Rabash Opens The Way For Us

Baal Hasulam, Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot: Therefore, come and see how grateful we should be to our teachers, who impart us their sacred Lights and dedicate their souls to do good to our souls. They stand in the middle between the path of harsh torments and the path of repentance. They save us from the netherworld, which is harder than death, and accustom us to reach the heavenly pleasures, the sublime gentleness and the pleasantness that is our share, ready and waiting for us from the very beginning, as we have said above. Each of them operates in his generation, according to the power of the Light of his Torah and sanctity.

Our sages have already said, “You have not a generation without such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

On the memorial day of the great Kabbalist, our teacher Rabash, we do not indulge in memories and do not grieve about his passing as is customary in the corporeal world, which is far from the truth. We perceive this day as an opportunity to connect even more strongly, to cleave, to get closer to our root.

Rabash is the revelation of the Creator to us in a certain form and with a certain strength.

We want to thank the Creator for sending us such a messenger through whom He opened up the possibility for us to approach the upper force, to correct ourselves, and bring ourselves into resemblance with the Creator. Through Rabash, we attach ourselves to the Creator because he is an intermediary step between us and the Creator. Due to Rabash, we exist spiritually, and through Rabash, we receive everything necessary for our spiritual ascent.

Rabash is revealed to us as a system connecting us to the Creator through which we can realize ourselves and approach the truth. Therefore, we do not recall the external image of a person and his earthly habits, but consider him first and foremost as a special revelation of the Creator who manifested Himself in this form to us. The more we honor Rabash, the more we approach the Creator, cherishing the special revelation that the Creator made through him. Thus, the higher force called “Rabash” becomes important for us, connecting us with the Creator, and bringing us closer to Him.

To some extent, this revelation of the Creator manifested itself in an external form and then disappeared. Despite this external disappearance, this purification, we need to purify ourselves and reach a connection with Rabash, with this spiritual root as our higher level, through which we can connect with the Creator.

The Creator acts through special souls upon a certain number of lower souls. It is as if the brain sends an order to some important organ so that it sends out signals to various bodily cells under its control, guiding their behavior. Rabash, Baal HaSulam’s successor in our generation, has become a turning point for us, a source of a modern practical method of spiritual ascent.

Therefore, we need to understand the loftiness of this gift we were given: the opportunity to contact him, to absorb from him the method suitable for our time, and to realize it.

How grateful should we be to our teacher Rabash whose soul, his part of reality, was so great that it was able to form and pass the whole method of correction to us? Without Rabash, it would be extremely difficult or even impossible to reach the spiritual world.¹

The upper force spreads in the system of Adam HaRishon, revealing itself from top to bottom by animating more and more parts of the soul. And when the light must spread to the lower layers of the system in order to revive the next organs of the body of Adam HaRishon in the chain, then there is a need for the special upper parts of the system to be included in this work.

The development takes place from top to bottom; therefore, when a certain lower stage develops, it causes changes to all the upper stages. Any correction is intended only for the awakening of the lowest souls, called “the last generation,” in order to also bring them into similarity with the Creator.

Rabash symbolizes a huge global force acting on our entire generation. All that remains for us is to implement Baal HaSulam’s method, which Rabash transmitted and explained to us. Therefore, we study Rabash’s articles in order to imagine the world as a general system and to correctly realize it, and Rabash leads us to it in the most practical form.²

Baal HaSulam is revealed to us not as a guide but as a scientist who attained the entirety of creation, from its beginning to its end and beyond. Rabash takes our hand, like an adult takes a child’s hand, and leads us along this path until the very end of correction. He opens the way for us and walks next to us.

The heavy, coarse souls that are revealed in our generation would be unable to merge with the Creator without the method revealed to us by Rabash. After all, he explains how to achieve the states that Baal HaSulam writes about.

Baal HaSulam writes about the upper levels and the upper states as a scientific researcher. Rabash speaks more not about the steps themselves, but about the inner work that a person must do to achieve them, that is, about the means: the environment, unification, and self-annulment.

In his books, Baal HaSulam describes the whole upper system, but these are not textbooks with which you can rise. He is like a composer who wrote a symphony. We first need to learn the musical notations and master the technique of playing scales before we can read this score and play it. To do this, we need another person, a teacher, and Rabash has become such a teacher for us, leading us all along the way.

