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

Daily Lesson (Afternoon) September 14, 2024

Part 2 Lesson on the topic of “Continuing the Convention with an Ascent”

Shalom, we're in a lesson on the topic of Continuing the Convention with an Ascent. We'll read select excerpts from our materials on the topic. You can find it in Sviva Tova and the Arvut system, and you can send live questions to our sites. Whoever asks a question here in the hall, stand up, hold the microphone close to your mouth, and speak loud and clear. So again, the topic of our lesson is Continuing the Convention with an Ascent.

Reading Excerpt #10: (00:58) Rabash. Letter No. 77

“There is no absence in spirituality,” rather that it has temporarily departed in order to have room for work to advance. This is so because every moment that we scrutinize into holiness enters the domain of holiness, and a person descends only in order to sort out more sparks of holiness.

However, there is an advice that one should not wait until his degree is lowered for him, and when he feels his lowliness he goes up again, and that ascent is regarded as sorting a part into holiness. Instead, he himself descends and elevates other sparks, and raises them into the domain of holiness.

It is as our sages said, “Before I lose, I search” (Shabbat, 152), meaning before I lose the situation I am in, I start searching. It is as Baal HaSulam said about King David, who said, “I awaken the dawn.” Our sages said, “I awaken the dawn and the dawn does not awaken me.”

M. Laitman: (02:54) Yes, that's what Rabash wrote in the letter, that there is no absence in spirituality, and even when sometimes it seems like spirituality departs from us, it's all in order to bring us a new feeling, a new degree. We need to be ready, prepared, to scrutinize more and more the sparks, the holy sparks, and add them to the degree we're in. So, don't pay attention to the fact we are seemingly in descent from our degree, and do not incorporate in the lowliness of the lower degree, but we need to scrutinize the sparks that are there in order to rise even higher, and in this way to enter a higher degree of sanctity compared to what we had before. 

This means we need to see each and every state that is coming down to us as a state of ascending, overcoming, trying to work with it more and more. So, there's nothing in our lives, no next state which is lower than the previous state. All the time we should see ourselves, how the Creator is raising us, and not let ourselves think or be in states that are lower than before. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (05:50) How can a person awaken the point in the heart, the spark, during the descent?

M. Laitman: He constantly has to feel himself in a state where he is prepared for an ascent.

And even though it's not exactly so, he has to show himself that he is prepared for it, and then he will be awarded typically for an ascent. 

Student: How can a person receive this force to continue and be ready? 

M. Laitman: That all depends on his inner work. He is in a state, and he never thinks that this state is worse than the one before it. Rather, even when he does get such signs, such indications, he accepts those signs as an ability to overcome, and to rise with his own strength to an even higher state. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (07:54) What's the difference between those who awaken the dawn in the work, and those who don't? What is the actual importance of awakening the dawn? 

M. Laitman: The importance is whether a person is willing to rise from the state he's in, or he attains that he has no forces. That's it. So, we always need to feel ourselves like before an ascent, and only add to it a little bit from our desire, and then we will ascend. 

Student: What is the importance of awakening the dawn? 

M. Laitman: Because by that I am climbing the degrees, climbing higher and higher relative to spirituality, relative to the Creator. I come closer and closer to Him. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:26) According to what I understand, our spiritual work is summed up by us seeking within us the expression of the evil inclination, and we're asking from the Creator to correct it, to cover it in the right intention, or to simply correct it, and to search even before you lost. That means that you are in an ascent, and you don't feel within any expression, any disclosed expression of the evil inclination? You still need to ask from the Creator for its correction?

M. Laitman: No, you can't ask from the Creator unless you have a distinct feeling that you are in a state of descent. But you have to imagine, to depict for yourself that you are certainly in a state of descent, and you are trying to prevent this descent. You want to bring it earlier, hasten it, that's why you are expecting an ascent.

Student: In a certain moment I don't feel that I am in a descent. Do I need to depict myself that I am in a descent? 

M. Laitman: No. No. In any case, you have to prepare yourself to an ascent.

Student: How? 

M. Laitman: From this point of view. You have to imagine that you are in a descent. 

Student: Do I find in me my evil incarnation, so that I will, in a disclosed way, will feel at the moment? And ask for the correction of it? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Yes. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (11:55) I want to ask about this work, at any given moment, in deciphering and scrutinizing, the one who scrutinized the part for sanctity, and he raises them into the authority of the Kedusha. What is it that we are scrutinizing every moment? 

