The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) April 27, 2024.
Part 2: Rabash. Record 924. “And God Spoke to Moses.”
Reader: Hello, we're reading in the writings of Rabash, the article, “And God Spoke to Moses.” Again, reading from the writings of Rabash, “And God Spoke to Moses.”
Reading: (0:34) “And God spoke to Moses.”
“And God spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the Lord.’”
We should understand what this statement means to us. It seems to refer to Moses’ question that was said at the end of the portion, Shemot [Exodus 5:23], where it is written, “Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, and You did not save Your people at all.”
Moses’ question was that when he told them they had to work Lishma [for Her sake], everyone thought that their work would be more intense and with greater force, but the truth was to the contrary—they weakened in the work.
As a result, they cried out to Moses, “What good did you do for us when you promised that we would emerge from the exile in Egypt, meaning that our mind was in exile and that by the way you are giving us, to work Lishma, we will be freed from the enslavement of the body, called ‘Pharaoh’? In truth, we haven’t any motivation! Thus, our mind is that we cannot receive your sublime goal.”
To this came the answer, “And God spoke to Moses.” God is nature. As far as nature is concerned, you are correct that you haven’t the fuel to continue your work. “And said to him, ‘I am the Lord.’” The Creator is the quality of mercy, and by His mercy they can extend forces and fuel above nature and above reason, and on this they can no longer argue because all the arguments that a person can make are only where reason affirms it. But above reason, anything might happen, except we must increase the faith that the Creator can help above nature.
In fact, it is impossible to receive something above nature before one decides that this cannot happen within nature. Only after one despairs from nature can he ask for help from above, to be given help above nature.
M. Laitman: Questions? Do you want to hear it again? You do. Okay. Please.
Reading Again Article: (04:36) “And God spoke to Moses.”
“And God spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the Lord.’”
We should understand what this statement means to us. It seems to refer to Moses’ question that was said at the end of the portion, Shemot [Exodus 5:23], where it is written, “Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, and You did not save Your people at all.”
Moses’ question was that when he told them they had to work Lishma [for Her sake], everyone thought that their work would be more intense and with greater force, but the truth was to the contrary—they weakened in the work.
As a result, they cried out to Moses, “What good did you do for us when you promised that we would emerge from the exile in Egypt, meaning that our mind was in exile and that by the way you are giving us, to work Lishma, we will be freed from the enslavement of the body, called ‘Pharaoh’? In truth, we haven’t any motivation! Thus, our mind is that we cannot receive your sublime goal.”
To this came the answer, “And God spoke to Moses.” God is nature. As far as nature is concerned, you are correct that you haven’t the fuel to continue your work. “And said to him, ‘I am the Lord.’” The Creator is the quality of mercy, and by His mercy they can extend forces and fuel above nature and above reason, and on this they can no longer argue because all the arguments that a person can make are only where reason affirms it. But above reason, anything might happen, except we must increase the faith that the Creator can help above nature.
In fact, it is impossible to receive something above nature before one decides that this cannot happen within nature. Only after one despairs from nature can he ask for help from above, to be given help above nature.
Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (08:33) Where does fear of the Creator sit in this entire article of faith?
M. Laitman: Fear of the Creator is the general preparation that there is in a person on his way to attaining the Creator.
Student: Okay, and how can we reach the state of fear of the Creator to attain faith? Because we read in the first article that without fear of the Creator, you cannot attain faith.
M. Laitman: Faith and fear. Faith in the Creator is a feeling that the Creator fills everything, surrounds everything, encompasses everything, governs everything. This is faith in the Creator and out of this we should come to a state where we reach a feeling that His glory fills the world and that a person has no work left except to accept the Creator in such a way that He fills the world, and we have to be incorporated in Him.
Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (10:59) If I understood correctly, it's a pretty exalted state when they sighed from the work. I see that somehow, I can still do something. But the state that there's completely no fuel, it's not there, and it feels like an important state you have to reach. Is that connected to reaching despair from my nature? And what is that, to be the spirit of my own nature? How to come closer to it?
M. Laitman: You have to fall on the friends, on the hands of the group, the Ten, so that you will lose yourself.
Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (12:32) About that checking, he supposedly going to a state on the side of criticism and lack of criticism, and then you compare. You reach, you got to the limit where you can ask and, in this way, you feel what you need to?
M. Laitman: Try.
Student: Can I ask again?
M. Laitman: You can ask as many as you want.
Student: Loving the friend like I love me. It's the Creator who loves. I just incorporate in his love. So, it turns out that there is no love before a plea for adhesion because love is only in Lishma.