Without his explanations, we could be confused by Baal HaSulam’s teachings, incorrectly interpreting them however much our imagination allows. Yet if we implement Rabash’s instructions, which let us achieve such an attainment, then we will start understanding Baal HaSulam’s writings.³
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/19, “Memorial Day for Rav Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag (Rabash)”

Dvekut Unites Two Into One

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 10/5/19

In loving memory of my teacher, Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (The Rabash)

The Rabash

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 10/5/19

In loving memory of my teacher, Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (The Rabash)

Rabash

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 10/3/19

On a cold, rainy night in 1979, I could not sleep, my thoughts troubled me. Suddenly I found myself at the wheel, driving without direction. A large sign cut through my thoughts: “Bnei Brak.” I went in. The streets were deserted. At the corner of “Chazon Ish” Street I ran into a passerby. “Where do you study here?” I asked. He looked at me and answered, “Drive to the end of the street, where you will see an orchard. It’s on the other side of it.”

This is how I came to meet my teacher for the first time, Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag (the Rabash), the eldest son and successor of Baal HaSulam – the greatest Kabbalist of the twentieth century. From that moment on my life was never the same.

For the next twelve years I served as his personal assistant and disciple, and I absorbed from him everything that I know in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Every day he would lock himself up on the second floor and write. This is how his profound articles were born, which paved the way for anyone nowadays to carve the spiritual path most suited to them. No one before him had written in such a simple and practical manner. Like a father who guides his children along the path, he takes his readers by the hand and guides them until they discover the true meaning of life.

“And once I have acquired the clothing of love,” he wrote to his students at the end of the well-known letter “Love of Friends,” “Sparks of love promptly begin to shine within me. The heart begins to long to unite with my friends, and it seems to me that my eyes see my friends, my ears hear their voices, my mouth speaks to them, the hands embrace, the feet dance in a circle, in love and joy together with them…” (the Rabash).

After his departure in 1991, people who felt a burning desire in their hearts to reveal their purpose started coming together. Gradually, the “Bnei Baruch” Kabbalah Education & Research Institute was formed, named after Kabbalist Baruch Ashlag. Every morning we study the writings of the Kabbalists, such as The Study of the Ten Sefirot, The Zohar with the Sulam commentary and the writings of Baal HaSulam and the Rabash. We work to share the method with anyone interested, just as my teacher gave me the wisdom of his father.

Today we mark the 28th anniversary of the passing of my teacher, the Rabash, the greatest of the generation. I hope that we will succeed in following his path faithfully.

Who Is Rabash?

Today, on the day commemorating the anniversary of the death of our teacher, Kabbalist Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag, the Rabash, we do not delve into memories. We place no special emphasis on death anniversary dates, as it is customary among those who are far from the truth. We simply relate to such days as signs in order to connect and adhere more, or at least, come closer to our root.

Why? It is because, who really is Rabash? Rabash is a certain extent of the Creator’s revelation toward us.

We would like to express our gratitude to the Creator for Rabash. He sent us a messenger through which we were given the opportunity to come closer to the Creator: to correct and adapt ourselves in equivalence of form with the upper force.

This is how we connect ourselves to Rabash and to the Creator.

Rabash is a degree between us and the Creator. We receive everything through Rabash, his entire spiritual ascent. Each person is created and exists through his friends and teacher, but Rabash truly emerges as a system. He reveals to us a form of connection with the Creator through which we truly realize ourselves and come closer to the truth.

First and foremost, we need to paint that picture to ourselves, that we’re not dealing with externalities, i.e. with a person’s habits and behaviors. We firstly need to see this specific revelation of the Creator toward us, that the Creator revealed Himself in this distinct manner.

Therefore, the more that we appreciate Rabash, the closer we come to the Creator.

We appreciate that degree of revelation He made for us through this particular higher force called “Rabash.” It became important to us. It connected and brought us closer to the Creator.

On this day, we will read excerpts discussing this topic. Also, we will try to accurately calibrate ourselves to that form, which became revealed in its externality to a certain extent, and afterward became concealed, i.e. departed.

Moreover, despite its departure, its purification, we need to elevate ourselves—to become purified by ourselves, arriving at a connection with that unique spiritual root, and seeing our higher degree in it. Through establishing such a connection with our higher degree, we can then further progress to the Creator.

Based on the Lesson on the topic of “Memorial Day for Rav Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag (Rabash)” – Oct. 3, 2019

Street Naming After The Rabash

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 8/16/19

Today, on Friday, August 16, 2019, the street upon which the central building of the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Institute is located—called in Israel, Kabbalah L’Am –Bnei Baruch Association—will have its name changed to “Rabash Street” in commemoration of the great Kabbalist Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (the Rabash)—a decision made by the Municipality of Petah Tikva, headed by Rami Greenberg.

