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

Daily Lesson (Morning), June 15, 2024.

Part 1: Rabash. Letter 33.

Reader: Hello, we are reading from The Writings of Rabash, this is letter number 33.

You can find the material in the study materials tab in the Arvut system. You can also send questions. If you ask a question in the study hall, make sure you stand up, have the microphone close to your mouth and it's loud and clear.

Reading Letter: (00:41) Rabash Letter 33.

April 23, 1957

To the wise Rabbi, the elder of the group,

I received a letter from your grandson… where he asked several questions. And since I normally answer in general and not specifically, though I like the questions to be specific and not general, the general actually contains many details.

That is, the answer is usually more effective for the work on the real path. And then, precisely when the person asking has many details, it is possible for the general to illuminate in many details, which we call “many Kelim (vessels),” so I will answer in general.

It is known that the most important is the joy. However, we need to understand the meaning of joy, as it is written, “This joy, what does it do?” Also, why was the praise of the work defined with regard to joy, as it is written, “Because you did not serve [work] … with joy.”

We can understand the meaning of joy from worldly matters (as Baal HaSulam said, that he gives him the conducts of this world only to receive from them letters and vessels for spiritual needs).

We see that people toil all day, some at work and some at commerce, and wait all day for the time when they can return home, have a good meal, and enjoy with their families.

Or, one who sails across the sea and suffers the hardships of the job, and longs for the time when he can return home, when he sees that the return to his home approaches, joy begins to fill his heart. At that time the constant longing that he has to reach his goal increases the goal. That is, he feels that it is worthwhile to make every effort only to be able to come home and enjoy. Otherwise, meaning if he did not toil, he would have nothing with which to enjoy because the house would be completely empty and he would not be able to enjoy.

It follows that there are two issues here: 1) a good meal, or one who comes from sailing the ocean and brings a lot of money; 2) the longing to reach the goal. We can say that if we could weigh the pleasure on a scale, we could say that the pleasure of the meal or the pleasure of one who brings money from abroad weighs one kilo, and the craving of one who craves all day to go home and eat his meal can increase the pleasure to the extent that the pleasure will weigh one hundred kilos.

Also, one who yearns to return home with the money he has made abroad, the yearning increases the pleasure immeasurably, and the pleasure grows only according to the measure of the yearning.

In turn, the measure of the yearning grows according to the measure of the labor. That is, one who works hard and toils, to the extent that he is suffering, the pain itself brings him the measure of the yearning to get rid of the suffering and reach his destination. And all the vitality he has while suffering is only from the future, as he feels that soon he will be able to return home.

It turns out that if a person has a good meal or a lot of money but did not toil for them, he can taste only the first level of pleasure, meaning to the extent of one kilo. But one who has toiled and yearns receives pleasure from the second level and will be able to increase the pleasure one hundred or one thousand fold.

We might ask, “And what is the truth,” meaning if there is pleasure in the meal and in the money. If he is yearning, what difference does it make if the meal and the money are objects, and how can labor and yearning add to the pleasure?

But as we said above, corporeal possessions and spiritual possessions have one nature. Any pleasure, whether corporeal or spiritual, is called “light.” And we have a rule about lights, that we have no attainment. That is, it is impossible to determine its final form unless through the Kelim. This means that we determine the shape of the lights according to the quality of the Kelim.

And regarding Kelim (vessels), it is known that it is regarded as yearning for something. It follows that the Kelim increase the light. This means that it is not the light that must be great, but the Kelim must be greater. Only if one has many Kelim, meaning a strong desire, one feels greater pleasure in the light.

Therefore, even in corporeality, the meal and the money do not determine the measure of the pleasure, but rather the labor and the yearning determine the measure of the pleasure.

By that we will understand the meaning of joy. It is customary that one who begins with the work of the Creator is sent foreign thoughts in the middle of the Torah and prayer. This torments the person. But the torments are only to the extent that one wishes to be rid of them and expel them.

And how does one expel these thoughts? Only through joy. That is, one should be confident that he will eventually reach the desired goal, which is to bestow contentment upon his maker and serve the king.

Also, one should make depictions, meaning imagine how good and how pleasant it is to be in the King’s shadow, and behold the pleasantness of the Lord and visit in His palace.” It is written that the Creator enjoys with the righteous, and I, too, will certainly reach that degree.

Subsequently, one should look at the foreign thoughts, which cause him this loss of not being able to be among the dwellers of the King’s palace, and then he can examine the scrutiny of giving good reward to the righteous and avenging the wicked, meaning the value of light and darkness.

