The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Morning Lesson: August 14, 2025 

Part 1: Recorded lesson - Nov 3, 2021

Baal HaSulam. Shamati 45. Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work

Reader: Hello friends, for the first part of the lesson, we will watch a recorded lesson from November 3, 2021, on Shamati 45, “Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work.”

Reader: Hello, we are reading from the Book of Shamati, Article 45, “Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work.” You can find the study material on our website and in the Arvut system. When you click on the study material button in the top menu, you can send questions on our website and also in the Arvut system, and selected questions on the study material will be asked here. 

M. Laitman: Yes, we sat like this more than once, a small group of students with our teacher, Rabash, and he would be talking a little bit, such small conversations we had them before the holidays, as it is written here that I heard this on the first of the month of Elul. The month of Elul is a special month in which we have Rosh Hashanah, we celebrate Rosh Hashanah and the whole month itself is a month of conversations about a special attitude between man and his life, what he went through, what he intends for the future. It's a month of retrospect, self-scrutiny, so it's customary for the teacher to say a few words to the students, and this is what Rabash heard and he wrote, and therefore these things nevertheless, they are derived from or taken from everything that Baal HaSulam said, and also apparently Baal HaSulam didn't want to elaborate on this and make a full article out of this, because he could really make a book from this whole topic of the Torah and the work. However, this is what we have. So, let us first of all read, and if it would be possible to elaborate, we will elaborate, but in truth it all comes from within the person as much as he in his work starts to discover more and more what are these concepts and the definitions that we have here, so please. 

Reader: Shamati 45, two discernments in the Torah and in the work. 

Reading: (03:18) 45. Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work

I heard on Elul 1, September 5, 1948

There are two discernments in the Torah, and there are two discernments in the work. The first is the discernment of fear, and the second is the discernment of love. Torah is called a state of wholeness, meaning we do not speak of the state one’s work is in, but we speak with respect to the Torah itself.  

M. Laitman: As it comes to us from the Creator and is spread over down to us, it builds the upper world, it builds the lower world, our world, it builds us, and it takes care of everything without any participation, any involvement of ours.

Reading: (04:13) 45. Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work

The first is called “love,” meaning that one has a desire and craving to know the ways of the Creator and His hidden treasures, and for that he makes every effort and exertion to obtain his wish. He regards everything in the Torah that he extracts from what he has learned as having been granted a priceless thing. According to the appreciation from the importance of the Torah, so one gradually grows until he is slowly shown the secrets of the Torah, according to his labor.

The second discernment is fear, meaning that he wants to be a servant of the Creator. Since “He who does not know the commandment of the upper one, how will he serve Him?” he fears and dreads not knowing how to serve the Creator.

When he learns in this way, every time he finds a flavor in the Torah and can use it, he is elated and excited according to the appreciation of the importance from having been granted something in the Torah. And if one persists in this way, one is gradually shown the secrets of the Torah.

Here there is a difference between external teachings and the wisdom of the Torah: In external teachings, the elation lessens the intellect, since emotion is opposite from the intellect. Thus, the elation diminishes the understanding of the intellect.

Conversely, in the wisdom of the Torah, the elation is an essence, like the intellect. The reason for this is that the Torah is life, as it is written, “Wisdom preserves he who has it,” as wisdom and life are the same thing.

Hence, as the wisdom appears in the mind, so the wisdom appears in the emotion, since the light of life fills all the organs. (It seems to me that this is why one should see that one is always elated over the wisdom of the Torah, since in the elation there is a big difference between an exterior teaching and the wisdom of the Torah.)

It is likewise in the work, considered the left line, because it is discerned as reception. The matter of reception means that one wants to receive because he feels a lack, and a lack is regarded as three discernments: 1) the want of the individual, 2) the want of the public, 3) the want of the Shechina [Divinity].

Any want is regarded as wanting to satisfy the deficiency; hence, it is considered reception and left line. Torah, however, means that one works not because he feels a lack that must be corrected, but that he wants to bestow contentment upon his Maker (through prayer, praise, and gratitude. When one engages in a way that one feels oneself in wholeness and does not see any shortcoming in the world, this is called “Torah.” However, if one engages while feeling some shortcoming, this is called “work”).