Rabash was a special Kabbalist who acted for the unity of all the people of Israel: religious and secular, all races and factions as one. He was very concerned that the true Torah of Israel—unity of the people—would reach the ears of all people and increase unity in society: a power capable of healing all of the world’s problems.

As a result of Rabash’s many years of devoted work, a group became established—men, women and children—who wanted to realize the vision of Kabbalist Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), as he specified in The Writings of the Last Generation: a vision of a corrected and unified human society. This group became known as “Bnei Baruch” (i.e. “the sons of Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag [the Rabash]”). We, as members of this group, understand that it is a long path, as Rabash himself described in his first article, that “although we have not yet achieved this goal, we have the desire to achieve it. And this, too, should be appreciated by us, for even though we are at the beginning of the way, we do hope to achieve the exalted goal.” (Rabash, “The Purpose of Society,” 1984.)

We—the members of Bnei Baruch, the students of the method of connection and the wisdom of Kabbalah that Rabash received from his teacher and father, Baal HaSulam, and passed down to us—have a strong will and determination to continue the path of our teacher. We are currently in a lab-like environment, learning upon ourselves how tocreate a new unified society and increasing our understanding of what that means, because we are still unworthy of being such a society.
Rabash is our teacher, the source and fountain from which we have received our entire method. Therefore, we are very moved and delighted that the residents and municipal authorities of Petah Tikva recognize us as a positive force and valuable addition to the city, deciding to change the name of the street where our world center is located, to the name of our teacher, Rabash.

We will endeavor to give back to the city’s residents, and to all who know our teacher and what he stood for, our maximal efforts to realize our teachers’ vision of a new unified society. I very much hope that we will reach a state where Rabash’s great name will be promoted in the world, as the one who opened the path of Torah, the method of correction, and that his method will bring about the unification of human society in Israel and around the world.

How Can I Get Closer To Rabash?

Question: I believe Baal HaSulam and you, but I cannot get close to Rabash. How can I do this?

Answer: Baal HaSulam is a great Kabbalist who attained, generalized, and systematized the science of Kabbalah. We are engaged in Kabbalah in order to master it not in the form of science, but in the form of a method of spiritual attainment. These are two different things, although interrelated.

When a person wants to enter the spiritual world himself, then Baal HaSulam is a theoretician for him. He cannot lead a person forward. Rabash leads us forward, explaining at every step where we are, what to do, how to act, what interaction to have in a group, with ourselves, and with the Creator.

I remember well how he wrote his first article, sitting next to me on a park bench. I gave him an aluminum cigarette wrapper, and on the back of it, he wrote a small article—the first of the future three-volume book.

At first, I asked him questions and he gave written answers to them. His first articles appeared this way. Later he wrote by himself.

Without these articles, we could not advance. At each morning lesson we devote an hour and a half to two hours to the articles of Rabash, only half an hour to The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and half an hour to the articles of Baal HaSulam.

It is even incomprehensible how people could master the spiritual space before Rabash, how they could feel it in themselves and advance to different levels. That is what he teaches us, because in our time, souls that descend into this world need it.

Rabash is a practicum of Kabbalah and Baal HaSulam is more a theoretical Kabbalist.

In order to get closer to Rabash, one must read his articles and listen to our lessons on them. All of them are in the archive, you can use them free of charge, access is free. Go ahead, dare!
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/23/18

Whom Does A Teacher Of Kabbalah Follow?

Question: Whom does a teacher of Kabbalah follow?

Answer: I hope that I am following my teacher. I am already connected with him, but, speaking in an earthly language, I can report to him with a calm and open heart, as I realized everything that I received from him. And I am not ashamed of what I have been trying to do after his death.

Question: Can Rabash see what you are doing now?

Answer: What does “seeing” mean? This is a single system that penetrates all information flow from beginning to end along the whole desire called “creation.”

Rabash is at a level in which he includes us within him. We are within him. Every Kabbalist who is on a higher level includes those lower than him within himself.

We are within Rabash and receive the Upper Light only through him, and he is within Baal HaSulam, and so forth. This is a system of concentric Sefirot.
[200961]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/7/16

Student And Teacher, Two Levels

Question: When can a teacher become a transmitter of spiritual energy for the student?

Answer: This is when a teacher can serve as a channel through which the Upper Light will pass to a student or at least help a student connect with a group of ten that will begin to absorb the Upper Light.

Question: But, doesn’t the teacher lock the student onto himself?

Answer: In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this cannot happen!

I remember my teacher Rabash, the last giant Kabbalist. He never allowed his greatness, his immense importance, to be seen.

