The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) May 12, 2024.
Part 2: “Rising Above Reason” - Preparation for The World Kabbalah Convention.
Reader: (00:04) Hello, we're in a lesson on the topic of “Rising Above Reason,” preparation for The World Kabbalah Convention, and we are reading excerpt number 3.
Reading Excerpt 3: (00:23) RABASH, Article No. 38 (1990), "What Is, 'A Cup of Blessing Must Be Full,' in the Work?"
When a person can go with his eyes shut, above reason, and believe in the sages and go all the way. This is called Ibur, when he has no mouth. Ibur means as it is written (The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 8, Item 17), “The level of Malchut, which is the most restricted Katnut [smallness/infancy] possible, is called Ibur. It comes from the words Evra [anger] and Dinin [Aramaic: judgments], as it is written, ‘And the Lord was impregnated in me for your sake.’”
We should interpret the meaning of “anger and judgments.” When a person must go with his eyes shut, above reason, the body resists this work. Hence, the fact that a person always has to overcome, this is called “anger, wrath, and trouble,” since it is hard work to always overcome and annul before the upper one, for the upper one to do with him what the upper one wants. This is called Ibur, which is the most restricted Katnut possible.
M. Laitman: Is that clear? No questions? Okay, read it again.
Re-reading Excerpt 3: (02:40) RABASH, Article No. 38 (1990), "What Is, 'A Cup of Blessing Must Be Full,' in the Work?"
When a person can go with his eyes shut, above reason, and believe in the sages and go all the way. This is called Ibur, when he has no mouth. Ibur means as it is written (The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 8, Item 17), “The level of Malchut, which is the most restricted Katnut [smallness/infancy] possible, is called Ibur. It comes from the words Evra [anger] and Dinin [Aramaic: judgments], as it is written, ‘And the Lord was impregnated in me for your sake.’”
We should interpret the meaning of “anger and judgments.” When a person must go with his eyes shut, above reason, the body resists this work. Hence, the fact that a person always has to overcome, this is called “anger, wrath, and trouble,” since it is hard work to always overcome and annul before the upper one, for the upper one to do with him what the upper one wants. This is called Ibur, which is the most restricted Katnut possible.
M. Laitman: (04:29) Any questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:38) It is not clear with which forces can a person do this work of overcoming?
M. Laitman: He overcomes all the disturbances that appear to him, mind and heart as he wants to overcome them and to be connected with all his forces, mind and heart, to the Creator.
Student: If a person can do an action, it means that there is a corresponding illumination of the will to receive some profit?
M. Laitman: Let’s say.
Student: In a state of profit, how can a person do the work of annulment, of self-love?
M. Laitman: That's how we start.
Student: But what? Do we expect profit? And we're expecting?
M. Laitman: No, below all those calculations, we may intend for a reward that’s how we're built. But what we actually do is we do only acts of connection and advancement towards the Creator. Annulment before the upper one.
Student: In the action of annulment, what should illuminate for him, which is a different kind of fuel, other than expecting some profit? How do they get a new kind of fuel?
M. Laitman: That I don't know. I will know this through the process.
Student: He has to expect it?
M. Laitman: He needs to reveal that he has no forces of bestowal on his own behalf.
Student: What do we say about that state? That he's content, he has to be happy about it?
M. Laitman: Because that's when he wants to always be connected to the Creator. And all he has to think about is being dependent on Him, and to advance only in that way.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:44) He writes that this is hard work to always work in overcoming, to annul before the upper one. I wanted to ask about two actions, in their quality, if they're different, these actions. In one action, a person makes an effort, exerts, and feels like he's overcoming towards the connection. Let's say right now there's a convention, he does some overcoming, and when he comes for an additional day he's made a calculation with himself and performed an action. Compared to that, there's a situation where the friends come and demand a friend to overcome. In those two situations, is there a difference in the quality? Is one closer to above reason than the other?
M. Laitman: Can't say.
Student: If a person performs a calculation within himself, that he has nothing on the outside, friends, or something that's above him, he's not in some personal calculation all the time even if he overcomes?