Also, we should make two discernments during the work: 1) due to love of the Creator, when he wants to adhere to the Creator and feels that this is the place where he can bring out the measure of love he feels and love the Creator, 2) because of fear, when he has fear of the Creator. 

M. Laitman: This is truly just a few lines, but how much they are full of discernments. Why did He speak in such a way? It's difficult to understand. Apparently, something accumulated in him. Let us read it again, and then we will try to understand it. Please.

Reader: 45. Two discernments in the Torah and in the work.

Reading Again: (10:55) 45. Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work

M. Laitman: So we heard it a couple of times, and certainly you paid attention to this article and you read it, so let's ask a few questions, maybe we can understand it even better.

Question (Almaty 1): (17:23) Can you explain the difference between the deficiency of the collective and deficiency of the Shechina? 

M. Laitman: Which lack are you talking about? Just a lack of people, the deficiency that people have, or…? 

Student: It says that in the work, there are three discernments, the want of the individual, the want of the public, and the want of the Shechina. What's the difference between the deficiency of the public and the want of the Shechina? 

M. Laitman: With the Shechina, it's not a deficiency that people reveal or that they build. The Shechina is the vessel that comes to us from above, through bestowal from above, and in that vessel, the Creator is already revealed. We, from below, need to reach from the individual deficiency to the collective deficiency, the deficiency of the public. This means that we do try to connect ourselves and reach something, however, this is still only our efforts, and this is called the deficiency of the public. Let's say the group, the Ten, they have a certain measure of deficiency, and that deficiency cannot still be complete on their side, because with the conditions that they were given, they do not implement it sufficiently, so they're not doing everything that they can, according to the conditions that they have, of course. And also they're not turning to the Creator, not raising their MAN, their lack upward, and accordingly, therefore, from below, also they're not inviting, drawing from above, the reforming light that will come and connect them correctly, sufficiently, with enough power so that their deficiency will be so much, so that they will be able to invite, to awaken the upper source to take care of them, to connect them as one man in one heart, even in the smallest measure. But nevertheless, for it to make a vessel out of them, that the upper light will make a vessel out of them. So, the individual lack that a person has, well, it's personal, even though it's correct, but it's all done personally, it’s not incorporated with the others. And therefore, he cannot be similar to the upper light. And the collective deficiency, the deficiency of the public is when one has a deficiency, but still he needs to awaken the upper source so that he will make out of them a deficiency that we call the Shechina. The Shechina means many individual deficiencies, where each one of them truly wants them to connect, and that they will be able to bestow contentment to the Creator in that they want to receive from Him. However, that is not enough. It says, make your will as His will, so that He will make His will as your will. This means that we awaken the Creator through our desires, and then He, following that, He makes our desires as He wants them to be. And then in such a way, the Shechina is built. A deficiency that is truly sufficient and correct, in order to be a partner of the Creator. Since the Creator bestows, and so our deficiency should be not according to what we, the little egoists, how we want to connect between us, but rather that the connection between us will create a spiritual deficiency, a deficiency for spirituality, and that by that we will be the partners of the Creator. And then it turns out that this is how the Shechina is built. That is, the Shechina, it's not just that we connect together, but that we awaken the Creator, and then the Creator builds the deficiency in us. So, the deficiency as well, the correct deficiency, we cannot build it by ourselves, even though each one of us has plenty of deficiencies, of desires, passions, inclinations, but that is not enough. All of this still requires a connection between us, and turning to the Creator, that He will make out of us a correct vessel, a correct deficiency. So, even that correct deficiency for us to know what is it that we're lacking, and how we should be lacking, that too is built by the Upper Light. 

Question (Santiago): (23:19) Why do we consider the left line as a deficiency? Why do we consider it in this way? Because we want the deficiency to grow, so we will reach the correct work. 

M. Laitman: Ask again. Why do we…? 

Student: Why do we consider the left line as a deficiency if we need it to constantly grow, this deficiency? 

