RABASH’S SOLITUDE

He would go to Tiberias on his own. He didn’t allow anyone near him, seeking solitude.

Once a month he would leave us for a total of two days. While in Tiberias, he lived in a small house of an old student of his, Drori.

These were times when he needed to escape his habitat, leaving behind his wife and children, his students, and spend some time alone with himself.

In the old days, this was actually a custom among Kabbalists, called “going into exile.” One would leave his home completely empty-handed for a year or two. He would earn money and survive as best he could, clinging to the Creator as there was no one else to cling to.

RABASH couldn’t afford to stay away for a year or two, but only for a few days.

Upon his return, I would meet him at the bus stop. As I watched him haul his suitcase, I admit to dreaming that one day he would take me with him.

But I didn’t dare propose it to him, realizing how important it was for a Kabbalist to have that level of solitude.

Eventually, I would see it for myself.

HE WASN’T HERE

Once, during one such RABASH trip to Tiberias, our entire group suddenly decided to visit him. It was Thursday, the day of the gathering of friends. He was due back Friday, but we decided to spend that day together with our Teacher. We thought we’d make a festive meal, and that it would make him happy.

We arrived, walked up to the fence of the little house where RABASH stayed, and suddenly stopped. We realized that we didn’t know how to enter. We didn’t even know why we came nor how that thought had risen in us. After all, we hadn’t been invited. As we stood there at the fence in silence, bemused, someone proposed, “Michael should go first.” Everyone looked at me.

I remember entering that unkempt yard and taking the path to the house, my insides churning with anxiety. What if our timing was bad? He hadn’t invited us, so why was I here? Why did I agree to come?!

With those thoughts, I came up to the front door, draped with a mosquito net. I still remember everything, down to the smallest detail. I looked through the door, not seeing anything at first. But then I saw the contours of a man sitting on the bed. It took me a while to realize that the man RABASH.

He was motionless, dressed in trousers and an undershirt, staring into nothingness. I didn’t dare disturb the silence, but as the moments passed, I grew increasingly uncomfortable that I was essentially spying on him. Eventually, I offered a quiet greeting. “Hello, Rebbe.”

He didn’t react. I called louder: “Rebbe?!” Slowly, he turned his head toward me, and I realized that he didn’t see me!

RABASH stared right through me, as if I were transparent. My heart beat frantically—I didn’t know what to do in that situation.

Suddenly, he lowered his eyes to the floor, keeping them there for another two minutes. Then, he slowly raised them and looked at me. “Who invited you?”

He spoke quietly and in a tone that one would use with a complete and uninvited stranger. Again I thought that I should turn around and leave at once, and take everyone else with me. Still, I responded, “We all came, Rebbe. The whole group. We were thinking...”

“Who invited all of you?” he interrupted me, then turned away again, returning to the same state I had found him in.

I didn’t say another word, afraid of disturbing his peace, but carefully went down the steps and lit a cigarette. The others walked up and realized everything at once—I didn’t even need to explain anything. We stayed there, smoking, unsure of what to do.

AN ESCAPE

When free of external disturbances or people before whom he had to “put on an act,” RABASH could enter into a state where he practically wouldn’t feel his body. He would go so deep within that the body wouldn’t bother him at all. He’d barely hear what was happening around him, experiencing everything within. It wasn’t meditation—there is no such notion in Kabbalah. Rather, it was a spiritual immersion. That was the state that I accidentally witnessed in Tiberias.

Half an hour passed, maybe more, but we still didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, we realized that we shouldn’t have come without notifying him beforehand. On the other hand, I felt that I couldn’t leave him like this. I needed to wait.

And then RABASH came out. He was different from before, more animated, his eyes studied us with curiosity. “Well, what are you doing here?” he asked. We began explaining that we didn’t mean to disturb him, but that we had decided to hold our gathering of friends in Tiberias, so we thought to pay him a visit, as well. How could we not, now that we were already here?

All eyes turned to RABASH. After a long pause, he gave us all another inquiring look and said, “Let’s do a meal.”

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and smiles beamed all around. Aron Brizel, our meal specialist, dispatched someone to the market; others got to boiling water and cutting vegetables. A festive spirit overtook us.

REGARDING MEALS

Meals with RABASH merit a special mention.

To him, meals were more than just consumption of food—sitting with the friends was a spiritual process of the highest order. And he planted in us the same attitude toward this act.

Our meals were held in complete silence. You couldn’t talk to one another, but each one had to focus within and talk to himself.

