Morning Lesson March 23, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #56
Reading Item 55
1.R. (02:02) That is how Baal HaSulam tells us about another stage we have to go through, understand what we're learning with you is actually the process that each person and eventually all of the humanity has to go through, the true evolution, the internal spiritual revolution in the perception of reality that we are in. If we do not change reality, it is a sign that we are not developing and that our development is measured only to the perception of reality. The fact that we ourselves are developing according to the reality of the Creator is not considered, therefore in our development we have to go through the special stages 1 2 3 4, stages of development that he is talking about here and the stage that we're learning about now is in Item 56.
Reading # 56 (03:10)
2. R. (05:38) Meaning, he is giving us an answer of what is when we come to that good correct result, the right answer, to complete repentance which is where the Creator is revealed without any concealment or limitation before a person, that is what he is saying. I'm reading the last part and here, where he says what the repentance is like, in other words when will one be certain that he is granted complete repentance, how can that be? For this he gave us a clear sign, meaning when he who knows the mysteries testifies that he will not return to folly. Meaning that he will obtain the revelation of face fully of the Creator where nothing will be lacking but rather everything according to the vessels that are revealed in a person in a clear manner where he sees from one end of the world to the other, where he sees the all of the reality, of all the worlds that the Creator has revealed to him fully and then one’s own salvation of the Creator himself will testify that he will not return to folly as mentioned.
3. S. (07:06) Yes, but in Item 55 in the same context it's not clear where is the work, he becomes an angel of the Lord, the providence is clear he will never turn back to folly.
R. This is something he guess he comes to all these states through all the opposite qualities, opposite desires where in place of the Creator each time reveals opposite things from the matters of reception and not bestowal and hatred and not love. Therefore he has this standing against that and between those two states he stands and attains the Creator as the middle line from which also the left and the right come about and then it is clear that he attains the truth.
S. Yes, but he is under the open providence so?
R. But the complete revelation, understand what that means. Aleph, the champion of the world, and Tav is death and the Mem the quality of Bina that connects us two edges, and that's how you have all of the reality there that is clear, real, true.
S. That means that open providence is on the tip of deciding, that he's able to decide which way?
R. Yes and he remains in this forever and ever he doesn't jump from one end to the other, he only jumps to scrutinize, but he is connected to both. The creature must to be connected also on one hand, on the other hand this is called Adam where he himself is the complete will to receive and he clothes the desire of the Creator called the resembling, Domeh, the one who resembles.
S. But how to arrange these together with the inner attack that we are studying about the Exodus from Egypt. Egypt is total disconnection, we run away from Egypt?
R. No no no, those things that you reveal, all the things that you discover from exit from Egypt you discover that you are going to arise above. Meaning, upon all of the acts of bestowal that we perform after the exit from Egypt, we bless for the memory for the Exodus of Egypt, everything is based on that desire that was revealed in Egypt, it is not purified, we just build above it, everything is connected, nothing disappears.
4. S. (10:12) I have a similar question, we know that from one degree to the next there has to be total disconnection, so one who is under open providence, he doesn't have this disconnection, this gap?
R. Even more.
S. So what does it mean that he testifies that he will not turn back to folly?
R. Such disconnections that you cannot imagine to yourself. Since I was with Rabash sometimes days and nights, I saw it in him, where he cannot conceal it, he just said go, I need to be alone, very, very harsh disconnections. Where they come to a person when he comes to a complete redemption which means the whole world and us as well. Then it turns out that he cannot deal with them because these are not yet his vessels, these are the general vessels and even though he has reached his personal correction, he nevertheless is incorporated in the general correction until the end of correction.
S. So what does it mean he testifies that he will no longer return to folly?
R. He falls to the general will to receive, of all reality of the vessel that is outside of him.
5. S. (11:48) What is the revelation of the face?
R. The revelation of face is considered that you begin to reveal with all of your desires which are corrected, that are in order to bestow and through that you see reality. Meaning all the created beings that are outside of you and to the extent in which they are operating correctly in the correct way.