Today, we read his articles that were written before my eyes. I remember everything that happened then, down to the last detail, the time of year when were sitting on a bench in the park as he wrote. I remember literally everything, even the background noises and voices around us. Today, when I read his articles again, I notice that I understand them more deeply than in the past, even though so many years have passed since then.

It is not possible to appreciate a teacher immediately, even though he doesn’t hide his inner world. No one is hiding anything from us. At that time, I thought to myself: “I am going to move in next to him. I will be by his side, and then I will shake him and take out of him everything he has!”

There isn’t anything to shake out. The teacher is ready to transmit everything. It only depends on the degree to which the student can understand him. Student and teacher are two levels.

But how can a student approach a teacher to receive, absorb, and take from him—this is another matter and is not easy.
[198911]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/7/16

For Rabash’s Memorial Day

Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (RABASH) was the closest to us link in the chain of the great Kabbalists, through which the upper force reveals itself to the world and passes the Torah to us. He is our upper degree and the only spiritual Partzuf on which we depend, and therefore our study is mainly based on his articles.Rabash did everything to prepare the foundation for the future generation that will come.  

Although it wasn’t simple, he found strength to fully annul himself before his great father and teacher Baal HaSulam, without making any calculations for himself. Thanks to this he attained all the spiritual degrees. We are yet to see from his works how high he had climbed. His works are written in a very warm style, with the great care about the reader, a student.

He had a very wide, warm heart full of love. However, if we were able to comprehend the depth of his works, we would see that he was at the state of GAR of the world ofAtzilut and even higher, which is hard to imagine.

Rabash paved the way for us by writing articles and setting customs that we try to keep. He gave us the form in which the Kabbalistic group should exist, and we continue this way.

Baal HaSulam was like the ARI, creating a methodology for spiritual ascent, and Rabash brought it to the practical implementation, and in this he was like the Baal Shem Tov. I have never seen such a detailed description of the order of spiritual work in any other Kabbalistic writing: how a person should organize himself in his immediate environment, in the wider one, in the system of the worlds, and in the relationship with the Creator.

All these systems that a person has to go through in order to reach adhesion with the upper force are explained in such a systematic form only in the articles of Rabash, and nowhere else. A person can take these articles and follow them because they will build the right attitude and concepts in him.

There are no other books like these. We don’t just receive commentary in the articles of Rabash, but precise instructions for what we have to do, what reaction to expect, and how to advance further. He explains to us the entire process we need to complete, the reaction we receive to it, and the internal states that our soul goes through.

I have read these articles many times, and of course I will continue reading them, and I can attest that they are concealed and not revealed. After a few years of study you will start to reveal an immense depth in them. You will suddenly see that Rabash writes about things you haven’t noticed, understood, and felt previously. These articles aren’t simple, but are very multilayered, and they become revealed in accordance to the reader’s readiness. They provide such support and assistance to the beginners on the spiritual path that we can’t receive even from the works of Baal HaSulam.

Baal HaSulam is a Kabbalist of great height, scientist, and researcher, and Rabash is a spiritual mentor, soft and loving, who takes your hand and leads you through all the states. Only when we grow spiritually will we be able to fully appreciate his significance.
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From the lesson “For Rabash’s Memorial Day” 10/6/2016

Ynet Article: “Two Intellectual Giants Who Predicted The Future”

Two of the greatest spirits of the twentieth century, who were removed from the world during the Days of Atonement—predicted what would happen to us today, and they were not wrong… Rav Michael Laitman’s special column about Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) and his succesor Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag, marking their death days.

“Two Intellectual Giants Who Predicted The Future”

On a cold, rainy night in 1979 I couldn’t sleep, thoughts plagued me. Suddenly I found myself behind the wheel, driving without direction. A large sign interrupted my thoughts: “Bnei Brak.” I entered. The streets were deserted. At the corner of Chazon Ish street I encountered a passerby. “Where do they study here?” I asked. He looked at me and answered, “Go to the end of the street, there you will see an orchard, across the street.”

So for the first time I met my teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag, the oldest son and heir of Baal HaSulam—the greatest Kabbalist of the twentieth century. From this moment my life changed beyond recognition.

For twelve years I served as his personal assistant and student, and absorbed from him everything that I know about the wisdom of Kabbalah. Every day he would retreat to the second floor and write. That is how his profound articles were born that paved the spiritual path that is most appropriate for every person today. Nobody before him wrote in such a simple and practical language. Like a father who guides his children down the path, he takes the readers by the hand and leads them until they discover the true meaning of life.

