Morning Lesson July 23, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot. #6
Reading Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot. #6 : () “
R. 1. (00:21) The book Panim Meirot uMasbirot, Baal HaSulam wrote it as a commentary on the book of the Ari the tree of life which is the main book in the wisdom of Kabbalah. And the Zohar that was written two thousand years ago is not an explanation, it doesn't explain it but rather adds whatever is possible in the wisdom of Kabbalah, from the attainment and emotion of it but not as an explanation of it. And the Ari who wrote the tree of life, we can see how it's written not in an emotional way but in a more seemingly in intellectual way. And Baal HaSulam wrote the commentary on the Ari. So all together we have the Zohar and then the writings of the Ari and then the writings of Baal HaSulam. So Baal HaSulam gives us a commentary on the writings of the Ari, and he especially calls that Panim Meirot uMasbirot, the face that shines and explains. Meaning he wants to provide an explanation on the writings of the Ari as much as possible because by that he wants to connect, to link his generation as much as possible to the wisdom of Kabbalah. And this generation is much more developed and connected to science and the kinds of explanations that a modern person is used to, and that's why he writes this way. So let's see how he relates to us the new generation, what does he want to say by that.
S. (02:38) What's the difference between TES and this book? They both explain the Tree of Life.
R. No, the tree of life was written by Ari's student Chaim Vital and that nevertheless there's a 500-year difference.
S. I'm asking what is the difference between this book Panim Meirot uMasbirot and the study of TES because they both explain the Tree of Life.
R. Let’s say it’s a kind of a draft for TES. It's a book in itself, there's a big difference in what he writes in the commentary on the tree of life and TES, but it’s still two compositions, two things. I studied both this and that so as much as I can understand in my humble opinion Panim Meirot uMasbirot is like a preparation for TES. And therefore with Rabash we didn't study the Tree of Life with Panim Meirot uMasbirot but only TES. However I studied it because Rabash learned it with someone else. There was a guy who came every evening to learn that with him, so I also sat there and studied it. What can I say, it's a different style. There are some people who are more drawn to it and others who better relate to TES and some not this or that, but they're drawn to all the other writings, like the letters and the articles. Because it's all really about one thing just in different languages and styles let’s say. So there’s this and there’s that.
Reading item # 6 (05:28)
2. R. (09:29) So what we are unable to do, to understand and why the world is so broken, and we are broken and why the Creator who is so whole did not create the world as whole to begin with and prepared for us only bad things and difficult things. And we try to reach corrections and we can’t, and we’re always in a complaint, complaining about ourselves and creation and to the Creator, and about the friends closer or farther from us. Why did the Creator do all of that? So the Angels it says here understood that the Creator created all created beings for the upper, higher, reason. And therefore there is really nothing to say here because everything is aimed at the correction and working towards correction. Questions? We don't have questions from all of our friends so we will continue.
3. S. (11:09) We read that man doesn't need to serve other created beings like the donkey doesn't have to serve the other donkeys. Just as he serves man, man must serve too. We also read that man does have to serve all the other creatures and to benefit them and to help them advance. So what is the difference between those two ways to use it?
R. Very good, you asked well. Meaning if I am going to serve human beings, or we do it for our own good, like we live off each other, make a living off each other. That’s not what we are born for, we were born to bring humanity closer to the Creator because from there we have to receive corrections and fulfillments to our vessels. If we do that, we have our lifetime, and if we do it throughout our lifetime then we advance. And if we don't, we can't manage to do it, then we need as if to come back and try to do it again. We have to advance towards the Creator throughout our life and thus see the goal. And not that we were born to serve other people so as to improve this world but rather from this world, rise to the recognition of the upper world; while we're living in our body in this world, to rise in our spirit to the upper world. There we will find the purpose of creation and our true purpose of life.
