes described in The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) to my own personal need, to what I specifically lack?

Answer: In the actions described in TES, you study what happens within you. For example, Nukva rising to Aba ve Ima is a part of the desire to receive that is being corrected by the forces of bestowal of Binah, the upper force that gives this desire, connecting to it the intention to bestow. This is how you should view every action.

But we are not going to interpret TES in this way, analyzing what this particular desire to receive does in this specific action, what type of desire it is, what correction it receives, and so on. We are not capable of doing that.

When you ascend to this degree, you will experience all this within yourself; you will feel what is happening to you. Then, as you read TES, the actions described in it will arise within you.

Or, conversely, you will discover in TES what is happening within you. This process is called “man’s soul will teach him.” You will feel all these actions within it.

However, for now, you are merely reading about how these actions take place within your soul, while you yourself remain in an unconscious state, unaware of them. And so, without feeling these actions but wishing to attain the sensation of them, you strive toward them and catch a faint illumination from them. This is what is meant by the surrounding light coming to you.

In reality, it neither comes nor goes; it does not go anywhere at all. It is simply your aspiration toward the state in which you will feel a certain action that gives you an illumination from it. It is as though you perceive this state from afar. This is what it means when we say that the surrounding light comes to you. Gradually, this light sanctifies and purifies you and brings you a little closer. And then a little closer still, and a little more.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/26, Rabash, “What Are Commandments that a Person Tramples with His Feet”

Between the Creator and the creation, there is an action that can be attributed to a person; it is called awe. If a person is rewarded with it, they receive everything else from above.

Everything has already been prepared above and is literally ready to pour down upon a person, but only to the extent that they have awe. Abundance, perfection, eternity, goodness, and pleasure—everything that has been conceived and prepared is waiting for them. All that is missing is the Kli known as awe.

Rabash calls this Kli a blessing (Bracha) through which abundance, reflected light, and the screen (Masach) come from above. Opposite this stands the Sitra Achra (the impure force or Klipa), which present an interesting dynamic. The Sitra Achra is not interested in merely receiving, since this is not its root.

Merely receiving is a desire created by the Creator; yet, an equivalent also exists in holiness opposite it, because one always exists opposite the other. The nature of the Sitra Achra is to steal, to derive pleasure specifically from stealing.

While working in various places, I have often seen someone bring work from home to do during his regular working hours. Then he enjoys himself twice over: he does not do his job and, at the same time, does something for himself. This adds flavor, as the saying goes, “Stolen water is sweeter.” What is the difference, after all? It is the same water. Water is water. But when you transfer it from one domain to another, an additional pleasure appears.

There is a joke about an Italian princess who, sitting on a balcony and eating ice cream, says, “It is a pity this is not a sin. If it were also a sin, the pleasure would be many times greater.”

We see that theft is a special concept. It is a transfer from one domain to another, originating in the upper root, where the shattering and mixing of the Kelim (the desires) took place. Therefore, the work becomes twofold: to leave one domain and enter another. This contains an additional measure of the abundance that the creation must reveal.

If I receive into my Kli in the ordinary way, what enters it is the light of Nefesh. But if I take something out of one domain and forcibly transfer it into another, working against the former domain, this contributes to the expansion of the lights to the level of NRNHY. This is the essence of the difference between a robber, a thief, and someone who simply takes. A great deal is contained in these concepts.

Just as the Sitra Achra derives pleasure from “snatching” something from holiness, there is also a commandment to steal from a gentile. This sounds very strange. If you say this phrase to someone without explaining it, it is unclear how to interpret it.

The commandment to steal from a gentile means transferring something from one domain to another. This works in both directions, because the shattering and mixing of the Kelim, their inclusion in one another, took place.

One could say that the very concept of intention arose from this. What matters is no longer what I want to receive into this Kli, but how I receive it, in what form I transfer, extract, and draw in what I want to have in my Kli. If I truly receive it by taking it out of the Sitra Achra, then there is holiness in this. But if I simply want to fill my Kli, then this is not even the Sitra Achra; it is still within the boundaries of our world. This is not yet called holiness.