The air was so thick with tension that we were forced to accompany the smallest crumb placed in the mouth with intention. If you were to ask any one of us what he ate at the meal after it ended, he would be hard-pressed to remember. The food itself had virtually no flavor to us, for the entire flavor was found in the state itself, and not in the food.

It was that kind of a meal that we put together that day in Tiberias. To this day we all remember it, thanks to the special inner power that emanated from RABASH.

TOGETHER!

Several months had passed. I don’t remember the circumstances, but one fine day RABASH and I got to talking about Tiberias.

And suddenly he said to me, “Let’s start going together.”

I had been dreaming of nothing more. Naturally, I became a nervous mess, unable to get any sleep the night before the trip. My mind was frantic. How would it go? What could I do not to disappoint the Rebbe? What food should I prepare?

My wife took the food preparation on herself. She had taken to RABASH the moment she laid eyes on him. Her father had fallen victim to Stalin’s Great Purge,¹ and when RABASH came into her life, she flooded him with all the warmth of her heart that had gone unspent in her father’s absence.

This manifested most in her cooking. RABASH would often say that he preferred Olga’s (my wife’s name) cooking to any other food because she put all of her heart into it. He especially loved the soup that Olga prepared using his recipe. The ingredients were chunks of beef, chicken drumsticks, potatoes and pasta, and needed to be cooked to a level of thickness that you could stick a spoon in it and it would stand. I would bring it to RABASH while it was still hot as we lived near each other. He would taste a spoonful and close his eyes, pause, then smack his lips and exclaim, “Ohh, that’s good!” Then he would sit and write Olga a thank you note. Olga kept a lot of those notes. And he would give feedback on each separate dish. “Add a bit of salt here,” he would write, “And a bit of pepper there, and the dish will be perfect!”

RABASH had this unbelievable quality: he didn’t neglect anyone, but paid attention to all. He especially felt those who radiated warmth—to him, these were angels that brought joy. And my wife Olga became precisely such a person to him.

TREPIDATION

I was very anxious before the trip, afraid of missing something, as if we were setting out to a deserted island and couldn’t afford to overlook anything. I took bedsheets and books, coffee and food. I knew that he liked herring, whole-wheat bread, a certain kind of cheese... Olga grilled chicken and cutlets, and cut up veggies.

When we finally got in the car, I asked RABASH why I was feeling such anxiety towards the trip.

He said that it was a good thing, that it was no accident that the first commandment was trepidation. That he had felt the same kind of trepidation toward his father, and that it was similar to spiritual trepidation. After all, I wasn’t anxious about myself, but about whether I could truly rise above myself, annul myself, and assist my Teacher... “Isn’t that right?” he asked me, then immediately answered his own question, “It doesn’t matter that our world is completely different. We need to constantly strive to live for others. This is the good kind of trepidation. It draws the light.”

I was constantly itching to take out my notepad or recorder—I kept them both on me at all times. But RABASH was strict on these trips of ours. No notes, no recorders!

A HOTEL FOR TWO

In Tiberias, we sometimes stayed at a shabby hotel owned by a student of Rabbi Yitzhak Keller. We were the hotel’s only guests.

The empty hallways were drafty and smelled of dust and spices. In the night hours, the silence was broken by RABASH’s throaty voice, echoing down the hollow hallways and escaping through the open windows into the night.

I sat before him like a baby next to his father. I didn’t need to pretend since he knew everything about me anyway: what drove me, all my thoughts, desires, impulses. Sometimes I forced him to tell me a bit about myself, and he would reveal to me such attributes of my character that I wouldn’t even admit to myself. No way could I have identified these qualities in myself, no way could I have reached the same conclusion, to see myself for who I really was.

After several weeks of staying at this hotel, Drori offered to have us stay with him. In precisely that house that would etch itself in my heart forever. Where miracles happened and prayers were raised that turned the world on its head. Where I saw the real RABASH, fueled by a single dream of the Creator, devoted to a single and grand goal—revealing Him to the world.

WHAT IS SPOKEN, REMAINS

I sometimes regret not recording our talks in Tiberias; they were something incredible. At the same time, I saw for myself the difference between the things he said that were meant to be recorded versus those that weren’t. How restricted he was with the former, and how free with the latter.

Baal HaSulam had been the same way. He did not allow note-taking at his lessons. RABASH had to come out and recall everything his father had said at the lesson, which later birthed the great Shamati (I Heard). His notes were the perfect reproduction of Baal HaSulam, for RABASH’s annulment before his father was absolute, so the notes matched the latter’s speech word for word.