Rabash followed in the footsteps of his father Baal HaSulam, the Kabbalist famous for writing the “Sulam Commentary to The Book of Zohar.” Both of them absorbed the ancient wisdom of the chain of Kabbalists that preceded them, and they were the link that accommodated it to our generation. “I am glad that I have been born in such a generation when it is permitted to disclose the wisdom of truth,” writes Baal HaSulam (“The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”).

A Time to Act

In the year 1922, eleven years before Hitler rose to power, Baal HaSulam foresaw the threat of annihilation facing the Jewish people in Europe.

He took pains to warn the heads of the Jewish community in Warsaw that the sharp Nazi sword had already been placed upon their necks. He urged them to unite and return to the land of Israel, but they refused to heed his calls and ostracized him, and he emigrated to Israel alone. The Second World War came and didn’t pass over the members of that Jewish community, all of whom perished in the death camps.

In the thirties Baal HaSulam made supreme efforts to meet with the heads of the Yishuv(settlement): David Ben-Gurion, Zalman Shazar, Moshe Sharett, Chaim Nachman Bialik, Chaim Arlozorov and other public figures. He tried to speak with them about the importance of unity and about the need to connect the parts of the Jewish Yishuv that was emerging in the land of Israel.

In 1940, over the objections of the ultra-Orthodox circles of engaging in the wisdom of Kabbalah, Baal HaSulam published a newspaper called, The Nation—the first newspaper of its kind devoted to the socio-spiritual unity of the Jewish people. His opponents turned to the British government and took care of the closure of the newspaper.

Baal HaSulam expected that precisely in our day religion would lose its hold on people, the political basis would crumble, and social factionalism would destroy all its good parts—until humanity would remain without an answer. He tried to talk about this with all who would agree to meet with him. The subject burned in him and he felt the need of the hour. He knew that the only remedy for the suffering expected for Israel and the world was to restore the unity that was always the foundation of the nation, otherwise they would rise up against us to annihilate us.

The Last Generation

The message of unity that Baal HaSulam bore, is more relevant than ever. Waves of surging hatred and anti-Semitism are threatening our continued existence. “We have gathered here to establish a society for all who wish to follow the path and method of Baal HaSulam,” began my teacher Rabash in his first article (“Dargot HaSulam, “Purpose of Society 1”).

After his departure in 1991, people began to gather around me whose hearts were burning with a desire to discover the purpose of their existence. Gradually the Bnei Baruch group was founded, named after Rabbi Baruch Ashlag, which became the “Kabbalah for the People” organization.

Every morning we study from the books of the Kabbalists: The Study of the Ten Sefirot, The Book of Zohar with the Sulam Commentary and other writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. We try to continue and disseminate the method to all who want it, exactly according to how my teacher transmitted the wisdom of his father to me.

As of today we number around two million students throughout Israel and the world, and we see our role as carrying on the way of the two great luminaries, and just as Baal HaSulam emphasized, “…only through the expansion of the wisdom of Kabbalah in the masses will we obtain complete redemption” (Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot).

On these days we commemorate the departure of the two greatest of the generation. I hope that we will have the sense to walk faithfully in their way.

"Nourished" By The Teaching Of Baal HaSulam And Rabash

Question: What did Baal HaSulam add to the soul’s correction that the ARI began?

Answer: The ARI did not write anything himself. His student Marchu (Chaim Vital) wrote everything and the records were published over the course of three generations after the ARI’s death.

Baal HaSulam explained and systematized all of the Ari’s teaching. Before him, the teaching of the ARI was not arranged in an orderly fashion, and therefore it was impossible to study. That is why many people who began to study the ARI’s teaching gave it up and instead studied the works of the Ramak.

I also studied the Ramak until I discovered Baal HaSulam, and I encountered many Kabbalists who studied the Ramak instead of the ARI because everything is clear and orderly in the Ramak’s books. On the other hand, the ARI’s works were not orderly. Baal HaSulam systematized, detailed, and explained them, and gave them shape: three lines, the First and Second Restriction, the Creator and the creation, the definition of the worlds,Sefirot, Partzufim, NRNHY, KHB, ZON, he created a compilation of graphs of the Upper Worlds – The Book of HaElan.

Even though certain parts are missing which he could have put in order as well (such asAdam HaRishon and the impure worlds of BYA), apparently he did not want to work on this. Without Baal HaSulam, we would not have the teaching of the ARI and it would be impossible to understand the ARI.