It follows that to the extent that he is suffering from the foreign thoughts, so he delights when he has good thoughts. And if there is a time when he has no foreign thoughts then he is happy. And at a time of lowliness he should receive vitality and joy from the future, meaning that eventually the Creator will have mercy on him and will approach him.

It follows that through the foreign thoughts he increases the meal, meaning the time when he has good thoughts and can praise and thank the Creator for bringing him closer to Him now.

Thus, the foreign thoughts are primarily in order to bring him joy—that he will long for the time when he can serve the King unflawed. This elevates the foreign thoughts—presented in books—where a person must correct the foreign thoughts if they come to him in the middle of the work.

May the Creator help us be rewarded with serving the Creator with gladness and a good heart,

Your friend

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:12) We heard about gladness many times, and how important it is in the work. According to what I heard from the article, joy has more to do with things that are destined to come, or longing for the goal, he says. The question is whether we should be chasing joy on the path, is something we should try to reach?

M. Laitman: Yes, we need to depict to ourselves this state that we are in joy and we connect to the sources of the joy and they fill us. This is how we advance on the way until the end of correction. 

Student: It's like many times we forget about the joy, we talk about the goal, we want to raise the importance and urgency in the ten, but joy is something that I understand from the article and what you say that it's critical, we can't forget about it, we have to emphasize it.

M. Laitman: It's a sign of how important it is for us, so how can we forget about it? But rather, apparently, we are in a process that reaches us coercively, and if it's coercive, then it doesn't make us happy. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:32) It says the general includes many details and repentance is usually good for the benefit of the work by the students, and then there's room for many details for the whole to shine in. And then he writes, only if it has many vessels, meaning great yearning, then he feels greater pleasure from the light. My question is: I feel like this is what we're going through every day here in our incorporation with each other's vessels, through the questions and answers. Is that the real joy? I feel this every day, that I become incorporated with the deficiencies of the friends, the questions, the answers, and I feel upliftment every day. Is that what he talks about here? 

M. Laitman: About that too, yes.

Student: So what is the light that shines to us through the vessels? 

M. Laitman: It is the same illumination that we can receive from the vessels when we get closer to them. 

Student: What do you mean by that? 

M. Laitman: That we get closer to the vessels that shine within us. They shine to all of the details that we depict to ourselves, that we are going to receive and connect with them so we enjoy from them.

Student: So the more I draw this future picture to myself with joy and connection and peace with the friends, that's where I get the vessels, and that's where I am filled? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (18:55) Can I, if I have a friend, a friend who is dear, through my yearning and labor, can I raise him all the way to the feast of a whale? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. I also don't know what is the feast of a whale. 

Student: Can I cause my friend, increasing the yearning, like he mentions in the letter, can I raise him on the degrees of man so he reaches the root of his soul? 

M. Laitman: I don't understand those definitions of yours.

Student: Do I contribute with my labor to practically raising the friend through the degrees of Adam? 

M. Laitman: Apparently, yes. 

Student: So, in this labor or suffering of the yearning, which is the peak of the labor of man who... 

M. Laitman: I don't know. I don't know these definitions, these conditions. I don't know. 

Student: Who determines that my friend is now sitting in the King's palace? Me or my friend? 

M. Laitman: That too, I don't know. 

Student: The longing is a meeting with the friend, if I want to meet with who is dear to me. If I don't know anything about this, but I'm just tormented because I want to increase the yearning to meet him, and the more I do that, the greater is the friend in my eyes. In that process, what's important there? What causes that to be Adam, and by that I do the work of holiness? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. Ask again.

Student: He describes man's work as always increasing what's precious, what's important. The meal with the one who's dear to him, he calls this a gift. And I make the greatness of this goal, of the meeting in the King's palace, the greatest thing. The King's palace is the final goal, the friend is the one I apply the work to, and I am doing the labor here. My question is: How do I transform my life and my labor to a labor of Adam on the path towards the King, the Creator? 

M. Laitman: By investing labor in order to be in such states, that is all. 

Student: Can I meet my friend? 

M. Laitman: I don't know, sometimes you talk in such a way that either it's too high or it's not to the point.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:58) We increase each other's yearning in the ten, and we do that by setting an example for each other? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Is there something else besides setting an example? 

M. Laitman: No.

Student: Thank you. 

M. Laitman: No, that's what it's about.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:31) He writes here that we should make depictions of how good and pleasant it is to be in the King's shade, and as he writes that the Creator is playing with the righteous, and so on. I want to ask about depictions. So, depicting the good connection between us, that's clear, because we experience this all the time. What does it mean to make depictions of the King? 