M. Laitman: We scrutinize our states relative to the Creator.

Student: So, we are checking the connection with the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (12:35) How do we avoid the descent and prepare for the ascent? 

M. Laitman: It’s the same, to prevent the descent or to prepare for the ascent. You simply have to ask all the time for an ascent, connection with the Creator, the strengthening of the group, and then there will be no problems. This is very important. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:18) How can one form his own steps towards the friends and towards the Creator in order to get closer to the awakening in the dawn? 

M. Laitman: A person has to feel himself that he always has an opportunity for additional connection with the friends and for an ascent compared to the previous state, and all of it depends on his effort. When he makes these actions, he will feel the Creator also making an action from his side, from the side of the upper one, and in this way, he is ascending and extending the upper force onto himself. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (15:12) Even though we don't always feel an ascent, do we still need to search what will be after the ascent? 

M. Laitman: No, we only need an ascent to rise from the state we're in right now to a higher state closer to the Creator. That's it.

Student: What exactly is this verse saying? To awaken the dawn. What is it exactly saying? 

M. Laitman: Awaken the dawn means that we awaken the time of the morning, the start, the light that comes. That's what we want.

Student: So, each dawn is another degree? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:46) What's the help in the Ten? How does it help me in the Ten? How is the Ten supposed to help me when I'm in a descent? 

M. Laitman: They can come to your state, connect with you in the state that you're in, the descent, and then make an effort and extract you higher and higher and higher. This way you let go of the descent and you come to the ascent. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:55) You said not to let the states repeat those that were below. How do we appreciate those states when we discovered a greater revelation of the greatness of the Creator? How do you even differentiate between those states? 

M. Laitman: As much as possible, the greatness and power and intensity of the Creator. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (18:37) How do we reach the correct prayer if we want to awaken without falling to Lo Lishma? 

M. Laitman: We receive all kinds of states that are to some extent corrupt. We have to awaken these forces that will influence us and raise us to a higher state. This way, stage after stage, left, right, left, right, we are rising from the state that is negative, that is bad, to the state of connection. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:44) You talked about sparks of holiness in the excerpt. Who are those sparks of holiness? 

M. Laitman: These are forces that are found in our actions. That's it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:20) I'm trying to build this model, meaning every new state is a step that the Creator is doing towards me. It's like an invitation to come closer. On my behalf, it doesn't matter if it's a descent or an ascent, the reply from me must always be coming closer to Him through the Ten. It has to be through the Ten.

But He can influence me whether it's through the Ten or outside of the Ten, through some action of this world. First of all, is that correct? Is there a state in which I can answer His invitation not through the Ten? Is there even such a potential state, or always in every single state, more connection, no matter what my state is at the moment? 

M. Laitman: A step forward is always through greater connection in the Ten. 

Student: Here there's a problem that, again, when a person falls into that state, to come out of it is very difficult. Here we learn about a person who came out to take himself out of the house of imprisonment. So, how can a Ten help such a friend? 

M. Laitman: The Ten must go down to his degree, connect with him, with his friend, and then draw upon itself the power of the Creator, start rising together with this friend. It's like riding up an elevator. We place this friend who fell amongst us, between us, inside of us, and he is rising with us, inside of us. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (23:04) So that this state will enter the state of Kedusha, the scrutinies need to go to the same place where I discover gratitude for the evil being revealed, and then I can ask? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Meaning it's specifically gratitude that enters all the states into Kedusha? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: We learned that the prayer needs to begin and end with praise and blessing? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:55) You said in the morning lesson that we need to organize our feelings in a very good way. How do we work with our feelings in order to scrutinize the sparks of sanctity in the best way? 

M. Laitman: Try to be closer between us, to try to unite in our thoughts, our actions, our desires, and then we'll succeed. We'll be able to see in what way we should advance toward the Creator.

Student: Do we also need to overcome our feelings that you talked about this morning? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:15) The idea of awakening the dawn seems like something that Kabbalists like King David would be comfortable doing. But in our small ways in the Ten, we are very scared of those things. It seems like looking for trouble. How can we build enough confidence in the Ten that the idea of accelerating time is comfortable for everyone? 

