We learn from sufferings that the desire to receive feels within itself. That is, we have not yet exited into spirituality; we merely think that spirituality is good because we cannot escape from the blows otherwise. This is still a completely material state!
Be that as it may, through this work I draw closer to wanting to rid myself of my desire to receive, to free myself from the need to think about myself, because even the slightest thought about myself causes me immense suffering.
I am afraid to think about myself, just as a kleptomaniac is afraid to steal. He loves to steal, and can do nothing about it; this is his nature. There are very great, very rich people who simply cannot live without it. They go into a store and must steal at least some small thing. This is what fills them; they are unable to restrain themselves.
They could easily pay a million dollars for the item. But having paid a million dollars and receiving this thing, they would not feel pleasure. Their pleasure is precisely in the fact that they steal it. A person knows that he will not be able to restrain himself. And so it continues until his horror reaches such proportions that he must flee from his desire to receive, otherwise he will inevitably be caught or face death.
All this still takes place within the desire to receive. But hatred toward it, as it were, distances a person from this desire. And then a miracle occurs—the miracle of the exodus from Egypt. This is carried out at night, in deep darkness, in complete misunderstanding of what is happening, when a person does not see what is happening to him or how.
And so it is at every degree. Every transition from one degree to another, every new state that comes to a person, occurs at a time when he understands nothing, is unfamiliar with this new state, and is confused. But after all this confusion and inability to orient himself, a new, more enlightened state arrives.
In the end, you yourself begin to seek this, and to expect it within the same desire to receive; you become confused, lose your way, and lose your bearings, only so that along with this a new, better state may come. Nevertheless you still want this in your desire to receive.
And when a person truly comes to what is considered “the exodus from Egypt,” this is called a miracle. For this is a state that a person himself cannot create in any way, since it is a borderline state between the desire to receive and the desire to bestow. A “cut” passes through it to infinity, to the point of “something from nothing,” and therefore it is called the splitting of the “the final sea” (Red Sea).
The final sea is not our tiny desire to receive that separates us from the spiritual world. “Yam,” “sea,” is the final Kli of Hochma, including all of its “final letters,” all of Malchut; to such a depth does this cut extend. A person crosses it, and only afterward is it revealed to him what he has passed through. This is the most perfect miracle.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/26, Rabash, “What Are Commandments That a Person Tramples with His Feet”
Related Material:
Fleeing Egypt in Haste
Why Rush Out Of Egypt?
The Miracle Of Exiting Egypt