On the one hand, RABASH recorded his father’s words; on the other, he knew that what is said even once does not disappear. The spiritual information always remains. On numerous occasions he would say something unusual, something very exalted, something out of this world, without clarifying it.

Once, another student of RABASH, my friend Aron Brizel visited us in Tiberias. On that occasion, RABASH spoke for several minutes, speaking words the meaning of which we couldn’t begin to follow. Brizel even hopped with bafflement as he inquired, “What did you say, Rebbe?” “Oh, it wasn’t for you, but so it would remain in the world,” RABASH replied.

He understood that all the higher information doesn’t disappear, but awaits the time when the people for whom it was uttered arrive. Then it will open their hearts, and we will “hear” RABASH and all the great Kabbalists who have gathered for us this treasure trove of thoughts and attainments. And we won’t need any technology, but only the desire to hear them.

ETERNITY IN TIBERIAS

We moved to Drori’s old single-story house for our trips to Tiberias.

The land outside the house was overgrown with grass, with a single trail leading to it. The house had two bedrooms. RABASH slept in one, and I took the other.

It was all so basic, no extra amenities. But I wouldn’t trade those two small rooms and the eternity I felt there for the fanciest quarters in the world.

We would come, unpack, and I would cook us a meal. We would eat and immediately go to Hamei Tveria² hot springs. RABASH would dip into a huge tub for half an hour before taking a hot shower, the whole hot treatment lasting forty minutes in total. He really loved the heat. I couldn’t handle even 20 minutes. Then he would lie on a trestle bed, and I would wrap him on all sides with sheets and blankets.

He liked to sweat hard enough to “get everything out.” And he drank a lot. He drank and sweated, sweated and drank. He naturally sensed what was good for him and what wasn’t. He wasn’t forcing himself, no. It was perfectly natural, as if he was speaking directly to nature and accepting everything that maintained harmony. This was his way of cleansing his body, letting all the dirt escape through the pores.

I won’t describe everything that happened after. How we drove home or what we ate. I remember everything down to the last detail, but the only important thing is that he did all these things with a single purpose: to invest all his strength into the study.

Even this recreation at Hamei Tveria, even sleeping and eating (incidentally, he never overate!)—all this was done solely to ensure that not a single minute of the 8-10 hours spent on the study went to waste.

Essentially, he was extremely harsh with his body. And I was always observing how he did it, for I had other calculations toward my own body...

LET IT SUFFER

Several times a year, I experienced skin problems. Sometimes it got so bad that I couldn’t even get out of bed. My friend Yaron, a carpenter, had fashioned a special hoop that would be hoisted over me to hold the blanket so it wouldn’t touch my body. Bedridden, I experienced horrific suffering: my body wouldn’t breathe and the skin would peel off of me in layers. I would literally take it and peel it off. My whole body was covered in ulcers, my pores oozing lymphatic fluid. I was literally shedding skin all over...

During one of these periods, I was taking a walk in the park with RABASH, after managing to get out of bed and suffering the pain from my clothes on my skin. Still, I got up and went, because I couldn’t not go.

It was winter, and the weather was blissfully chilly. The wind was cold and bitter, and I walked unbuttoned, letting it blow against my skin. I wanted it to be even colder, to burn my skin even more. I walked with my eyes closed, opening them only to check that RABASH was there... And suddenly I saw that he had stopped and was staring at me.

I asked him through enormous pain, barely managing to move my mouth that seemed to be coated with tar. “What’s going to happen, Rebbe?! What?!”

He took a step towards me, grabbed me by the hand, and spoke with tremendous pain, “Let it suffer! Let it!” Meaning the body. Then he put a finger to his own skin as if to pinch it hard, his eyes glowing with what seemed like joy. “You can’t even imagine, Michael, how you’re benefitting from this!”

MASTER OVER THE BODY

That was how he lived. From early childhood he had been raised to treat his body like something foreign. And so he could point at it and say, “Let it suffer!” Let it suffer! When speaking of the body, he always meant the ego. He took pleasure in trampling his own ego.

It wasn’t some kind of masochism, because at the same time he was one with the quality of bestowal. To him, the body was like an appendage to the soul, fully separate from it. He was master over his body and soul, controlling both—the ego of the body and the higher purpose of the soul. They were like the two lines, and by unifying both, he built the third line. And he saw himself in it.

Such should be the life of a person attaining the higher reality. A person engaged in constant attack. He was that kind of person. And he was always attacking. That much I witnessed firsthand in Tiberias.

ATTACKS ON THE WORLD

While in Tiberias, we studied 8-10 hours daily.

