What Is “Repentance”?

Rabash, “Letter 66″: And indeed we do say in the PassoverHaggadah: “From the start our ancestors were idol worshippers and now we approach the Omnipresent to serve Him” and so forth.

To understand the idea of teaching us what they were before, we have to explain this through ethics. A person must know when he is involved with the idea of the departure of a person from the Egyptian exile, we see that all of theMitzvot (precepts) depend upon this concept, for with all of these things we say: “A recollection of the Exodus from Egypt.”

All of the Mitzvot are corrections of the desire to receive in small portions that can be implemented only after the person rises above the Machsom (barrier). After he passes through the Machsom, he begins to pass through the parts of the desire to receive above the Machsom.

First of all, the person himself passes through the Machsom and transforms his desire to receive into “for the sake of bestowal,” and after that he turns downward and elevates desire after desire. All of this activity is called repentance, in other words, he returns the desire to receive to an intention of for the sake of bestowal. Every acton like this is called a Mitzvah and is done by the Torah, meaning by the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) that transforms the corrections into possibilities. The first action is called the Exodus from Egypt.

When I am under the Machsom, I don’t have a connection with the Light. However, above the Machsom, I already have Light, the power of bestowal, and I can use it for advancement and correction. I have the consciousness, feeling, intelligence, and power as a capable, mature person. I transform myself into an expert on correction on condition that there is Light in me. Light is the power of bestowal that is acting in me, and with its help, I can connect more and more new desires, one after another, and correct them. I turn to a higher level and receive additional power from it for the lower part that I want to correct, correcting it and connecting it to me.

In this process there are three partners: the Creator – the origin of the power, me – the one who wants to correct, and desire – the place that I want to correct.

With the Light that is in me, thanks to my connection with the Creator, I see exactly what is ready for correction in me and ask for this power from Him. I work with Him as a partner, for I am no longer found under the Machsom. Rather, I am together with Him, feeling Him. Therefore, I begin to clarify how it is possible to work with the damaged desire, how it is possible to awaken and elevate it. This means that I want to transform it from for the sake of reception to for the sake of bestowal. So, I ask for that.

I don’t get any pleasure from this activity myself while I feel it as my desire. For me, it becomes more precious than my desire—as it is written, “Make that His will should be your will” (Pirkei Avot 2:4)—like a mother does with her child. I wrap His desire within my desire and that is how I begin to elevate it, asking the Creator to correct it for me, as I would for my baby.

Then, I get the required power, intelligence, and feeling. After all, I don’t know how to correct what is below for this is a completely separate system, the AHP that is built within me, the spiritual womb.

This means that, first of all, I grew in order to correct it. I accept a new system and join what is below to me. So after the correction we are juxtaposed to each other. Thus, many Partzufim are clothed one on the other.

Question: Is it important for people who are engaged with dissemination to have passed through the Machsom?

Answer: It doesn’t seem to me that the person who has passed through the Machsomwill succeed more in the external dissemination. I am not sure that Rabash would have been more successful in dissemination than the average person in our group.

So, Baal HaSulam writes that it is even possible to pay professional people monetary compensation. After all, it’s necessary to get as close to the people as possible. Certainly, it is clear that they would need to know the direction, the purpose, a bit of the explanations, but not too deeply, only according to the level of the people to whom they turn.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/14, Writings of Rabash