M. Laitman: I don't think that he has an opportunity to overcome and to make any calculations.
Student: Isn't there something different by the friends coming and asking from him, he has resistance, and he does it. There's like a higher quality, I think, in my opinion. Is that right?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: We can say that if we want to help friends come closer to a state of above reason, we need to maybe come and think what to demand from friends, what to ask from them, and by that we will help them?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Reading Excerpt 4: (09:59) RABASH, Article No. 22 (1985), "The Whole of the Torah Is One Holy Name"
When the evil inclination brings us foreign thoughts, this is the time to take these thoughts and raise them above reason.
This is something one can do with everything one’s soul desires. He should not say that now he has received rejection from the work. Rather, he should say that he was given thoughts and desires from above so as to have room to admit them into Kedusha [holiness].
Re-reading Excerpt 4: (10:52) RABASH, Article No. 22 (1985), "The Whole of the Torah Is One Holy Name."
When the evil inclination brings us foreign thoughts, this is the time to take these thoughts and raise them above reason.
This is something one can do with everything one’s soul desires. He should not say that now he has received rejection from the work. Rather, he should say that he was given thoughts and desires from above so as to have room to admit them into Kedusha [holiness].
M. Laitman: (11:41) How do we hold on to not forget that this is how we need to respond to all the obstacles that come to us along the way? With all the thoughts and desires that were given to me, I need to understand that specifically by working with them, I have to reach holiness.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:26) Can we reach Kedusha without foreign thoughts?
M. Laitman: I don't think so.
Student: Meaning, this is the means by which we can specifically rise above reason. Now, what is to raise the foreign thoughts to above reason? It's the action, can we say that intellectually, I can say to myself, okay, we learned, Rabash writes, that this is how you can rise above. I understand it intellectually, but in my feeling, it doesn't exist.
M. Laitman: What do you mean, it does not exist?
Student: In my feelings, I don't feel that I received an opportunity from above, and what holiness of the day, and what an awesome moment. But intellectually, I can convince myself that, kind of like, the question is, do we need to come close to this emotionally?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How do we bring the emotion closer to the thought in such important moments?
M. Laitman: Using the intellect you scrutinize what's important, and you begin to introduce these mental calculations until you begin to awaken to it with more emotional thoughts.
Student: Can you also make use of the friends?
M. Laitman: Why not?
Student: Meaning, gather the friends, collect the connection we've acquired?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes.
Student: This helps us rise above.
M. Laitman: Yes, that's allowed.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:30) What's the power that we need to use in order to come out of that foreign thought?
M. Laitman: Thought can be the same thought that comes from the awakening in our seed from the Creator, but it comes from the world to receive and not from the world to bestow. It belongs to the same state, to the same degree.
Student: Meaning, the foreign thought is just a reminder, or is there something else in it? I could have thought of something on my own, no?
M. Laitman: That depends on how you use it.
Student: I'm asking, how do you use the foreign thought?
M. Laitman: It depends on the environment.
Student: What does it depend on the environment?
M. Laitman: To the extent one is connected to the environment, one can support himself, and lean on them. Accordingly, he can rise above the thought itself, and see the state from a little bit above.
Student: Meaning, the use of the foreign thought is to use it so it propels me into the environment.
M. Laitman: Yes, let's say.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:04) He wrote that when a person can go with his eyes shut above reason and believe in the sages, this is called connection. Is the faith in the sages also above reason?
M. Laitman: From the side of the person, yes.
Student: What's the difference between faith in the sages and faith above reason?
M. Laitman: Faith in the sages, belief in the sages, is that a person believes the sages and accepts them. You have a question, what does it mean that he accepts them? He accepts them, and what they say, above his reason.
Student: How does a person acquire the faith in the sages?
M. Laitman: The main way is from the environment. He learns from the environment how everyone relates to those sages, and that's why he follows in their footsteps.
Student: So, the faith of the sages a person acquires from the environment, and faith above reason also from the environment, or is that already different?