M. Laitman: That seemingly everyone, to a certain extent, discovers the Creator in their vessels, and they want more and more to make Him greater, to approach Him, and in such a way to depict our path, that it is with greater longing and a greater attainment of the Creator.

Student: When do you say, everyone, a person needs to depict everyone that way, or everyone should be discussing it? 

M. Laitman: Everyone should talk about it, and help each other, and support, and think about each other. 

Student: So basically it needs to be the engagement of the ten, to depict being in the King's palace? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So the depictions is not something individual, internal, that a person does with himself, or both? 

M. Laitman: Both. That everyone thinks about it, that everyone is drawn to be in the feeling that they have a single source, and they want to connect around this source, its origin. 

Student: So the depiction has to be something shared, yes? Doesn't matter if a person thinks about it, or all of us together, it has to belong to all of us together?

M. Laitman: Yes, it should be something that is together. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:59) How does suffering bring the person the yearning to get rid of suffering? 

M. Laitman: Well, suffering can be such that they erase the impressions from the states that a person is going through, and they can be such that they only increase the appetite and the taste. So you have all kinds. 

Student: In the suffering a person goes through, what leads him to the conclusion to get rid of it? 

M. Laitman: That he doesn't tie them to the goal. He's not able to tie them to the goal.

Student: Okay, he also writes, in order to expel the foreign thought, it's only by joy. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So what is the right depiction of joy that will take the person out of suffering? 

M. Laitman: Joy out of the fact that the goal shines to him. And when the goal shines, the person feels joy in that. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:45) Rabash and Baal HaSulam always give advice and ways to work in what we have to do. Sometimes it feels like I need a lot of time and attention to even just approach the work. Now this slowness, the state already passes. The ten switches states, the things change very rapidly. And it's as if I haven't even encountered the matter with the advice, where he says to depict the goal and everything. But in the meantime, everything just passes, and it's like a little kid that's trying to do something, but the toy was already taken, so he can't even play with it. So I'm saying, just connect with the friends. But even that, the friends are always moving faster in their connection. So what that causes is like paralysis. It's not clear what to do. 

M. Laitman: Adhere. 

Student: But this desire to adhere, as if paralyzes the attempt to do the work. 

M. Laitman: But first, you need to adhere. 

Student: What does it mean? What does it mean first to adhere? What to focus on? 

M. Laitman: To go through the same states that everyone is going through.

Student: For instance, yesterday in the meal you said we're facing a new state, and we will see the goal much closer, and we'll be able to reach it faster. And I feel or I'm afraid that everyone is already much closer to the matter and I'm behind. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now to catch up. 

M. Laitman: You need to correct yourself so that you're happy about the friends.

Student: How can I be happy when I feel they're so far from me in that sense? The fact that the goal is greater to them and..?

M. Laitman: The fact that I'm connected with them should cover for me all of this jealousy that I may feel in my relation to them. 

Student: Am I not delaying them? 

M. Laitman: Maybe, yes.

Student: So how should my labor prevent or cover for me delaying them? 

M. Laitman: That through them you also want to reach the same adhesion that they have between them and also the goal. 

Student: And I want to go back to the beginning of the question: Can I from the slowness or lack of ability to adhere to them? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How or what do I do there? 

M. Laitman: Like a little one among the grown-ups that he feels himself that he's on their hands. 

Student: To be on their hands I need to be picked up. It's like I have a demand, pick me up?

M. Laitman: No. You come with longing to be connected with them. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (32:03) He writes here that only by joy after the foreign thoughts come and they bring in the suffering and by the joy he'll get the confidence that ultimately he'll come to the right goal which is to bestow contentment to his Maker. And he writes here that through the suffering he comes to some confidence that he'll reach the King's palace. So how is it that when this happens and the foreign thoughts arise, how can he feel confidence? 

M. Laitman: Because the suffering is given to him together with the feeling of the truth, where he is in relation to the goal. And when he feels the suffering, he also feels in them the distance between him and the goal, between him and the friends. And then he discovers advice, means, how to achieve them, how to become incorporated in them. 

Student: In the states, it feels like the goal is much farther because of the suffering, and then there's an inclination to leave.

M. Laitman: No, he shouldn't consider himself like a little child that now discovers where he is in relation to the grown-ups, but to the contrary, that he wants to be connected with them as a friend. 

Student: Where does he take the strength in that state? 

M. Laitman: Out of his sorrow. 

Student: And that sorrow? 

M. Laitman: It doesn't matter what the sorrow is about. When he feels sorrow in that he's not together with the friends, that he cannot be with them in the same inclination forward. And therefore, he discovers forces in that. 

Student: And with these forces, what does he do?