Those were 8-10 hours spent in prayer. We studied part 16 from The Study of the Ten Sefirot, The Gatehouse of Intentions, Baal HaSulam’s letters, and, of course, articles from Shamati.

These were materials that were almost never studied during the general lessons with others. It wasn’t until years later that RABASH decided to study them with the group. Aside from that, we read secret scrolls that Kabbalists had written in a very concealed manner, only for themselves or for those who understood them. I cannot talk about it, yet.

RABASH would take these texts and explain them to me. He would choose precisely the parts closest to the soul, the roots closest to us. He felt them. It was important for him that I hear, and not only hear. He washed me through and through with those texts.

Disconnected from the whole world, without phones, without off-topic conversations, we sat across from each other, and I yearned not to miss a single word.

He would speak, shaking his head as he tended to do, with his eyes closed... And suddenly he would freeze and stay silent a long while. What did he hear? What did he think about? Sometimes it seemed like he was speaking to Baal HaSulam himself, hearing him. Looking back, that was probably the case.

In the evening, we would go for a walk. We’d walk at a leisurely pace, with RABASH typically holding on to my arm. Past the shops, restaurants and cafes, we’d go down to the lake. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we walked in silence, him deep in thought as I smoked, perpetually afraid of disturbing him.

Upon getting back, I made the beds and placed water on his bedside table, then put him to bed. Before sleep, he would invariably read something from Shamati. After reading, he would turn off the light and instantly fall asleep.

So that, come morning, he could launch another attack.

WE COULD HAVE BROKEN THROUGH...

On one occasion, our group was given an opportunity to attack. This happened on Sukkot.³

Our entire group went all out in preparing for the holiday. We built the sukkah in adherence to RABASH’s ultra-strict rules. He checked everything thoroughly, touching every joint, and came away happy. It was built entirely from wood, without a single iron nail, with an especially solid roof⁴ that soared above the walls of the sukkah and practically blocked out all the light.

We were barely standing from exhaustion, but the festive atmosphere was so strong, the feeling of ascent greater than ever before.

During that holiday, RABASH gave a special commentary at the lesson, perhaps because we were able to perceive more. As emotional as ever and generous with explanations, he was preparing us for an attack.

“We are leaving the house now,” he said. “We’re closing the door to the ego behind us. We will not be going back.”

We were listening to him with bated breath. We were right behind him...

“This is the first correction, a restriction on one’s ego. There is no advancement without it. We’re moving into a sukkah. We are prepared to live forever in this temporary dwelling, in constant changes, tending to the screen. There it is, above us, our common screen. We are always beneath it! And then it becomes a true holiday! Rising above our desires, becoming like bestowal, like the Creator, living as if soaring up in the air...”

We were excited, burning with anticipation that something would happen at any moment... Something we had been waiting for our whole lives...

But as the days passed, we realized that this something wasn’t happening.

On the fifth day of Sukkot, around 11 in the morning, on our walk along the beach, I couldn’t hold back any longer. I stopped and asked RABASH: “What is it that we’re missing?! What?! We all want spirituality so bad, we’re bursting with tension after being together in the sukkah the whole week. You’re giving unbelievable lessons! So what is it we’re missing to make this breakthrough?!”

He sensed that the question wasn’t mine alone, but coming from all of us. So he answered.

“An attack is what we’re missing. An attack! We will break through only if we unite.”

And he kept walking.

Later that evening, he gave an unforgettable lesson, teaching us that only unity allowed the people of Israel to escape Egypt. Only unity enabled them to cry out to the Creator, to cross the Red Sea and charge into the unknown. And only unity empowered them to become one nation at the foot of Mount Sinai by accepting the Creator’s condition: Unite, or this will be your burial place.

“If you accept these conditions,” he said, “you will succeed in being born in a new world.”

We weren’t able to accept those conditions. We failed. And that left an imprint in my heart that will never heal.

MY DISCOVERY

Many years have passed since that unforgettable Sukkot and since our time in Tiberias. Looking back, I realize very clearly that each question I asked then did not come from me, but from him. Every line of text he read was not read for me. Every explanation he offered was not intended for me.

This pertains particularly to our time in Tiberias. It was a kind of “blood transfusion” in which he would endow me with strength to resist all other influences, to remain with him until the end. And even after he passed away.

He was polishing his method on me, the method so utterly essential to the last generation,⁵ like oxygen itself. This generation is already here, even if it has yet to realize that it is the “last.” But RABASH knew, so he rushed to do his part. He was the last link in that long chain that started with Abraham and passed through all the generations of great Kabbalists, to our days.

I felt it. And I desperately wanted to be like him even if to the smallest extent.