S. What does it mean that he will not turn back to folly?
R. Because that is how you reveal the whole of reality, through your corrected desire to receive, everyone is corrected and whoever doesn’t, whoever negates does so in his own flaws and you don’t have anything to flaw because that is called the end of the correction.
S. So it is wholeness?
R. That is wholeness, perfection.
S. Only in the filling, noot in the understanding of the intellect?
R. Both in understanding and the feeling in mind and heart.
Reading Item # 57 (13:14)
5. S. (14:38) In Item 55 it says that I need to reach the certainty that I will not keep any Mitzvah aside without keeping it immediately, what is that stage that I feel this Mitzvah came to my hand this came to my hands and I have to immediately observe it?
R. It's a matter of feeling, I cannot explain to you, read it a few times more and it will be clear to you.
Reading Item # 58 (15:20)
6. R. (17:02) We are not yet in this and therefore we need to go over this a few times. I went over this introduction for many years, the Introduction to TES. I taught it a few times, and I understand that we need to simply have to go over it for a few years and understand what he is trying to explain to us here. We also need to have certain experience in spirituality with it as well.
7. S. (17:47) Those words, when he sees his friend from behind and it causes him to have doubts and then someone else, meaning if the ego depicts to me certain negative states of our friends, I forget it is the Creator of operating?
R. If you see a friend and you imagine to yourself that it is the Creator who is making you see him in that way, this is okay for the time being. If you see the friends disconnected from the Creator, that it is not the Creator who is establishing the friend for you, then it is not okay. It means you're under concealment to the extent that you discover that the friend is whatever the Creator is presenting to you, you're coming closer to the revelation of the Creator.
So in the beginning you will see the friends, you'll see the friends and all kinds of different forms, pleasant or unpleasant this is what the Creator is projecting to use such forms. Later on you begin to see how they are connected and how you can be connected with them or vice versa disconnected from them as much as you connect and then you move away and disconnect. By that you constantly want to direct yourself through the friends to the Creator. That it is him who is doing it and it's not that whatever you see, the way you see them before you. All of the friends you see them, because the Creator is presenting them to you. He wants you to get to know that you will see that the Creator is only whatever the Creator himself is presenting. That is okay now?
As much as a person depicts his friends and the entire world, and later one the whole of reality, that it is the Creator who is presenting before him and he sees the Creator's relation to him and as much as this form that he sees is the opposite for him to the Creator. Like the students of Rabbi Shimon and the Masters of the Zohar wanted to kill one another when they came to the lesson. Later on through the lesson they connected between them and they wrote the Zohar. The next time once again and even more they discovered hatred between them, the will to receive between them. So a person has to establish before himself a world, that the whole world is with the Creator’s projecting to him so the person will rise above his will to receive and will unite with that force that is projecting the reality through him.
The pain, upon all the crimes, the love will cover, as we call it, we actually discover the form of bestowal and love above that form of the world and the group is projecting to him. So if you think you can connect between you and come closer to spirituality, …. that is only from one side, from the right but on the left you will always enter all kinds of disturbances that will be more and more serious. This is how that is how it will be over all the world, that world that is revealed to us as more and more threatening and we are in the state where we have to rise above it and ascribe everything to the Creator. Then above all of these disturbances to connect, to overcome and in this way we bring all of the coarseness to the Creator that he establishes in us and above the coarseness we demand from him because we can see that we cannot resolve it.
We demand of Him that he will make the connection, that he who makes peace in the heavens will also make peace upon us. This is actually the right exit from this terrible state that we are in and we may enter even worse states, God forbid. Baal HaSulam writes about the third, the fourth world wars which will be nuclear wars. We have to realize that it all depends on how much we will discover it with the precedence of our correct perception, correct attitude towards the reality, otherwise going through suffering that is terrible, it's not worthwhile even to think about it, of how bad it may be.