M. Laitman: We need to connect. Talk about how we must ascend together in the connection between us, that it's what the Creator is expecting of us, and how we must advance from between us toward Him.

Student: Can friends from other Tens have a positive influence on us? 

M. Laitman: We need to see all our friends in other Tens as successful in their mission. 

 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (27:19) In the excerpt it's written that he doesn't wait until it will be lowered from his degree. And I thought that actually the degree he's talking about is the degree of connection that we attain in the Ten? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, I feel that in our Ten, in this convention, we really attained a deeper, warmer state of connection. What does it mean that we as a Ten raise other sparks to the authority of the Creator and don't wait? 

M. Laitman: We don't know exactly what sparks we are raising with our prayer for the degree of sanctity, but that's how it's written. We need to believe this is so. 

Student: So, it's not some internal or external action that we can implement and execute? 

M. Laitman: This is an internal action we have to realize. 

Student: So, can you point us in the direction of what we can do as a Ten? 

M. Laitman: In spite of all the states we go through, we wish to be connected between us in this way to climb up the degrees of sanctity.

Student: So, it turns out that there are still states that are concealed, and we have to search where that is and to raise them? Because right now there's that warm feeling and everything, but there are still states that are concealed that we have to locate? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (29:22) How do we overcome the fear from the next step, the next state? Because it's that fear that's keeping us from the desire to advance.

M. Laitman: To connect, and in this way, when we are connected, we can handle everything along the way. 

Student: We're not supposed to be afraid there, right? It's always better there, right? Or is there something to be afraid of? 

M. Laitman: No, there's nothing to be afraid of if a person is in adhesion with the Creator.

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (30:23) If one wants to bring a state to the Ten, in other words, a calculation whether they will help me or not, whether they will relate, so I won't be disappointed from them. Today I feel that if I bring a state to the Ten, that the actions of the Ten to raise me up already happened before I even brought it. That's what gives me the confidence to bring that state to the Ten. And then there are no calculations about how they will relate to it, will they write, whether they will say, because it's like I know what the Ten expects of me, what the Ten needs to advance. And then when I bring a state, it's because I trust that what I need to come out of the state already happened in the Ten. Is this the right attitude to it, the right state to it? 

M. Laitman: It's correct, it's beautiful. 

Student: Does this mean that the Ten is already in the state of awakening of the dawn and not just me? 

M. Laitman: Yes, they are ready.

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (31:45) There was a question. What are the sparks of holiness? You said that these are forces that are in our actions. What does that mean? 

M. Laitman: That through our correct actions we awaken these sparks to come out and to act, to work.

Student: Is there a connection between our actions and the intention? And how do we scrutinize that the intention is correct and that we are adding something for the benefit of the friends? How to scrutinize? And what's the connection? 

M. Laitman: We'll talk about it; it will become clarified gradually. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (33:28) There are states in which the descent from lack of faith creates a lot of inner pressure, anxiety, pressures. It even emerges in unpleasant ways towards the environment. Is it normal? Is it part of the path? 

M. Laitman: That's how it should be. 

Student: What can we do to help in states of inner pressure, anxiety? Or what to do before I come to those states? 

M. Laitman: We have to be connected, to support friends. We have to try to receive support from them. 

Student: Let's say I'm at work right now, or something, the friends are distant, I'm in a descent, what can we do? 

M. Laitman: Nothing, the same. The conditions are a bit more difficult, but we have to imagine the work that's always with us. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (34:48) I want to continue the question about the fear. Almost the entire convention, my heart was closed, I got it completely. At a certain stage, thanks to all that's happening here, it opened up a little bit, and I felt precisely that fear. Fear before my mind, my head. I'm constantly trying to decipher it and scrutinize it, because just like it's written in this excerpt about this descent, I have this fear, just as it's written here, that where he scrutinizes the states, I'm afraid to enter it with my intellect. My intellect is really bothering me. How to make my mind a partner for me? 

M. Laitman: You nevertheless are trying to do it with your head, with your mind. What you need is to embrace your friends and try to rise together with them. 

Student: But I really feel that He is constantly deceiving me. I'm coming to a certain point, and it seems to me that I'm feeling something, and then again and again, and it seems to me that I can simply go crazy in that state. 

M. Laitman: That's why we have to be in the group, we have to dissolve in it as much as possible, and in that way to rise.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:19) Usually there's a feeling like yesterday was better, a month ago it was better, the relations in the Ten were better. Is that correct? 