When you read other Kabbalists now, you understand them because you are familiar with the works of Baal HaSulam. Without him, you would get confused. No matter what texts you look at, whether books on Hassidut, the Ramak, Agra, or others, you will only be able to understand them because you studied Baal HaSulam.

In addition, without the Rabash’s articles we would not be able to understand what is required of us and what the work of the Creator is. Without these two Kabbalists, Baal HaSulam and Rabash, who supplement one another, we would not have the right approach to the method of correction.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

The Daily Direction 9.28.14 In Relation To Rabash "Yahrzeit" (Anniversary of his passing)

Everything is open; we now enter into the New Year

I'm looking forward to reach a state that the tens will be all over Israel and that we could realize these connections between all the tens like cogwheels and we'll feel how much we're connected to each other, all people as one unit. And around it, just like pressing the clutch, we'll also enter the entire world to spin with us together with our cogwheels, and everyone will start spinning around in one harmony.

From this tendency the general force is being revealed more and more that the Creator drives everything, and we thought that we are doing it. We discover that only He did everything but now we're willing to discover it, and it seems that there is no “our” force but everything comes from Him. Our effort builds the sense to feel that "There is None Else Beside Him." Let's hope.

Everything is open the year ahead now we enter into the New Year and we hope to gain that. Baal HaSulam, Rabash, and all the Kabbalists before them until Abraham and Adam HaRishon, are all standing and supporting us, we'll succeed. Le Chaim! [Yahrtzeit Meal Rabash, 28.9.14]  

We received permission to enter

This year we were blessed to start realizing Rabbeinu's way: Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag. We began to feel the network of connection between us, between all creatures, with those we see and those that for now we don't recognize. The time will come and we'll feel everyone, the network between all souls, and that we are connecting everything, we could be the managers of the network, the ones who influence, advanced and progress all others to become active parts of this. What has happened to us last year is a tangible entrance into the systems of souls, that now each and everyone has the ability to begin to feel the network and engage with it. To start to discover there what is written in all the Kabbalah books and by that realizing our souls, which is the sum of all the friends' desires, all creatures and the great ones ahead of us. We received permission to enter and now it all depends on our unity and that we can spread out this great spring.

We'll make an effort to realize these 2 directions, one to unity and the other to spreading it out. We hope that this year will be very special and that we could really see what the Kabbalists gave us and the depths and height of attainment Rabbeinu Baruch Shalom, had. Then we will truly justify our name, "Bnei Baruch". Le Chaim! [Har HaMenuchut, Jerusalem, 28.09.2014]

Practical Advice by Rabash

Excerpts from Rabash’s articles about the society.

We have gathered here to establish a society for all those interested in following the path and method of Baal HaSulam—the way to climb the rungs of man, and not remain as a beast.
–“The Purpose of Society 1”

We have gathered here to establish a society where each can follow the spirit of bestowal upon the Creator. And to bestow upon the Creator, we must first bestow upon man, and this is called “love of man.”

Love of man can only be with self annulment. On the one hand, each of us should feel humbled, and on the other hand, we should be proud that the Creator has given us the opportunity to partake in a society whose members have but one goal: to discover the Creator among us.
–“The Purpose of Society 1”

By being together in a group, like brothers, with love of friends, we can rise to adhesion with the Creator. This ladder is called “the path of bestowal,” and it is against our nature. Therefore, to be able to achieve it, there is but one advice: love of friends. Through it, each can help his friend.
–“Love of Friends”

The advice for achieving bestowal and the rule, “love thy friend,” is love of friends. If each is annulled before his friend and mingles with him, the small parts that want love of man become a single mass, united into a collective force. And each person has such great strength, he can realize the love of man. And then each of them can achieve love of God.
–“According to What Is Explained Concerning Love Your Friend”

The greater the society, the more it can affect each member, and produce a stronger atmosphere of the greatness of the Giver. In that state, everyone feels that bestowing upon the Creator is the greatest thing that one could have.
Accordingly, each person is happy that he’s been awarded with being among people who are privileged with giving to the Creator. Then, everything that one does in order to achieve bestowal brings him joy and happiness.
Also, to the extent that we think of the greatness of the Creator during the gathering, we cause each one to feel the importance of the greatness of the Creator. As a result, everyone is in a state of joy all day long.
-“The Order of the Association”

Everyone should try to instill everyone with a spirit of liveliness, hopefulness, and energy. Each of the friends should overcome his disappointment from not achieving bestowal, and will receive, through the group, hope, the strength to prevail, and confidence that he will achieve perfection.
What he previously thought—that he did not have the strength to acquire the quality of bestowal because the obstructions were too formidable—now he considers these obstructions as nothing. And he received all that from the force of the society, since everyone tried to bring support, hope, and a new atmosphere to the group.
–“What to Ask of the Assembly of Friends”