8. S. (24:10) Repentance from reward and punishment, what is the person afraid of if he's already connected with the Creator?
R. The person who is connected with the Creator is afraid about only one thing, not that disconnection will come but that he will not be able during the disconnection to think about contentment for the Creator but rather he will think about himself. This is his problem that he may not be loyal, faithful, to the Creator at a time when the force of faith, the force of bestowal will run away from him this is what he's afraid of, that his ego will come to him the will to receive and it will confuse him so much that he will forget, that he will completely lose the Creator. This is what he's afraid of because he feels himself all in all he is with his own forces. Who is a man all in all? As it says the son or the child of a woman, a little animal.
9. S. ( 25:52) When I see a friend in the ten that’s disconnected, does that mean that the Creator is showing me my internal state, that I need to improve relative to the ten?
R. Yes, of course all of our corrections have to be only with respect to the ten. To that extent we actually correct our relations with the Creator, only in that way. We have no connection with the Creator but only through the ten and therefore if we correct the relations between us, between me and the ten, then I correct my relations more and more by that I already correct my relations with the Creator. From the ten to the Creator there's nothing for me to correct but only in my participation in the ten therefore it says, “I dwell within my own people” that the Creator is always in the ten and if I advance the ten to the Creator by that I also advance myself to that.
10. S. (27:24) The matter of revelation and concealment if we yearn just for revelation it's also not good. How to watch over the concealment to help us reach revelation?
R. I want to reach revelation because by that I give contentment to the Creator. When I rise above self benefit above the will to receive and I want that the Creator will be revealed and actually not only in the vessels of bestowal but also in my vessels of reception that by that I reveal myself to the Creator so that he will fill me up, he will do whatever he wants with me, everything in order for him to enjoy. This is my work, my work is only with the intention, let him do whatever he wants so long as he will enjoy it.
S. Why am I asking, it's a matter of revelation, if the Creator is revealed only if we yearn for revelation only the matter of concealment is something that's very….
R. It all depends on the screen that one has, to the extent that he has a screen he can work only according to his screens, if he has the screen over the Aviut, the coarseness, Shoresh root one and two, then for the time being he’s in the vessels of bestowal without coarseness but only rising above his state. If he works with the screens of coarseness three and four he can already receive in order to bestow, but he and himself is already able to create acts of bestowal.
S. Those screens that we talk about are screens enable us to rise above those sates that we go through in the ten, right?
R. All of those states we go through them in the ten.
S. And that enables us, it's hard to express it, okay I'll think.
R. Shlomo, I'm waiting for you.
11. S. (29:54) Yesterday there was a certain incident in Israel in which it truly disconnected me from feeling, and my question is how do we combine that with the work in the ten, do we need to all together, or is it something separated or not separate?
R. I don't know what you mean, but it doesn't really matter what it is, we try to determine in our ten only relations that lead us to Gmar Tikkun, the end of correction and nothing besides that and therefore all of the discernments and events that might take place in each one of us and in all of us and in the world and wherever, those do not matter to us. What matters to us is only how does it influence the connection between us, and how this may strengthen the connection between us such that the Creator will be able to be revealed in full because by this we give him contentment.
S. So it does influence the connection, it disconnect you from the feeling?
R. If it disconnects you then make sure that it doesn't disconnect you.
S. How?
R. I don't even want to get into this because it doesn't matter to me what the reason was.Obviously, certainly it comes from above so in the end the Creator succeeded in disconnecting you from each other so that you will do the work and connect.
S. So what's the work with it because I'm always move to the pain, that there's a certain coarseness that we have to work upon?
R. So upon that coarseness you need to connect.
S. Is that saying that each brings to the ten that coarseness?
R. No, we need to bring to the ten forces of connection upon the forces of coarseness that are being revealed in each and every one.