M. Laitman: It's incorrect, but a feeling is a feeling, and you have to work against this feeling. 

Student: Why is it this way? How does this work? Why doesn't yesterday feel like today would be better? 

M. Laitman: So that you will climb higher, faster, and to a higher degree, they give you the opposite feeling. That's how it works.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:26) You said that when someone asks a question, you can't relate to him without relating to which Ten he's in. But in order for me to connect to the question of the friend that's asking, I feel that I must know what Ten he's in. Is there a way to arrange such a state, or is it correct? 

M. Laitman: No. I think it will pass. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (39:17) I heard you said that when a friend is in a state of descent, I need to go down to her state. Can you expand on that? 

M. Laitman: There are always several friends in the Ten that I can go down to their level, hug them, embrace them, and take them out of their lowly state to my state. 

Student: When we're in a descent, we want our friends to understand us. and when the friends explain to me how I should relate according to what we learn, I simply don't feel like the friends feel me. Should the right attitude be according to all the principles we receive from the study, or that I need to demand from my friends for them to be able to understand me, for them to feel and understand me? 

M. Laitman: We need to try to feel and understand each one in the Ten, even each and every one in our world. That is true.

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (41:36) Could it be that a person simply physically gets fatigued from the demand, from the study, from the inner concentration, or is it also part of the descent? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, it doesn't necessarily mean that his effort was incorrect? 

M. Laitman: No, it could just be simply fatigue. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (42:14) When the Ten scrutinizes and raises the descent of every friend, that means it defines the level of development of the Ten? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Where does this accumulate, inside of me, inside the inner image of the Ten inside of me, or is it some place that everyone can incorporate in? 

M. Laitman: It accumulates in the upper vessel. So, don't worry, it's not going anywhere. 

Student: So, anyone in the Ten can incorporate in this? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: In a unified way, or where can we increase here and strengthen one another? 

M. Laitman: Each one can see in it the progress of the others, and with the help of his envy, advance even faster. 

Student: So, envy towards that sensitivity, yes? And when we awaken this envy, how to do it correctly? 

M. Laitman: It says, envy less than honor, take a person out of this world. That's it. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (44:01) In regard to the women’s Kli, in the convention you said how the support of the women’s Kli is towards this general spiritual advancement. Did we withstand this? did we uphold our role in this convention? And what do we need to add from now on in the women’s Kli? 

M. Laitman: You are working beautifully, even more so than I ever expected, and the mutual concern, this mutual incorporation that exists between women is truly praiseworthy.

What can I say? Keep doing it. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (45:17) My question is whether each Ten has a bank of sparks? 

M. Laitman: In essence, yes. 

Student: What are they made of? 

M. Laitman: It's made of their general will to receive, theirs specifically, with all their Reshimo, and all the records and all the sparks there, inside this general desire, and they need to discover it.

Student: I felt in the convention that we were all washed in a very strong wave of love. On a daily basis, we have meetings, we have Zoom. There I don't necessarily feel that day after day the love in the Ten is growing. It's more like an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load. It's just to manage to keep up with the load. So how will we advance in love? 

M. Laitman: Think about it. It will come. We can't work inside of this love yet. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (47:23) All my friends in the Ten are working a lot, but we don't manage to be in the morning lesson at the same time together. So, there are several activities that we cannot all do together, but we really want to. Because of the conditions in the lives of each and every friend, let's say two friends are working very well, strong, and the other two are not so strong or coming all the time. How does this influence my friends in the Ten, in the way where there are some strong and some that are not? 

M. Laitman: Generally speaking, it works well. Even those who aren't working so well, we need them. 

Student: So, in that state, there are some resistances between the friends. How do we overcome such resistances that are revealed? 

M. Laitman: There isn't so much an ability to overcome, and there will never be something ideal. Rather, try to connect in such a way that in general, on average, our vessel will be connected. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (50:05) We heard that one soul helps to operate another soul in the big system, and also that our actions awaken the sparks. To what extent is the role of the veteran Ten towards other Tens in the context of collective responsibility? 

M. Laitman: We didn't talk about it; we didn't do any exercises with it. We just spoke about how we are working inside the Ten with the upper force, but how the Ten influences another Ten, or more than that, some other group. Where are you from? 

Student: Brazil. 