S. It turns out that the actions can be the same, but the usage will have a different purpose?
R. I did not understand how.
S. The actions to serve created beings.
R. If I serve people but with the intention that by that, both them and I will advance towards the Creator, then someone on the outside might see my actions as corporeal actions because they don't see my intentions. Intentions are always hidden. You can’t say what is the intention with which one engages in something. But we in each and every action want to reach a state where we come to serve the Creator.
4. S. (14:41) It's written that man was created in the image of the Creator. What does it mean?
R. Man comes down from a degree where he was bonded with the Creator, because the Creator created him, then he descends and moves away from the degrees of the Creator until he takes on the form of our world. I'm not talking about the bodily form which we imagine that we exist in but the corporeal form that is in order to receive. That is how we descend from a degree of in order to bestow where we're bonded with the Creator to in order to receive which is our form here.
5. S. (15:56) He writes here that there is already a tower filled with good and it’s empty of guests. Listen, we don’t see that, we don’t see this goodness.
R. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. You don’t see it; I do see it.
S. You see it, but people in the world don’t, that’s why we have so many problems.
R. That's why we exist, to bring them into this too.
S. It’s a problem.
R. It's not a problem, it's the purpose we have to advance towards.
S. Why aren’t we shown at least a tip of it, some of it?
R. You don't have the vessels to see spirituality, you don't have vessels. So what are you crying about? Like a baby, they don't give him something because he can stab himself in the eye with something sharp. What can you do?
S. That is what I'm asking you. He writes that the reality in the upper and the lower needs to be together. What does it mean?
R. That we need to be connected, from our will to receive with the intention to bestow which is the Creator. With those two we need to be together. Then we will feel inside us all the matter of spirituality.
S. I'm studying with you for 15 years, and some people for 20 years. We are not revealing this tower, why? Why so much time?
R. You're lacking the intention.
S. Can you define what is the intention?
R. In order to bestow.
S. Yes, but what do you need to think about?
R. To give contentment through the friends to the Creator.
S. Are there any actions besides that?
R. Yes, connection between us until we’ll feel that we’re connected, and through our connection we’re able to bestow to the Creator.
S. Can you give an example for connection between us?
R. I can’t show it to you because it’s not in material, it’s an intention.
S. Only intention?
R. Yes.
6. S. (18:37) What is that force of the Angels that they pondered, and they were overwhelmed, all this relationship of how the Creator creates the human?
R. It's that all the forces of nature, spiritual ones, can't adjust to the corporeal person when the person doesn't adjust himself to a spiritual force.
Reading Item (19:26) “And know that this Tower…”
7. S. (23:25) He always talks about the Creator, the Emanator and from whom would He receive, and then we say all the work is to bestow contentment to Him. If He cannot receive, how can we bring Him contentment?
R. Who said He can't receive, who told you?
S. He writes here.
R. If you give an opportunity to bestow, He bestows, so what do you give Him? You give Him a vessel, a vessel to bestow, that is what He's expecting.
S. If we manage to make Him happy?
R. I don’t know what ‘making Him happy’ is, to make happy is a result of an action. The action is that you’re giving Him an ability to bestow. He has only one deficiency to bestow: to the lower ones that He created. He created them in the will to receive, if the lower ones are able to bring Him those vessels that He created in them for Him to fill, that is what we need. To bring our deficiencies closer to the Creator for Him to fill out’ if we can do such a thing, He bestows.
Reading Item 7 (25:04 - 27:01)
8. R. (27:05) So we are really in the lowest degree, completely opposite of the Creator, right? We can't receive from Him but only if we resemble Him, we adapt ourselves to Him, but for now we are opposite. So we can't be awarded with anything. First we have to correct ourselves and that is actually our work and our problem. That is why whoever says, “I want to receive, let's say like our [our beloved brother in PT 19!], “why isn't the Creator giving me what I want?” He's right, he is right, we obviously understand him and agree with him, and we also willing to come and receive like him but what can you do? There are conditions that we need to fill: if we stand on those conditions, we will receive, if we don't, we won't receive, and as much as you’ll demand from Rav Laitman, that won't help you. Favoritism doesn't work in this case.