M. Laitman: Through the environment. Through the environment. Meaning that without an environment, he can't also explain to him why is he doing what he's doing.
Student: Is the faith in the sages the first condition to begin in the work?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Another question, is serving the Rav also faith above reason?
M. Laitman: It depends on who you're calling Rav. If we call Rav the Creator, then, of course, he can come to it above reason.
Student: The meaning towards the teacher?
M. Laitman: For the teacher, it's only in the middle of the work.
Student: Are there actions above reason towards the teacher?
M. Laitman: Yes, certainly.
Student: What are they?
M. Laitman: Anything that you need to raise in your eyes, which they certainly need to reveal to you, the love of the Creator, the love of the teacher.
Student: The last question that a friend sent. Is going on the path without being impressed by yourself, demanding to just remain on the path, suffusing with a little as Rabash writes, but only the friends. Is that also faith above reason?
M. Laitman: That's a necessary thing. It all helps build faith above reason.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:49) For foreign thoughts, a person doesn't need to make a great effort. It's kind of built-in. The question is, what's to rise and to enter into Kedusha? What's this transition that a person needs to make? What is to rise above foreign thoughts? What is the action of rising above foreign thoughts?
M. Laitman: The action of ascending or rising above foreign thoughts?
Student: What is that transition where he's in one specific state of foreign thoughts, and now he has the opportunity to rise?
M. Laitman: It's not like I'm climbing like a hot air balloon higher and higher. Rather, I rise on top of my disregard for disrespect for these foreign thoughts. For the time being, that's my ascent.
Student: Does a person have thoughts that are not foreign in relation to the Upper? It seems like all the thoughts are foreign.
M. Laitman: Foreign to what?
Student: In relation to thoughts of the Upper? If I had thoughts like the Upper one, he'd already be together with him. As long as a person is with the will to receive, to a certain extent his thoughts towards spirituality is a foreign thought, no?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It appears as if in annulment, a person needs to free himself fully, and let the upper one operate upon himself.
M. Laitman: Yes, that's a matter of the Ibur, conception.
Student: How in that state does a person even ask for something? How does he know what to ask, to pray? It's like we have to be in some kind of, be fainted halfway.
M. Laitman: It's not enough. It's only the first degree of his annulment of self.
Student: If the next degree of a person is unknown to him, he was never there. So it's like, how does he know what to ask from the Upper one, but does he know better than the Upper one what he needs? He says, do this to me, or do that to me. What kind of request can emerge from the lower one?
M. Laitman: To annul to the Upper one. To annul to the Upper one. This is what we have also in these corporeal lives.
Student: Meaning also to annul is something, he has to receive from the Upper. It's help from the above to help him free up from the thoughts that are controlling him.
M. Laitman: Yes, that is correct.
Reading Excerpt 5: (23:10) RABASH, Article No. 6 (1991), "What Is, 'The Herdsmen of Abram’s Cattle and the Herdsmen of Lot’s Cattle,' in the Work?"
Specifically through faith above reason, meaning even if he feels darkness on this path, and even though he understands that if Malchut had illuminated openly and not in concealment, and the body would feel the greatness of the Creator, it would be easier for him to move further and be rewarded with always being in a state of work and he would have no descents, he nonetheless chooses to go above reason.
M. Laitman: Here is a simple thing, meaning nothing that can be as high as it may be in the corporeal calculation, cannot be higher than a spiritual degree, meaning relative to above reason. Within reason, they tell me, they're giving you whatever you wish from this world, all the states. I want to receive nothing, compared to one degree of conception in faith above reason.
Reading Excerpt 6: (25:05) Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 13, “A Pomegranate”
These thoughts of emptiness come to a person in order for one to have a need to take upon himself faith above reason. And for this we need the help of the Creator. It follows that at that time, one must ask the Creator to give him the power to believe above reason.
It turns out that it is precisely then that one needs the Creator to help him since the exterior mind lets him understand the opposite. Hence, at that time, one has no other choice but to ask the Creator to help him.
It is said about this, “One’s desire overcomes him every day; and were it not for the Creator, he would not overcome it.”