M. Laitman: Andrea from Brazil. So how you influence everyone, and everyone influences you? We haven't discussed that yet, but there's a lot of work there. 

Student: In Brazil, we women are going through great difficulties in order to understand this task. How to reach this collective Kli in order to all be present in strengthening not just ourselves, but also the whole collective deficiency.

M. Laitman: We will learn about that over time. I think this year that we are starting, we will learn these things in order to connect everyone to one spiritual vessel. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (52:59) When the Creator brings us a state that makes us be busy with, to be immersed in, and He also disconnects us and distances us from the regular connection with the lesson and the friends, do we need to resist it with prayer and effort before the Creator, or simply sit and just let ourselves go with it, devote ourselves to it? 

M. Laitman: Simply devote yourself to it. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (53:41) In the Ten, I try to be fully there, even though many times I don't exactly know how to do it, but we try together. We go through states that sometimes I feel that it's not me that's going through them, and this is as a result of incorporation, probably. You said in the lesson that we don't incorporate in loneliness. How do we know what to incorporate in and what not? Can we feel it, or is it something we can control? 

M. Laitman: You feel it. 

Student: Do I choose whether to incorporate or not? 

M. Laitman: Yes, we will learn about it.

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (54:55) Despite the fact that our Ten is mostly virtual, this convention really brought us closer, as it appears to us. Usually, after conventions, we enter the left line. How and what can we do to add in order not to be detained there for long? Please, some advice.

M. Laitman: If you grow the connection between you, then this connection will help you accelerate the pace of your maturity, maturation. And this way you will find yourself very quickly in the corrected state. 

Student: Could you recommend specific sources or articles of Rabash? 

M. Laitman: I speak about it in many places.

Student: Meaning, we can choose sources that we want, that the Ten wants? 

M. Laitman: Yes, from the articles of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (56:24) You answered that we need to see the advancement of the friend and envy it. And let's say, advance yourself. How do you exactly see this advancement of the friend? 

M. Laitman: Imagine this to yourself. 

Student: Simply imagine it to myself? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (57:06) If the descent happens into Lo Lishma, can I say that we're entering into this calculation of what I will receive for the annulment? Is it a descent or the beginning of a descent? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (57:36) On one hand, this convention really strengthened and brought our Ten closer in a new way. On the other hand, at least I have the feeling like the goal and the path are simply like someone erased the markings of the pavement. It's like a very distant feeling. What do we do in such a state? 

M. Laitman: Search for the trail. 

Student: Now, when I look for it, I find even more resistance.

M. Laitman: What do you call a trail? 

Student: What was clear to me, what was close to me, what I felt that was suddenly it's like I lost faith in it. 

M. Laitman: Beautiful. Maybe that's actually a good sign. because previously you had nothing, and you thought you were close to the goal. Now, you feel that you're not in the direction of the goal, and it's possible that it is the truth.

Student: But it is the truth. So, what is to be in the direction of the goal? 

M. Laitman: To be in the direction of the goal means to see with your eyes the goal that is before him. 

Student: What's the goal? 

M. Laitman: You don't know what is your goal? 

Student: I know what the Kabbalists say that the goal is. I know what I thought that I was in the direction to that goal. I don't know if it was all a lie, then where do we start? 

M. Laitman: We start in the situation that we are in now. 

Student: Can you give like the tip of a rope or something? I woke up to the lesson today. My attitude towards everything was disastrous. I don’t want to continue with this thing. It will just continue to distance me. I’m not so strong.

M. Laitman: Meaning what? Only connection with the friends, with the Ten, friends in the Ten. Only this connection can scrutinize the goal for you and advance you toward it. Only that. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (1:01:32) Why does there need to be a descent and lowliness in the work of Kedusha if every spiritual advancement enters a person into the network of holiness? I can't understand that.

M. Laitman: We're not descending. The descent that we feel is also an ascent. 

Student: How can we initiate this process of spiritual ascent in the sparks of holiness and not wait to have a descent and lowliness? 

M. Laitman: We won't be able to run away from it. We don't need to run away from it. Rather, the other way around. We have to constantly long, yearn for connection and ascent.

Student: In the Ten, we're all the time yearning for ascent. God willing, we will succeed.

M. Laitman: I hear that we have to stop. I'm sorry, but we'll have additional times.

Announcements: (1:02:48)

Song: (1:04:32)