The Rashash on Rectification and Perception as One Reality

The Rashash teaches that tikkun and hasagah are identical, not two stages but a single reality. When genuine rectification occurs, perception arises with it simultaneously. This transformation of consciousness unfolds through sustained contemplative practice. The experience is one of encountering Ein Sof not as something external, but within one’s own depths, a state of sustained awareness captured in שויתי יהו”ה לנגדי תמיד “I have placed Hashem before me always” (Tehillim 16:8)

To understand this, we must grasp what was lost. Adam before the sin had no gvul, no boundary fragmenting consciousness. As our sages teach, “He could see from one end of the world to the other” (Talmud, Chagigah 12a). This means the spiritual realms were not distant territories but the very texture of his awareness, his body extending across levels of reality rather than being confined to physical limitation. This was not expanded information. It was a different structure of awareness. What the sin introduced was separation: between conscious and unconscious, between rational and intuitive, and between one’s inner world and the outer reality that appears external.

The work of tikkun addresses this rupture. Its work is architectural, not emotional. There is light that transcends one’s current capacity (ohr makif) and light already within but contracted (ohr pnimi). Through contemplative practice, through faith that draws down rather than merely accepts, and through genuine transformation in how one thinks and lives, the transcendent gradually permeates inward. But light without structure cannot remain. For the transcendent to enter and endure, vessels must be formed through Torah and mitzvot. This demands actual change in how one thinks and lives, not theoretical understanding alone. The path involves hishtavut, deep inner stability for contemplation; ratzo v’shov, the mind’s perpetual reaching toward what exceeds its grasp; and devekut, a bonding that transcends mere intellectual connection. What makes this sustainable is da’at of da’at, recursive awareness, conscious presence within consciousness itself, so one remains wakefully present rather than dissolved in unconscious ecstasy.

Those who achieve this perceive reality’s underlying unity not through supernatural visions interrupting ordinary life, but through refined consciousness that sees through appearance to essence. Their individual achievement serves as a template, pointing toward the collective restoration when all Israel will share Atzilutic awareness. It is ultimately a return to iggul, circular unity prior to creation’s separating lines, where through this work what always was becomes consciously recognized: Ein Sof as the ground of all existence.

What prevents this state, and what enables its emergence? The obstacle is not distance from G-d but concealment within ourselves. When thought remains captive, when holy insights gained through study or contemplation are not exteriorized into speech, action, and lived reality, the spark of divine light contracts further inward, becoming dimmed, constricted, and finally trapped in mental captivity. The potential for revelation exists but remains blocked. This occurs when we are not mindful, when opportunities to glorify Hashem and His Torah pass unnoticed, and when the luminous spark that could expand remains instead engrossed by inaction. Into these contracted spaces the klipot gain a foothold, gripping deficiencies in our mentality and drawing sustenance from what should have been holiness. The blockage is not lack of light. It is a failure of transmission.

The solution lies in understanding faith not as passive acceptance but as active engagement. Emunah becomes the means by which ohr makif enters the soul, and this act of faith is itself a spiritual action. What descends through such faith are the mochin, the higher mentalities of chochmah, binah, and da’at, which progressively displace the immature, restricted consciousness we carry. This is evolutionary change, inner transformation that matures character and brings enlightenment through gradual stages rather than sudden shifts. The verse states, וצדיק באמונתו יחיה “The righteous shall live by his faith” (Chabakuk 2:4), for emunah enlivens the soul’s garments and sparks, becoming the pathway through which Ohr Ein Sof descends into awareness. As this process unfolds, גבורות gevurot “harsh judgments” becomes sweetened. When severity arises in the mind, it can be reconsidered and nullified before hardening into emotional reactivity, and contemplation itself, suffused with faith, prevents descent into impurity. This transformation is powered by something even deeper than thought.

It draws on an underlying vibration within the soul. The soul’s fundamental passion is kalot hanefesh, the consuming drive to transcend bodily limitation and return to the Source, the soul’s deepest ratzon to unite with Hashem, mirrored in the mind’s perpetual ratzo v’shov. Yet Hashem in His wisdom prevents complete dissolution. The soul remains embodied, cleaving to existence through mitzvot and good deeds, drawing divine influx while remaining grounded in its mission. This delicate balance, profound devekut sustained because vessels are continually being formed, is maintained through the levushim, the garments formed by Torah study and mitzvot performance. These are not metaphors but actual spiritual structures determining what light the soul can receive and sustain. The lower garments depend on deeds; the higher on kavanot and the yearning of the heart. Through these garments the soul becomes capable of sustained elevation rather than momentary ascent.

When these vessels attain sufficient refinement through sustained practice, consciousness itself undergoes transformation, moving beyond technical understanding into lived reality. Perception no longer operates as interpretation. At this level, the tzaddik exemplifies what has been achieved: a person whose awareness has been fundamentally restructured. The Rashash‘s teaching is precise: such a person literally encounters Ein Sof, not in rare mystical peaks but wakefully, as the constant ground of perception. This encounter unfolds as immanent, the Ein Sof discovered not at a distance but as the substance of one’s own depths; as relational, not abstract doctrine but direct meeting; and as deeply unitive, the sense of separation between self and Source progressively dissolving until only transparency remains.

The tzaddik’s inner world becomes permeated with the experience of Ein Sof. The boundary between inner and outer, between spiritual realms and personal consciousness, thins and becomes translucent. Unity is perceived not by transcending multiplicity but by seeing through appearance to essence, the way one fluent in Hebrew sees meaning shining directly through the letters rather than requiring translation. This is the consciousness our sages called מטה ולא מטה mate v’lo mate, touching but not grasping, perpetually encountering what exceeds containment yet is never absent. It expresses itself in practices like the Shema, where the ד dalet of אחד echad is elongated to prevent slipping into the ר reish of אחר acher, sustaining the perception of divine oneness through focused awareness.

This entire process is tikkun ha-sechel, the rectification of mind: training consciousness through Torah and mitzvot to perceive what has always been true but was obscured by contraction. In this tikkun-hasagah, which remains one reality, not two, we gain direct perception of what Adam‘s consciousness was like before the sin. This is not historical information but recovered awareness, actual hasagah of the state in which spiritual realms were one’s inner world, the body extended across all levels, and no gvul fragmented awareness into separate domains.

Nothing new is added at this stage. Only concealment falls away. The tzaddik does not depart the fallen world but allows the world itself to become transparent to what it always contained. Eden is revealed as present rather than past, and the sustained awareness of “I have placed Hashem before me always” ceases to be an effortful practice and becomes natural seeing. This restoration of consciousness to its original transparency, this revelation of the body as a container for infinity, this recognition of Ein Sof not as distant but as the immediate, wakeful, unitive ground of every moment—this is the completion toward which the entire process moves, where mechanisms dissolve into direct perception and what was sought through transformation is simply present.

Rabbi Avraham

on Shevat 10, 5786