M. Laitman: (26:26) Questions? Read again.
Re-reading Excerpt 6: (26:32) Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 13, “A Pomegranate”
These thoughts of emptiness come to a person in order for one to have a need to take upon himself faith above reason. And for this we need the help of the Creator. It follows that at that time, one must ask the Creator to give him the power to believe above reason.
It turns out that it is precisely then that one needs the Creator to help him, since the exterior mind lets him understand the opposite. Hence, at that time, one has no other choice but to ask the Creator to help him.
It is said about this, “One’s desire overcomes him every day; and were it not for the Creator, he would not overcome it.”
M. Laitman: Questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:00) What is it where we say that we are rising above reason? That we as a Ten, or we as a group?
M. Laitman: When we acquire a connection with the Creator, which is above our ability to understand, to appreciate, to feel, to grasp it within our reason.
Student: It seems like in all these excerpts he's writing there's time, there's a special time, a time to raise the foreign thoughts, a time. How do we identify this time? It's like a point that we have to truly grab and grip.
M. Laitman: Faith above reason means that a person begins to relate to reality like in spirituality. Otherwise, he remains in this corporeal world. Faith above reason means to come to the force of bestowal and to be in it, in that force, in that power, above all corporeal calculations called reason. That’s what he wants, and he is asking the Creator to arrange for us such states, such times, and such relationships, so he'll be able to locate, detect, acquire, and collect all these possibilities for going above reason.
Student: Do we need to identify that time or wait for that time to have the possibility, or do we need to constantly search, like you said?
M. Laitman: We need to construct these states by ourselves.
Student: How do we construct them?
M. Laitman: Each moment, wherever I am, I need to arrange myself such that I'm relative to the Creator and to spirituality in faith above reason.
Student: How do we help one another in this work?
M. Laitman: That's not for now yet. That's going to be confusing.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:14) Bottom line is that Kabbalists always tell us that we have nothing but to ask. I don't think, I mean, I ask. I ask for the force of faith above reason. What am I missing in my request that I'm not receiving the force of faith above reason?
M. Laitman: What's lacking? Desire.
Student: Desire or intention?
M. Laitman: The intention is following the desire, first the desire.
Student: Meaning, we, as a Ten, every day create a prayer, and that prayer emerges without desire, and that's why we're not hearing an answer?
M. Laitman: Also.
Student: How do we refine this? How do we, what do we add to the request so it will truly emerge as true?
M. Laitman: What to add to the request? The willpower, or the power of the desire to be above our will to receive. To relate ourselves to the Creator's nature. The nature of bestowal. And then to the extent that I go to this nature of bestowal, even to a small extent, when the Creator is showing me that I'm almost disconnected, peeled off from my will to receive, from my nature of reception that I'm going to bestowal, to that extent, I begin to feel what is above reason. Why is it the Upper force? Thanks to which I can go from one world to another, from the corporeal world to the spiritual world, and I begin to belong to the Creator.
Student: Now, another addition about the matter of Ibur, one has to do with the other, faith above reason and Ibur?
M. Laitman: In faith above reason, we have all the degrees, Ibur, Yenika, Mokhin.
Student: In order to reach those states, we first need to reach faith above reason?
M. Laitman: Yes, that gets arranged and that settles in more and more and more.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:36) Connected to the article we read at the beginning, does a person need to reach a state of necessity in faith above reason in order to receive it?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, it shouldn't be a luxury, it should be a necessity, and one reaches this with the help of the Ten, as they're showing one the necessity in our work?
M. Laitman: Yes, he sees according to his connection with the friends, how much they yearn for it and they wish to reach it, that awakens him.
Student: And it could be that he's measuring the connection between the friends and he sees that?
M. Laitman: You can't measure it. Cannot.
Student: Okay. So, what's the advice to reach necessity in faith above reason?
M. Laitman: Connect to the friends as much as possible, try to bestow to them as much as possible, all the way to complete soul devotion, and then he'll be able to understand what the Creator demands of him. These
Reader: (36:05) Announcements.
Song: (41:55)