In other words, two systems must exist—holiness and Klipa—so that, precisely through opposing one another, each reveals its own spiritual measure. If we attained the lights without extracting them from the Sitra Achra, they would be small lights, NRNHY de Nefesh. But because we extract them from the domain of impurity and forcibly transfer them into holiness, NRNHY de NRNHY is revealed in them.

This is the essence of theft. It is a very important concept in spirituality. Theft corresponds to the sin of Adam. The sin made it possible to enter the NRNHY of the impure forces, and afterward the possibility arose to extract from there and be rewarded with the complete light of NRNHY of holiness.

From this, we can understand what Rabash writes in the article “What Action of a Person in Spiritual Work Is Attributed to the Creator,” that is, which action is attributed to the Creator and which to the person. A person’s intention to bestow upon the Creator despite the struggle with the Sitra Achra is his action.

To know the measure of bestowal, one must first become thoroughly acquainted with the forces opposite to it. Then, through these forces, to the extent that a person extracts from them the ability to bestow, he builds his own bestowal. In other words, there is a double gain here.

This is the central idea: how one thing is acquired at the expense of another. Thanks to the Klipa, we acquire the ability to work independently and ultimately attain the highest NRNHY.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/26, Rabash, “What Is the Work of Man, in the Work that Is Attributed to the Creator?”

When I begin to examine my internal system and the external system outside of me, and how I might use the external system to control the inner system, I discover that, apart from the external force acting upon me, I have no other point of contact with my own development.

Then I realize the necessity of a group (a small, limited, united environment) that remains under my influence and control that allows me to analyze my states, my level of development, and the nature of the influences on me.

Then I think about what, in fact, I can determine in this environment. After all, I need to develop from my current state to a more advanced one, to rise a little above my current level. This means I will gain more power, a greater form of giving than I have now.

To imagine a greater form of bestowal, I cannot take an example from myself or my environment; I need an example from what in Kabbalah is termed the AHP of the upper. In other words, the Creator Himself must enter the picture I imagine and show me this form, just as in our world the big one shows the little one what to do.

Then the little one carries out the action, and through this process begins to understand the big one. Thus, we ultimately arrive at an understanding, an intellect, that emerges as a result of action.

So, there must be:

• I,
• the world, or the group, friends, and
• the Creator as the Giver of true form.

It is in accordance with this form that I structure the group. Neither I nor my environment understand or can reason about what our corrected form is. I am beginning to understand what it means to give more than I do now. And this is something new that I did not have.

Here you can ask: “You have received this understanding from above, but you said that your next form, in fact, already exists inside you, encoded in your gene. All you need from the outside is strength.” This next form exists in a broken form in a Reshimo, and to identify this Reshimo, you must see what it should be in its corrected form.

This form exists inside you, in your genes, so you can recognize what the Creator is communicating to you from the outside. We can only perceive from the outside what we have internal prerequisites for. If I have a certain awareness of the meaning of something inside me, and I see a corresponding external phenomenon, then I understand it.

For example, I once got a blow. Now, when I see someone else get a blow, I understand what it means, and I can imagine what they are feeling right now, how it affects them, what accompanies it, and what it leads to. After all, I have already gone through it; it is recorded in me. However, the form in which this happens to him does not necessarily have to be inside me.

Thus, the Reshimot we have inside, in the seed, in the kernel, in the soul, are not yet enough to give me a picture, an image of how I should look in each particular state. This is why I need the Creator to give me what is called a “picture of the Creator” before my eyes, and each time He shows me some semblance of a higher stage than mine.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/26, Rabash, “Rosh Hashanah”

Question: What should our approach be toward a friend in the group that seems to be showing disregard for you or others? How can we elevate him, the group, and the goal in our own eyes?