M. Laitman: He longs to reach connection with them with all his strength.

Student: In that time, since we know our path is a path of prayer, so he needs to ask to be connected with the friends, or, well, naturally, he just wants to get rid of the suffering. So what should he do? 

M. Laitman: He should then turn to the Creator, only in order to understand and keep what is required, what a person like him should do. 

Student: Can there be just a request that the Creator will agree to put me on this path? 

M. Laitman: Yes, certainly.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:44) What is the connection, or the difference, if there is one, between joy and gratitude? These two concepts seem close, but yet different somehow. 

M. Laitman: Joy seems more egoistic, that one feels one's inner state. Gratitude is that one ties himself with the Emanator, and is entirely aimed at Him.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (36:42) Rabash says, it's not that the light should be great, but the vessels need to be great. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: You explained to us that we receive the yearning, the longing from the environment. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And we also learn that without faith above reason, we won't be able to reach the end of the path. So can you help me to relate faith above reason to longing, and making the vessels greater? How are these things all connected? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. You have to solve these things yourself. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:34) I want to ask about the word: the purpose. I'll read the part. One who sails to another country, and he suffers from the labor, and he yearns for the time that he can come home. When he sees that the time is nearing, when he can come home, joy begins to operate in his heart. And then this longing that he has all the time to reach his purpose, his destination, makes the destination, the purpose greater. What is this purpose? Is it some sort of a reciprocal system? 

M. Laitman: The purpose is that he connects to the goal, as if coming home, and enjoying together with his family. And that's his joy. 

Student: So the purpose can also operate the person, or the Creator can operate the person through the purpose.

M. Laitman: Of course, the purpose activates the person. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:47) A question about this mechanism of longing. There is longing. Well, I'll read. The matter of the vessels, it is known that it is known, it is called the longing for the matter. It follows that the vessels make the light greater. That is, it's not that the light should be great, but the vessels need to be greater. And only if one has many vessels, meaning a great longing, then he feels a great pleasure in the light. My question is: If we still don't have feeling in the vessels, then why does the longing disappear? 

M. Laitman: It has nothing to hold on to.

Student: The longing itself is a vessel. It's a desire for a feeling of light. The fact that the light comes and fills, and then a new degree has to be built, that I understand. But when I have a meal before me and I'm hungry, if I didn't eat, I'll keep being hungry. The longing will not disappear. Why? In spirituality it doesn't work that way. 

M. Laitman: In spirituality, we have reasons for appetite, for yearning, for feeling life and vitality. And we're not so aware of that, but only of the outcome, the feeling. Then it turns out, it turns out that our feelings have to take us to the right deficiency. The right deficiency. 

Student: There is a feeling of a certain deficiency. What you're saying is that it disappears because it's not precise. If it was the right one, the correct one, it would remain? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Every time that the longing disappears, it is because the Creator is directing us to a more correct yearning. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:44) Here he describes a state where he says that a person feels suffering because of the foreign thoughts. Then he writes, sorry, where is that written? Ah, the first paragraph from above. “It follows that to the extent that he is suffering from the foreign thoughts, so he delights when he has good thoughts. And if there is a time when he has no foreign thoughts then he is happy. And at a time of lowliness he should receive vitality and joy from the future, meaning that eventually the Creator will have mercy on him and will approach him.” What is this state of lowliness? 

M. Laitman: Lack of strength.

Student: And if he has lack of forces, how can he be happy from the future state? 

M. Laitman: That bit by bit, he begins to piece together in mind and heart the confidence that only the Creator can do it. To bring him closer to the right deficiency for spirituality. 

Student: What brings him out of this state of lowliness and gives him these thoughts? 

M. Laitman: That attainment, that it's not in man's hands but in the Creator's hands.

Student: Okay, so should he adhere more to the society or is it work that he has to do on his own? Because I imagine to myself in a state of lowliness that really I have nothing that I can grip. 

M. Laitman: I would say no, but precisely in such a state he feels that he has to somewhat hold onto it. Except he just doesn't discover what. And this is where the goal of creation begins to shine to him. And that he knows, he begins to know, that only by yearning for the Creator, he saves himself.

Student: How can there be a state, as he describes here, where there are no foreign thoughts, and this yields joy? 

M. Laitman: That all the thoughts he goes through are correct thoughts that bring him closer, actually closer, to the goal. 

Student: One more last question: What are these foreign thoughts that he describes? 

M. Laitman: That there are no disturbances, rather all these disturbances already connect to a single link that he has with the goal. 

Question (Women PT 10): (45:39) What changes in the suffering the more a person advances in the study? 

M. Laitman: Again?

Student: The more a person advances in the study, what changes in the suffering he feels? 