The goal of the assembly of friends must be clear to all: this result should be that each friend will awaken to love the other. This is called “love of man,” and this is what we must talk about.
–“What to Ask of the Assembly of Friends”

“When authors (also people who count, in Hebrew) are envious, wisdom mounts.” This means that when all the friends regard the society as being of a high degree, both in thought and in action, it is natural that each of them will have to rise from his qualities to new qualities, which the society has begotten in him.
–“Concerning Above Reason”

“One does not deliver oneself from imprisonment.” Rather, only a friend can help a friend in decline, and lift him from his state to a state of liveliness, so he acquires strength and confidence as though his goal is very near now.
–“They helped every one his friend”

One who sees that the friends are at a higher degree than his, helping each other, realizing what they’re learning in action, and sees within reason that he is in utter lowness, it certainly affects him. It gives him strength to overcome his idleness, for otherwise he will remain behind the group.
–“Concerning Above Reason”

There is a special power to adhesion of friends: through it, thoughts traverse from one to another, and each person is integrated in the powers of the whole society.
–“The Need for Love of Friends”

If one has love of friends, he sees the friends’ merit, and not their faults. It turns out that if he sees a drawback in his friend, it is a sign that the drawback is in him. Therefore, now he should see that it is not his friend who needs correction, but he himself is in need of one.
–“The Order of the Assembly 1”

If everyone extols all the other friends as though they are the greatest in the generation, the environment will affect him as a great environment, because quality is more important than quantity.
–“The Order of the Assembly 1”

Two is plural. Thus, if two friends sit together and think about how to increase the importance of the Creator, they already have the strength to receive great reinforcement in the greatness of the Creator, by way of their own awakening. For this act there is a subsequent awakening from the Creator, and they begin to feel the greatness of the Creator.
–“The Order of the Association”

The benefit from society is that it can introduce such an atmosphere that there will only be work in order to bestow.
–“The Importance of Society”

It is permitted, and even a must to enjoy from an act of bestowal. Therefore, one should focus on a single point—appreciating that. This is expressed in paying attention to whom I turn, to whom I am speaking, whose commandments am I keeping, and whose law am I studying. In other words, we must seek advice how to appreciate the Creator.
Before a person is awarded with illumination from above, one must seek likeminded people, who are also seeking to heighten the importance of the Creator, to be in touch with the Creator, and to receive help from the society.
–“The Order of the Association”

To be integrated with one another, everyone should annul himself before the others. This is done by seeing the merit of the friends, and not their faults. However, those who think that they are higher than the friends, cannot unite with them.
–“The Purpose of the Society 2”

Every student must feel that he is the smallest among the friends, and then he will be able to receive the appreciation of the greatness from everyone. This is because only the smaller can be impressed by what the greater one appreciates.
–“The Order of the Assembly 1”

When he sees that the friends are at a higher degree than his own, it elevates him.
–“Concerning Above Reason”

People who agree to unite in a group understand that there is no disparity of opinions among them. They understand the necessity of the love of others. Hence, each of them will be able to make concessions for others, and they will be able to unite around that.
–“Concerning Love of Friends”

By gathering people who all agree that they must achieve love of others, when they annul themselves before each other, they are all integrated in one another. Thus, each friend accumulates a great force, according to the greatness of the society, and then he can execute the love of others in actual fact.
–“They helped every one his friend”

A “righteous” is one who wishes to keep the rule, “love thy friend as thyself,” whose only aim is to exit self-love and take upon himself the nature of love of others.
–“According to What Is Explained Concerning Love Your Friend”

In Memory Of Rabash

Today is the day of remembrance for my Teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom Levi Ashlag – Rabash. We are all nourished by what we received from him. He was the only person who understood Baal HaSulam, who continued his path, and who passed the method on to several of his students. The fact that we are able to advance using Baal HaSulam’s method, to see, hear, feel and understand what he wrote, is possible only thanks to Rabash.

Rabash used to write an article a week, and we have over 400 of his articles. In them, he provides explanation of the entire science of Kabbalah, including everything that regards a person’s inner work. Through these articles, he has given us an opportunity to enter the sensation of the spiritual world. He explained the entire method systematically, simply and accessibly, in a form that people could easily connect to.

The reason why he often quotes the Torah, Talmud and other Kabbalistic sources is in order to connect us to the original sources and to help us understand how their authors (Kabbalists) thought. This is how they conveyed their sensations to us.