Answer: Our teachers wrote extensively about how we should relate to our environment. I do not think there is a Kabbalist who has not written about this. However, they offered only brief guidelines, either because these matters were self-evident to them or because other writings on the subject already existed.

Moreover, writing was expensive—where could one even get paper? Rabash told me what a challenge that was. Today, of course, we have paper in abundance. Nevertheless, we see that each of the Kabbalists touched on this subject in one way or another.

When we perceive our environment as something indispensable for advancing toward spirituality, many questions arise. We encounter a thousand different situations, and I do not think it is possible to provide a prescription for every single one. However, based on everything the Kabbalists have written and the principles they have established, it should be clear to us how to respond to one phenomenon or another.

You are asking about a friend who shows disregard for others. If this is someone who has always been together with us, but now I suddenly notice that he is acting dismissively, he may be undergoing a crisis.

In that case, I must help him. I should gather several other friends and take care of him as I would care for someone who had fallen from the tenth floor and lost spiritual consciousness. He is sick, he is unconscious, and I must somehow help him continue on his path from this state until he recovers.

However, if this state has become permanent for him, and he prefers various social circles that are completely contrary to our spirit; if he comes here with different opinions and wants to instill ideas in us that are not found in the books we consider holy (primarily the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash), then that is the end of it!
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/26, Rabash, “What Are “Blessing” and “Curse” in the Work?”

A person arrives to the desire to become like the Creator through their own inner development. But if the group discusses this and begins to value it, they thereby evoke a collective surrounding light. This influences everyone, and makes each individual more sensitive.

There is no need to actively exert force from within the group. If the group focuses its attention on these details of perception, the individual, through the general illumination from above that the group evokes, naturally gains heightened sensitivity to them.

For instance, suppose we decide to raise the level of awareness of the importance of a particular matter within the group, for example, the idea that everyone, without exception, start a family. We would not pressure the bachelors; we would simply discuss the topic in a positive, light, framing it as an essential standard for everyone, something absolutely necessary, and so on.

You don’t address them directly or pressure them, nothing of the sort. You will find that they will not be able to remain here; they will either leave or get married.

I am not suggesting we actually do this; it is only a neutral example. They will not be able to remain here because the opinion of the group, combine with the light from above that we have drawn upon us in by focusing on this specific aspect, would exert such an influence that they will immediately see everything clearly.

Or, suppose we elevate a certain property relating to the group or to the Creator to the greatest height possible for us. You will see how the entire group’s sensitivity to that quality intensifies. No punishments are needed here. A person will feel an internal fear of being left behind. The group exerts pressure.

Unfortunately, for now, we have yet to establish and demand adherence to some of the most crucial principles that ought to be literally burning within the group.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/26, Rabash, “Go Forth from Your Land”

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 276

Is This Connected to the Concept of “Self-Sacrifice in the Work”?

Yes, this is called self-sacrifice. What is self-sacrifice? We give up our “self,” which is called “the animate soul,” the person’s Nefesh. That is, we perform a restriction over it. All these verses should be translated into the concepts that we study in the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah or in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and then we do not become confused. For example, “The Torah is sustained only in one who…” The word for “who” (Hebrew, “Mi”), means “Bina,” which means Malchut that rose to Bina. That is, there is a deeper inner interpretation to this.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 275
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 274
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 273

Comment: Our problem is that we always lack something. We cannot break through toward the goal.

My Response: You will always feel weak and incapable of doing anything. Even if people shout at you and pressure you, you disregard it. For months, some standard, a certain demand, will stand before you, and you will be unable to approach it and change yourself in accordance with it. Such is the path.

This will continue until this feeling intensifies to such an extent that you will hate your state and be compelled to change it. This is how we work against each of our properties. One can disregard something for years, not want it, be incapable, remain in evil, and not find the strength to eradicate it. It is clear that you are not doing what is required; everyone demands it of you, and you cannot.