S. So let's say when a friend feels such a disconnection that from the world that takes him completely out of the connection, so what can he do and what can the ten do?
R. Come to the ten, fall on their forces so that they will help him to rise.
S. That intensifies the connection in the ten?
R. Of course. It increases enlarges the connection in the ten by this you're adding to the ten additional discernment that we are in disconnection and now they have been revealed these are the wicked ones that have been revealed and you’re happy that they're been revealed and you help each other to add them to the common overcoming.
S. That work needs to be work in awareness meaning do we do this in some aware way that we're exiting and returning and exiting and returning?
R. Yes, it could be a thousand times a day. What does that matter the most important is all the time the moment that we're capable of it we go back to connection and we help the other friends in the group also to be in connection.
S. Do we also have such work with the world Kli meaning?
R. If you feel that you can strengthen the world Kli in that then certainly yes especially if you are helping the parts in the Kli that are now in a hard state, a difficult state.
S. How do we do that?
R. In all the different forms as much as you understand it you can strengthen them, help them. For example in our center in Bnei Baruch they're working on it really many people entire groups that are helping all kinds of people, they correspond, they send all kinds of things. This is our obligation to do it.
S. That's also somehow intensifying the connection, the strength of the world Kli?
R. Of course, we do it on behalf of the world Kli here, it's not just the Petach Tikvah group doing it, it's the center of our world Kli and this is how we do it.
12. S. (35:17) When you explain to us that we need to rise above the state when a person is in a strong emotional state, what is that rising above, how is it done?
R. Above my ego, according to my ego I would help myself maybe some friend that is close to me but I need to rise above it and perform these actions due to the general will to bestow.
S. Let’s say if the person is inside an emotional state he received the state from above, how can you do that action of rising above?
R. He should be incorporated in the emotional desire of the ten which certainly is closer to the Creator.
Reader Item #59
13. S. (37:58) How could it be that something's in concealment or in double concealment becomes something less in concealment? Why doesn't it just become revealed?
R. Because these are degrees, this is how the will to receive becomes corrected through an illumination from above so that the Upper light that is revealed more and more, gradually, as he created the coarseness in the world of Ein Sof, root one, two, three, four, and then all of the operations it continues in the same way the Upper light never stops shining all the time whatever it feels it go through the same stages of the will to receive that it created, it builds them, it establishes them and then when the light passes through those desires to receive it clothes in them and this is why it's operation, well this is how we see it in all kinds of different forms that are more and more intensified.
S. If it's perception is now that he's in a certain revelation, maybe not a complete revelation but a form of revelation…
R. To begin with there is always revelation from the very first operation when he created the face of the root in the foundation he is constantly trying to reveal himself.
S. Now he's in a degree called reward and punishment and he's discerning his states of concealment that he’s been through the double concealment.
R. Now you're talking from the side of the created being.
S. Yes, from the side of the created being. And then he goes through the state of the double concealment and makes them into…
R. No he can’t invert make double concealment into double revelation he can only do it gradually through degrees and those degrees he created them already in the root of the whole thing, root one two three four, those five phases, well one two three four besides the root, this is what happens in a created being and then we see how in the created being this whole package one two three four each time it is done in the form of greater and greater coarseness that is revealed. Later on this coarseness forces him to make corrections and the corrections bring him to the corrected state.
S. But what does it mean he looks at all the states that he’s been through that he knows and he he can't disconnect any of them from connection to the Creator from his attitude to the Creator and then.
R. Of course it is all connected to the Creator he connects it this is the entire correction. What is the connection? To see the Creator through all the stages of concealment.
S. That's why he doesn't have double concealment anymore, he didn't have it not in the past, not in the present, anything.