9. S. (28:39) Before we give the Creator vessels to fulfill, even before that, what relationship is there between the Creator and created beings?
R. The Creator develops creation as much as possible in the will to receive until the created being with its will to receive feels that it can suffer anymore and must convert his will to receive to be in order to bestow. By developing in a corporeal way and starting to ask, “why am I suffering”, ‘why do I need the suffering”, “why do I need this life?”, and so on. Afterwards when you enter spirituality and start Knowing the wisdom of Kabbalah, so again it comes and asks, “what do I need this for”, “what am I going to get from this”, “how do I reach revelation of the Creator?” I guess this will give me the right fulfillment and afterwards he starts by his advancement to change in a way that. “I don't need fulfillment; my fulfillment will be that I'm giving to everyone like the Creator and not receiving”. Then what should I ask from the Creator? To give me the will to bestow, that is what I want, to the extent that he exchanges his will to receive to the will to bestow he receives vessels to bestow, and by that he bestows to others. He passes the fulfillment from the Creator, the upper light, from the Creator to others and by this he feels himself filling up.
10. S. (30:52) It turns out that a baby, let's say, doesn't feel the sorrow of its mother, that's normal, that's natural. I don't feel the sorrow of the Creator who created this big, wondrous world, I only feel my own troubles. What is the transition here? I read it and I feel ashamed that He created such a world, and I don't understand it and He suffers from me not reaching that pleasure. How to feel the sorrow?
R. That happens gradually, we're not in the state that we can feel the Creator's deficiency, His attitude towards creation, to justify Him, we can’t do that yet. It’s very big things that are still far from us but at least in the connection in the ten that is something we can understand” that if we exist in such a way, by this, we will reach corrections.
S. Can we say that the Creator suffers to the maximum because we haven't connected yet?
R. Obviously the Creator is suffering that we are not reaching the connection’ He broke us to give us an opportunity to connect and attain what disconnection means and what connection means, and through that, we can understand creation, understand Him, to reach an internal whole degree, and we are still remaining on these lowly degrees, the bottom ones, and we cannot reach any upper thing. So obviously if we could say he is suffering from us, we are bad kids.
S. It says that “it is impossible, but it is possible to raise a prayer”?
R. Yes, everything is attained by prayer, nobody says you need to connect but to ask for connection. Nobody's demanding of you to reveal the evil, what is truly preventing you from reaching wholeness, but asks to reveal the wholeness and so on.
11. S. (33:36) I look around, I see all this reality around me and how we used the thin light we received and only bad we have done from this thin light, and I am just wondering, how can we ask for more light otherwise we would just ruin all of the reality around us. How can we reach a state where our prayer is only for the correction of the vessels and nothing else, and how will our dissemination also be only for, about the correction of the vessels?
R. That is something you need to decide today what to do. Now there is a big Congress, a big meeting, I really want to now turn to our friends that are the organizers, [names names]. Maybe they should explain what they're about to do today, that we can try to be with them, today, in heart and soul. And in that way, how can we go through the day? That is it, so where are our friends, [again names names] and all the friends organizing? Explain to us what is happening with you today.
INFO: (35:18) [Friend goes through Day 2 of the Balta Congress itinerary]
R. (37:00) That’s great, I am very envious of everyone that is there. I would love to be among you, and we hope that you are going to have success there and we're going to pray for it. That’s it, let's maybe start folding up here and give them an opportunity to gradually go deeper into the Congress, the corporeal one. Except for the spiritual gathering, I am really envious of you and in heart and soul I am with you, and I really hope that you will get even closer between you and will do many more Congresses and such events together, I really hope for it, and soon. The moment we will be able to, we’ll do it in Israel too, and we also have the next Congress in Germany in a month. And in this way we're going to do it around the world, so please, we're waiting, we're willing to do everything, so keep going. And from the bottom of the heart, all the best to you all, we are with you in one heart!