M. Laitman: Okay, let's say so. Okay, so what about it?
Student: How did I reach adhesion before I feel the friend and incorporate in him?
M. Laitman: It's impossible.
Student: So, it turns out that I'm doing work before Lishma. I'm doing it on myself.
M. Laitman: It is all your thoughts with yourself.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:16) How by saying that I am the Creator do the nation of Israel get forces to continue in the work?
M. Laitman: Because there is a connection between “I am the Creator,” to Israel which is the work of the Creator.
Student: What is the connection, please?
M. Laitman: The connection, when a person attains the degree of “I am the Creator,” then he gathers inside also the feeling of the Creator within him and the Israel within him and in this way from the connection, he can manage it.
Student: Does it also lead us to faith above reason?
M. Laitman: It brings us to faith above reason, of course.
Student: Why?
M. Laitman: Because we are incorporated in the term “I am the Creator,” and that's already a very high degree.
Student: How do we lock ourselves on, I am the Lord?
M. Laitman: Because we're trying to see Him everywhere, in every place, in every state, in every action.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:56) Can I ask something quick about the externality and the differences, what we talked about before?
M. Laitman: Oh, explain yourself.
Student: You said that externality matters. So, for example, you and I are opposite. I don't think we should have meals like Baal HaSulam, like, more like Baba Sali, you know, there’s something, you know, a very colorful table and all that.
M. Laitman: I was at Baba Sali himself for the meal.
Student: The meals are more colorful, better. Here we're all torturing ourselves, you understand?
M. Laitman: Look, it's a different culture but the attitude to what a person does is the same. So, a bread has a different shape or form. All things, they have different forms, but the attitude is the same.
Student: Yes, well, that's, I understand, I agree, but that's correct. You do what you're used to, what suits you. But I see things differently. I saw you eating fish. My family would commit suicide if you had to eat it. So, there's a huge difference between us, you and I, to extremes.
M. Laitman: That shouldn't bother you.
Student: Well, not bother, that's exactly the point. If we're so different externally, we can still work together to learn everything.
M. Laitman: Yes because what is the difference? It's not a difference.
Student: No, wait, there is a difference. What you do, I cannot do.
M. Laitman: That's a matter of education, meaning you were born in a different corporeal place, you were raised in it, and you became who you are. And I was born in a different place, and I was raised there and something else came out of me. That's it.
Student: Yes, exactly. Because you said that externality is very important and there's a reason to do it, there's a branch and root and all that. So, if the difference is so great, can we still advance together?
M. Laitman: Yes, we can advance together, yes. It was many years ago, but I was at a place where there were all kinds of people from different kinds of religions, and I sat and read the Siddur, the prayer book, and next to me there was a little carpet with a Muslim, and he was doing his prayer and I didn't feel any difference, any difference.
Student: So, spirituality has no connection to, there's no influence or consequences or?
M. Laitman: Yes, what I did with my heart, he did with his heart.
Student: It shouldn't reflect on spirituality?
M. Laitman: No, no.
Student: So, okay.
M. Laitman: We have to learn how to accept it in an open way.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:03) Can I ask a little bit about the article? He says that God and Gematria is the nature.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And from Egypt, there is probably a higher force. There are also different gods in the work. Other names of attainment of the Creator that are at a certain level, there's a need for a higher force that pulls us out of Egypt, or into a new degree?
M. Laitman: Egypt is unique in that it's a place, or let's say conditions, where the ego is under a control.
Student: Moses also asked the Creator, he says, they won't believe me. And the Creator told him, tell them that “I am that I am,” sent me. What does it mean that there are names of the Creator that are higher than a person at his current degree reveals in the work?
M. Laitman: That he has to know that he has more to attain and by this, he can uplift to a higher degree. And then, that force that's controlling him now won't control him.
Student: And Moses was afraid that they wouldn't believe because there's some degree of Lishma for her sake?
M. Laitman: Yes, that he won't be able to take them out.
Student: From not for her sake to for her sake, that it takes a new force?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:56) I'd like to continue the friend. There are 10 different names of the same force, right?
M. Laitman: Different names that cannot be erased.
Student: Yes, unerasable names, right. Should we learn to know each of these names?
M. Laitman: No. When you go into a higher framework, you know what yes and what no, just like in this world.
Student: Here he's telling us that God is the force of nature?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And so, he says, I'm the Lord. In other words, the force of nature tells him there's something higher above reason, right?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It’s something that’s revealed one out of the other, it’s not like we have to research it, but it becomes revealed, right?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And it's all in the connection between us, right?