M. Laitman: I don't understand the question.

Student: I think the left line is a negative thing, and we say something needs to grow. 

M. Laitman: A deficiency is not something negative, and the most important thing that we need here, down below, from Ein Sof, where the Upper Light creates us in the smallest point in what we call this world, so we don't need anything besides a deficiency. All we lack is the vessel, the Kli, and the vessel is the deficiency for it to be in the magnitude and also, most importantly in its character, in its form, in its intensity, for it to be ready for that desire to give, as the Creator wants to give us that fulfillment. We have to match our deficiency to the fulfillment. This is what we have to do. Now, here there's a problem, because my deficiency first of all it's for a different fulfillment, a different form of filling, and also the size, the magnitude of the filling is also whatever I can measure and depict. We don't have the possibility to build the deficiency for the revelation of the spiritual life, the revelation of the Creator, even the revelation of the deficiency for the creation of the deficiency, we don't have it. So, what we need is to try, in the connection between us, to build it, to detect it, to discover together. So, who should be this upper one and what does he want from us? And this is why he says that there is the deficiency of the individual and the deficiency of the public, and we have to go over all of these deficiencies until we reach the deficiency, the want of the Shechina.

Question (USA SF): (26:25) What is the difference between the discernment of fear in the work and the discernment of fear in the Torah? 

M. Laitman: Fear is actually a vessel for revelation, but we need to build this vessel correctly. As it says, the fear of the Lord is His treasure. However, how do we build it correctly? Because I don't know what the treasure is, or the treasury, and what is the fulfillment that needs to be there, so how do I build a vessel that is worthy of fulfillment, of a filling? In the commentary, we also have this challenge that we want to discover a certain phenomenon, and we know that this phenomenon exists, however, where is it? How do we discover it? It exists here somewhere, but how? This means that we need a vessel, and a vessel for something that is not felt, we cannot just build it. And therefore, we have the matter of the deficiencies, which we develop gradually, and this is why the Creator started creation from a complete form, when He was in adhesion with the future created being, with Adam HaRishon. And then later on, Adam HaRishon, this structure, this desire became separated from the Creator gradually, it was broken, and it reached a shattering, and here, through the connection between us we reach a special state where we are able, by searching between us, we can locate the right deficiency. That is, to build a vessel for what it is that I want to measure, to feel, to see, to receive. This is something that does not exist in our world, usually we get a deficiency, and from this deficiency we search for where the fulfillment is. In spirituality it isn't so, because the fulfillment exists in an infinite form around us, filling up the whole of reality, the Creator, right? And we, specifically, need to discover the vessel for that upper force.

Question (Belarus): (29:43) What is the difference between external teachings and the wisdom of the Torah? Because in the wisdom of the Torah, in the external teachings, the elation brings down the oppression?

M. Laitman: We can see this throughout our whole life. If I'm inspired by something, I no longer use my intellect, my brain, but I use my emotion. And my brain, my mind doesn't work anymore. Look, let's say, that someone we say he loves without any intellect. There are such slogans that where there is love, there is no intellect, no mind. And in spirituality, it isn't like that. In spirituality, the emotional inspiration, elation, it in itself begets the precision in the attainment. Why is that so? Because to begin with, the spiritual love is built on restriction, screen, and reflected light, on overcoming, over the will to receive. It's not like in corporeality, where we're drawn according to our will to receive. But rather in spirituality, the longing for connection, for love, for closeness, it is already built to begin with. The spiritual form, on that I shift above my desire. I go above my desire. So later on, it does not contradict. There's no contradiction between the mind and the emotion, but rather the two of them work in the same direction. Besides this, what I attain, I attain something that does not exist in my emotion or in my mind. I'm not following my desires, following my hormones, or all kinds of things. I'm following both in my feeling and in my attainment i'm going, to begin with, each and every step of mine is against. And therefore, when I reach it, I reach such a form where the two of them actually support one another.

Reader: Now we're going to go to read the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, item 85, from a recorded lesson with Rav Leitman on July 20, 2006.