R. Yes, but there will be other concealments.
14. S (41:12) What's the difference between the feeling of descents and the feeling of concealments?
R. It's the way that a person interprets it. It could be a feeling of a descent but I'm happy about it as it says, “I'm happy with the wicked ones that are revealed,” that's it, then is it a descent or concealment it doesn't matter how you call it but I know that I am in states that I am discovering as a process on the way it is all dependent on how much I am connected with the friend because by myself I cannot determine it so there's my individual feeling and my feeling in the group and then if I trust the group then even my individual states I connect it them and I see that I'm on the path, that's it.
Reading Item #60 (42:18)
Reading item #61 (43:23)
R. (45:03) Well we see that here he simply explains to us the degrees the states a person goes through after the Creator starts to be revealed in him, in a methodical manner.
15. S. (45:10) What does it mean that the Creator does good to the wicked and why does he do that?
R. Well to whom can he help if not to the bad? To whom can he come and support them if not to the criminals? The Creator loves the wicked, that's what is written. Can you explain to me why does he love the wicked? Those who discover themselves that they are in a bad evil desire apparently they worked hard and they drew upon themselves some of the reforming light and they discover that they are in the evil will to receive in order to receive and therefore from that they begin to ask and to cry out and to perform actions in order to come out of it, in order to rise and this is why the Creator loves them. The Creator loves the wicked this is what is written in the Torah meaning those who are drawn to the truth and they discover that they are in the lie.
S. Why does it seem in our world that the Creator is also benefiting the egoistical criminals or wicked?
R. That's something else that’s so that in our world there will be wicked ones so that we will feel towards them do we want to be like them or not.
S. That's why he's doing good to them?
R. This is why he is doing good to them certainly is that called doing good? He puts them to death he leaves them in this life, they live their whole life in the hope that they will get, they will have something later on they discover they have nothing but rather what do they get throughout this whole life, it was all a lie, like a child who receives some toy later he discovers it was just some plastic toy.
16. S. (47:26) Can you describe the difference between mistakes and sins?
R. As we understand it in this world, mistakes are that I don't want to do something but I commit a transgression, meaning the will to receive works on me by mistake or it works on me delivering that intentionally I use my will to receive.
17. S. (48:02) The Creator himself puts the person into his thoughts about himself and also the Creator takes him out of them. What if so is the sin of man?
R. The fact that, well the problem is, how do we respond to whatever we get from above? The fact that the Creator is always influencing us in the direction of correction, do we accept it as the direction of correction and we’re drawn to correction, or we fall, we don't want it, we blame the Creator, why do you give us this instead of that, the Creator is always giving us a drive towards correction and if that state is not so pleasant, well what can you do? We need to somehow nevertheless to straighten ourselves, settle and aim ourselves but if not if we don't understand it if we don't attain it then we're considered wicked, okay?
R. Thank you to the women who are with us and pray strongly. I very much enjoy hearing your prayers, your prayers it helps everyone a lot thanks to the righteous women we come out of Egypt so try to be righteous women truly. It's that being righteous means those who require, who demand justice, Tzedek, a part of Malchut that demands Tzedek, justice, is called a righteous woman so try to ask the Creator for that and then you will deliver all of us from Egypt.
S. I heard that in the women something more special that in them their work is even more special than in the men.
R. Yes, there is a reason why it says, “thanks to righteous women” that is the will to receive that is mostly called a woman that truly yearns to connect to the Creator and to support the will to bestow, this is actually the entire correction of the world, that’s the whole correction of the world so let's hope that the women will connect and grow stronger and will influence the men also in such a way that they'll stop the wars, they’ll stop all this nonsense, all of these games, as if with this force and pride and that they will be a bit more directed toward the goal. The women are capable of performing such a correction in us.
S. So it means that the state of the world truly demands this work of the women?
R. Of the women certainly this is why there is no longer any limitation on connection between women and in the Wisdom of Kabbalah and they can engage in it, it’s just that we have to divide it so that there will be no disturbance corporeal disturbance between men and women, but in spirituality they should we should all be connected. Good luck to you. Try to strengthen each other. All the best.