M. Laitman: The quality of the suffering, what does he suffer from? That he suffers more and more due to the lack of true, correct, eternal connection with the Creator.

Student: In the study of Kabbalah, do we advance only out of suffering? 

M. Laitman: That depends on what you call suffering. They give an example in the Gemara that if one wants, let's say, to take five dollars out of his pocket, and instead of that he takes out ten dollars, that too is suffering. 

Question (Women PT 23): (47:12) Rabash writes in the beginning, I like that the one who asks, actually asks in details and not in general, what does it mean to ask about the details? 

M. Laitman: That it comes from the vessels of the person and the lights that scrutinize the vessels.

Question (Women MAK 53): (47:49) How is it possible to bring the joy back on the way to the goal, and what are the reasons that it disappears on the path, why does the joy disappear on the path? 

M. Laitman: The joy disappears on the path since, wait a second, say again the question about joy? 

Student: Why on the path towards the goal the joy disappears, and how can we bring that joy back? 

M. Laitman: We don't need to bring the joy back, we need to advance further and further to holding onto the goal more and more, and not to be concerned that the goal takes on a different form each time. 

Question (Women Nahariya): (47:12) Is the future depiction the key to the advancement that awakens the advancement for us that we imagine sitting in the shadow of the King, this is how we can get out of the suffering? 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes. 

Question (Women Turkiye 8): (49:30) I cannot concede my desire to be unique. Is the lack of desire to be similar to others and to the other women, will that delay my spiritual progress? 

M. Laitman: No, we mostly need to advance in general as we do with the rest of the deficiencies together with the friends and there won't be a problem. We'll go through everything. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (50:20) It appears that there is a great difference between corporeality and spirituality regarding the joy. In corporeality, when a person reaches a feeling or joy and pleasure, the desire quenches, it disappears. It seems that in spirituality it is not so. It appears that joy in spirituality is a necessity and only after that a person can raise reflected light and give gratitude to the Creator and generate his greater vessel. Is it correct to look at it in this way, that joy is necessary? Because this whole discussion we had now, we're speaking as though we're in a corporeal world, we feel joy, the desire quenches, how do we reach new joy? But in spirituality, without joy, it is simply impossible to advance. Right? 

M. Laitman: Correct. Correct. 

Student: So, together, how do we do this work between us, this matter of truly feeling this joy, which is spiritual joy, not the joy of where we like it being together, we enjoy it? 

M. Laitman: We have to come together in yearning for the same spiritual goal, and around it we have to organize ourselves further and further.

Student: It's the whole matter of enlarging the vessels that we talked about, this whole lesson. Does it stem from the fact that together we should learn to raise gratitude to the Creator, to tell the Creator, thank You for what we discovered that He gave us? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Here we have a matter of connection and yearning where each of them is in the right time, right place, and that's how we advance.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (52:42) How is it possible, in the best possible way, to enlarge in the society the feeling of confidence that the goal is near and soon we will be rewarded with, so that the suffering is torments of love, not suffering because we are stuck where we are and we are only asking for salvation? 

M. Laitman: Okay, I can't say. 

Reader: So we will read letter number 30 by Rabash. It's in The Writings of Rabash, we are reading letter number 30. 

Reading Letter 30: (54:50) 

March 28, 1957, Manchester

To my friend,

I received your letter from Purim and enjoyed it, since you are the only one who writes me some details about what is happening there, and I will answer your questions.

Regarding where the children should learn, a seminary of Hassidim is preferable, since in a seminary of Hassidim you are at least safer with fear of heaven, whereas in the rest of the seminaries you should fear the friends in this regard.

As for buying a part of The Zohar, I am not interested in this. Although I have my hidden reasons, there is one reason I can disclose to you. When you do something, you need to benefit either in corporeality or in spirituality. Here, as far as corporeality and making money are concerned, there are other good deals in the world, and I avoid them because I have no desire to engage in business. As far as spirituality is concerned, meaning that I will have a part in the Sulam (commentary) of The Zohar, I already have a big part in these books because the Torah has awarded me with two parts. By the law of Torah, there are only four heirs, and I deserve two portions… so I have no need to buy, meaning to give money so as to be given what I deserve. But I have my hidden reasons.

Please try to give me every detail of what is happening there.

Blessings for the Kashrut of the festival,

Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag

M. Laitman: (57:20) Well, there aren't many questions here.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (57:33) About his recommendation about children's education, if you can explain, if you can say something about it?

M. Laitman: No, I can't, beyond me.

Reader: So we will move on to the next part. Before that we will sing a song again.

Song: (58:00)