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!
Related Material:
Rabash: The Last Great Kabbalist
Our world does not pertain to the spiritual world; therefore, there is no need to correct it. While living in this world, I discover a point in my heart – the embryo of a spiritual desire. I need to extract it from the other desires, expand it, and correct it in a way that will make it possible to reveal the spiritual world within it.
A question I received:
A question I received:
Jealousy is a direct consequence of the breaking. Previously we were connected and gave of ourselves for the benefit of others. After all, the Light was among us, uniting us and not allowing us to feel that we were separate.
Desire must be whole. Take for instance a politician whose goal is to become a prime minister. His whole life is focused on this. Having set this goal for himself, he is prepared to discard all his principles and drag himself through the mud in order to achieve his goal.
The dissemination of Kabbalah means letting the world know the reason for its existence, what forces are causing it to develop, what its purpose and final state is, and how man can influence this process. But the revelation of Kabbalah to the world can only take place as much as the world is able to accept and realize the method.
One’s development begins from the “animate” level, where a person identifies himself with his desires for things in this world. This stage of egoism’s development is called “animate” because all of one’s attention and strength is aimed at taking care of one’s body – and the body is an animal!