M. Laitman: Everything according to the state. That's why now we don't have any meaning of just running ahead.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:15) I have difficulty understanding the technique he's talking about at the end of the article. Only after he despairs about nature, does he request to be given help above nature. Intellectually, it sounds like a good idea. Get to despair, and then you'll come out of it. But in reality, it's very, very difficult, this technique, you know, to come to despair. To be in this place of despair, and then to.
M. Laitman: I think it's very rational. You reach a certain state, and you work and work in it more and more, until you reach despair from your results.
Student: I'll give an example. Let's say I'm trying to act in the spirit of loving others, my neighbors, myself. But sometimes I trip, and I speak badly to a friend. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen, and then I'm stuck there. So, on the one hand, it doesn't happen often. And then my problem is, what does it mean to despair? It doesn't happen often. But when it does happen, I get stuck into it, and I can't get off of it. So, how do I give up on my nature in order to ask to go above it?
M. Laitman: We say that these things have to go by naturally. That we constantly have to be in connection between us, and then these states will all connect and correct one another.
Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (26:35) When I can't be incorporated, does it mean that it's past incorporation?
M. Laitman: Yes. Well, go ahead.
Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (26:58) Now I felt that I can't get incorporated. I feel useless. I see how everyone is making efforts and it really pains me. And I want to somehow be helpful, like a tiny mouse who wants to add something with its tiny strength. So, now that friends are sitting here and working and I feel it, what can I add now of myself? Just a tiny drop?
M. Laitman: Only the desire to help. Just the desire to help.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:02) I'm asking about the Providence of “I’m the Lord,” It's written as the mother has mercy for the sons. Is my struggle to see the friend as a king's son? Does it draw a Providence of Mercy on him?
M. Laitman: I guess it does.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:39) It's written here that through the way you've given us to work in for her sake, we will come out of the body that's called Pharaoh. We don't have motivation. How can a person get motivated? From where does he get motivation? To emerge from the works of the body.
M. Laitman: Usually from the environment. The Creator gives that environment more of an illumination than what was there beforehand.
Student: How should we build the environment, so it influences us?
M. Laitman: Connection, connection. There's nothing else to do. That's it. We'll get there.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:16) Rav, he writes that the fact that the Creator can lift us above reason should cancel all the arguments.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: My question is, within reason, should a person organize for himself the reason why he wants to go above reason? Above nature?
M. Laitman: Why he wants to go above nature? He got a desire. That desire pushes him ahead. And then he wants to implement that desire.
Student: Yes, but along the way, do I have to constantly give myself the reason?
M. Laitman: The reason that you get the force of rejection from the Creator. You get a desire to ascend. There's nothing higher, or more important because this is what you actually get from the Creator.
Student: It's just that sometimes, well, not sometimes, but often, we feel very, very small compared to the level of the Creator. As if this ascent is something. So, I'm asking do I have to make sure I have a reason why I want to make this ascent? Should a person organize for himself an answer to this question?
M. Laitman: You want to come closer to the Creator. All in all, you want to climb that hill that the Creator is on.
Student: Okay, that's within reason. And I have to think about it. I can't just say, I want to climb up the hill.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (32:11) The article talked about above reason. I'll use an example. A friend gave us a command. We have to come to the morning lesson. We have to travel, drive this distance, and sit here physically at the table, at the desk. And then they made it even heavier. They said you also have to stay for the meal afterwards. Is this above reason? If I do this?
M. Laitman: You don't want to, but you do it because the friends are doing it.
Student: Because they commanded me. Because the friends gave me a command.
M. Laitman: Yes, so that is above reason.
Student: My question is, how can I not get confused that I do it above reason, and not because of shame, or being despised, etc.?
M. Laitman: Could be. Scrutinize it exactly.
Student: How do I check it?
M. Laitman: Well, look inside.
Student: If I look inside, I know that it's because of shame, not because of above reason. This is what I see.
M. Laitman: That's also good.
Student: And then what?
M. Laitman: Then what? Try and tell yourself how good it was if you knew how to do it above reason. Okay? How great would it be if I wouldn't want it, but I would receive it in above reason?
Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (34:24) According to the article, despair from the work is the key to attainment. But despair also stops us when we are within reason. What exactly should be the request from the Creator so he will help us act or work above nature?
M. Laitman: He advances us to such conditions that we enter and suddenly we discover that we’re already in above reason.
Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (35:09) How does one scrutinize correctly if the despair he has is real despair?
M. Laitman: I don't know. He has to check himself, what it means, the true clothing.
Student: Real despair?
M. Laitman: I don't know. He needs to scrutinize. That's it, thank you. Who else was there?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:41) I want to continue the question from the friend from Ashkelon about the meal. A few days ago, I think you said that I have to act as if I'm already in bestowal. So, I'm acting toward whom? Toward myself?