There’s no doubt that if it weren’t for Rabash’s books, we would not be able to connect to the writings of Baal HaSulam. Without Rabash’s explanations, it would be impossible for us to “open” Baal HaSulam’s books.

I am grateful to the Upper Force for sending me such a great Teacher, through whom we have received Kabbalah. His life’s work was a spiritual breakthrough into a new level and the revelation of Kabbalah’s method to us.

Baal HaSulam also stated this method in his articles, but they remained concealed.  Rabash took his father’s materials and rewrote them in a form that the world could understand. He also transmitted it orally to his students.

Rabash was the first Kabbalist in the entire history of Kabbalah who began openly accepting students. After a year of studying with Rabash, I gave several lectures at Berg’s center. The lectures weren’t for the general public, but for the instructors. After those lectures,  all the instuctors left the Berg center, because they understood that what they were doing there was not Kabbalah at all, but rather just business.

I brought them to study with Rabash, along with an entire group of young, secular people. Altogether there were about forty people. Rabash was 77 years old at the time, and he had spent his entire life living in Bnei Brak – a Jewish Orthodox community, with an overabundance of prohibitions and restrictions. But despite everything, he was not afraid to accept all of these new, secular young men to be his students!

These people weren’t planning to return to religion; they came to him to study Kabbalah exclusively. That is how he started teaching Kabbalah to secular young men from Tel Aviv! This was the revolution he made, and it steered our world toward correction. This was a completely new phenomenon, such that the entire history of Kabbalah has never seen. It was the beginning of large-scale dissemination of the science of Kabbalah, as those forty students continued his path.

Rabash was a great revolutionary. He possessed a tremendous inner power that enabled him to do this, in defiance of his Hassidic community and his relatives.

Everything I have, I received from him. Our group, Bnei Baruch (the Sons of Baruch) is named after him. And I believe that we truly will merit becoming his spiritual heirs.

Let his memory in us be blessed!

Love Your Neighbor As Yourself

This rule, familiar to all, includes the corrections of all of man’s desires (heart) and thoughts (mind). And on the contrary, only by correcting all of his desires and thoughts does man attain the quality of love for people, for all of mankind, and nature.

Every person’s love for the neighbor is very weak and is therefore not expressed explicitly. Thus, if several people unite together into a group and every one of them suppresses his egoism in relation to others, then every one of them will receive the forces of all the others. In that case, all of the separate forces of the group members will be amplified into one great force and they will gain the ability to carry out nature’s law of “love your neighbor.” A discrepancy arises here: Must one correct all of one’s egoistic qualities to attain love for the neighbor, or does one only need love for his friends in the group to attain it?

Usually people unite in a group to improve their situation in some respect, and every person makes a calculation as to how much he bestows to others and how much he receives since this kind of group is founded on egoism. If a member of such a group feels that he can receive more outside of the group than inside of it, he regrets being in the group. This kind of society distances a person from rising to the “human” level.

Indeed, reaching love is possible only by correcting all of one’s egoistic desires and thoughts. But by uniting each person’s small desires through love, in that union, together they create a new, common, great force, which every group member can use to attain love of friends and then to attain love for humanity and Nature.

But all of this can only happen on the condition that every person suppresses his egoism in relation to another. If a person is separated from the friend by his egoism, he cannot receive the force of love for the neighbor from him. Thus, one can receive the force of love from the friends only to the degree of one’s self-annulment before them.

This is similar to the inscription of numbers: If you first write a 1 and then a 0, you will get 10, meaning 10 times more. And if you write two zeros after a one, you will get 100, meaning 100 times more. This means that if one’s friend is a one and he is a zero, a person receives 10 times more from the friend. And if he says that he is two zeros in relation to his friend, he will receive 100 times more from him.

And vice versa, if he is a one and his friend is a zero, this equals 0.1, so he is 10 times less than his friend. And if he can say that he is a one and he has two friends who are two zeros in relation to him, then he is equal to 0.01 compared to them. Thus, the more zeros he places on the value of his friends, the smaller he is himself.

Yet even if you already have the forces to love the neighbor and you can really express that love, and you already feel that self-benefit only harms you, nevertheless, don’t believe yourself and be afraid that you might stop in the middle of the path and fall into egoism. You have to be afraid of receiving such egoistic pleasures that you won’t be able to resist them and will enjoy them instead of love for the neighbor. Precisely the fear of falling into egoism gives a person the forces to observe the law of nature, the law of bestowal and love.
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(Based on Rabash’s article “According to What Is Explained about Love Thy Friend as Thyself”)