How can one ensure that it will not take so much time, that I force myself to act instead of sitting all the time under the rule of this evil without touching it? This will happen only if we increase the pressure of the group, raise the standard, and elevate the importance of this property in the eyes of the environment.

I can sit for months over some bad property that I must work on and do nothing. I know about it and cannot force myself to do anything. Only if the group elevates the importance of this will I find the endurance and do it. Otherwise, a very long time will pass until this suffering accumulates in me to such an extent that I begin to act.

A person is unfortunate if they are in an environment that does not awaken a desire to overcome various properties, to correct what they must correct, and to perform the necessary actions. Such a group truly brings no benefit.

A group ought to evoke a sense of pain in a person whenever they neglect something, even for a moment, and does not engage with it. This is, in essence, the main help we need from the group if we speak of the form of negation and criticism, and in the positive sense—to realize love.

Here, each of us faces a particular problem. We know what we must correct, improve, and do, even in a practical sense, in action and not in intention, and we cannot. This can continue for years if the group does not insist on it. Moreover, one must distinguish whether this relates to a person’s character or to their advancement toward the goal. Here, one must learn to draw the line: is it character or an increased desire?
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/26, Rabash, “Go Forth from Your Land”

We should understand what it means when we say, “We have no other king but You.” It implies that when we praise the Creator that “We have no other king but You,” then we are not like the nations of the world, who have many gods, while we have only You as our king (Rabash, “What Is, ‘We Have No Other King But You,’ in the Work?”).

Question: What does it mean, “We have no other king but You”? Does this mean that, in reality, there are other kings besides the Creator, and that we choose Him rather than the others? But isn’t it written, “There is none else besides Him”?

Answer: The point is that a person can only turn to the Creator, establish a connection, contact, and relationship with Him only through similarity of qualities. If a person acquires even one of the many qualities that belong to the Creator, they immediately enter into connection with the Creator through that single quality, through this similarity to Him. This is called “Emet”—truth.

That is why it is written that a person must know whom they are calling upon and must cry out in truth because contact is possible only through a quality that is shared by both.

In other words, I must somehow discover what qualities the Creator has, deeply desire them, and acquire them, starting from those that are easier to implement within my desire to receive, moving to qualities that are more distant, greater, and more difficult to realize. I must continue until I become like the Creator in all my qualities. This state is described as, “The name of the Creator is proclaimed upon you.”

This is what we learn in relation to raising MAN, a prayer. What is MAN? It is a need (Hisaron) for correction so that my qualities become like His: “Make your desire like His desire,” and so on. If my desire to become like Him has not been corrected, if it is fundamentally flawed, in other words, if I am still hold a mistaken conception in my understanding of who He is and what He is like, then I am not calling upon Him truthfully. In that case, this Hisaron is not called MAN and is not perceived by the upper one.

It is like the example given by Rabash: a child is ill, and the doctor says that he may be given certain things but not others. The child cries, screams, and demands only what he wants. If something the child asks for is among the things prescribed by the doctor, the mother gives it to him; if not, she does not. The same applies to our MAN. It is a request to which there can be a response only if my desire corresponds to His desire. “Make your desire like His desire,” that is, make His desire your own.

This general correction, so that our requests are for things that are true, is called faith. My request to the Creator cannot be genuine or correct if it is for my own personal benefit. It must be for His benefit, for the sake of bestowal. It doesn’t even matter what particular form this bestowal takes. The main thing is that, first of all, my request and my direction must rise above my desire to receive and above thoughts about myself.

Our requests must be for the acquisition of desires directed outward, toward bestowal upon another. The quality we acquire that allows us to think, not about ourselves, but beyond ourselves, that is, ultimately about the Creator, is called faith.

As a rule, the strength of faith comes from above and gives a person the ability to rise above their desires and stop thinking about them. But until a person acquires the ability to believe, that is, to rise above the demands of their body, they do not truly turn to the Creator at all. They turn only to themselves.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘We Have No Other King But You,’ in the Work?”