M. Laitman: Towards yourself? Yes.
Student: It seems a little odd. I'm acting toward myself when I'm in bestowal. I know the truth. Like you said, I know it's because of shame.
M. Laitman: You don't know anything. What do you know? You start acting, and then you discover that you're way over your head in it. That's it. So, go act.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (36:49) To continue this scrutiny, So, you said to the friend that if he comes to the lesson, he doesn't want to. He comes to the meal, he doesn't want to. This is called in above reason. And if he asks, and what if it's because of shame? You said he should look inside. I want to ask about the third line. What if it's because in the world to receive, he simply enjoys, not because he's learning and getting wiser, because he wants to come be with the friends. He feels it's important. The greatness of the place, of this society. He feels this whole thing, that his whole life was here. This really, the sublime purpose. Let's assume that he really yearns to come here. It's impossible not to be filled in the world to receive with pleasure from sitting, learning with the friends. Not because he's filled like a pig, but because it's so important. So, he is filled in this world to receive. It's not against his will. So, how is it above reason, if this is how I come to the lesson or to the meal?
M. Laitman: But when you go to the meal, you don't know the results yet.
Student: Meal, lesson, never mind. He comes here with the intention, but he feels pleasure from coming here. Not because I'm filling up myself with all kinds of knowledge, but because the greatness of the importance, the importance of the goal is burning in him. And when he does it, when he comes here and he's in it, he yearns for it all day. There is pleasure here. The will to receive gets some pleasure. So, is this leakage to the will to receive is okay? Until the end of correction, until everything becomes corrected. Or is there a correction here? To do that I have to not want to come here to hate it completely?
M. Laitman: No, you need to scrutinize every time why you really want to come.
Student: And if I scrutinize why I really want to come, and there's a matter of completeness, of some certain pleasure that you can't ignore. The friends are asking, suddenly I'm in like in a football game. I see how the hearts open. Every question is right on. And I'm saying, wow, it's so inspiring. I'm inspired. My heart goes out to the friends. I'm excited. So, how will it be above reason? How would I not go, wow, what a great society. How do I manage with it being above reason? How do I not fake like I'm suffering? Is the question clear?
M. Laitman: The question is clear. You keep going.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:07) This lesson, when we started talking about external, physical commandments it gave, it strengthened Pharaoh in me. Not only am I not succeeding in working in love of friends, which is called for her sake, now I have to perform physical commandments to which I totally resist, and them too I have to do for her sake, Lishma. I feel more and more distant from getting to a state of correction. Pharaoh is growing even stronger. I feel the enslavement of him even more. So, how is there even a chance of getting out of that state?
M. Laitman: Continue with prayer. All in all, it's not a bad state.
Student: This is called the pretty good state?
M. Laitman: Yes. There was someone else here.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:28) Rav says that all the forces are in the group. Should a person do something to get the strength for it, or is it enough to just be, and then he gets the strength?
M. Laitman: When he is with everybody, he gets the forces.
Student: He is simply present, without any work?
M. Laitman: There is no such thing without any. The environment influences.
Student: Yes, the environment influences, but a person?
M. Laitman: The environment influences a person, and a person surrenders towards the environment.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (42:17) In my material life, I make decisions. Can I make decisions above reason? Can I use it in my corporeal life?
M. Laitman: If it is worth it if it comes to you in such a way.
Student: So I make decisions within reason, but at the same time, can I use it spiritually?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:03) He says in the article that the closer they want to get to for her sake, the more they find how they are failing in the work. And every time we do something, we mainly see that we are not succeeding. I am asking because in the end he says, through despair, we get to faith above reason. Is there specific work we can do in order to increase the despair, ignore the negligence, and focus only on the importance?
M. Laitman: If you connect between you more, you will really speed up the process.
Student: Toward connection between us, we also find that we are negligent. I mean, we want to, and we always discover that we are lacking. So, I am asking about the lack of success. If there is something, we can do because it seems like this is what we have the most of because that is what we discover every time. Can we kind of make a certain discernment with our lack of success in order to come to the real approach?
M. Laitman: Yes, you can.
Student: What? Can you elaborate on that?
M. Laitman: Even more to strengthen that each one will hold on to his friend.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (44:58) I wanted to ask regarding shame. We feel shame from receiving. In bestowal, there is shame in reception. In reception, we learned about the four phases of the direct light, which is clear. In bestowal, what they asked in the beginning of the lesson, I gave to the friends, and he thought it wasn't 100%, but only 60%, I'm ashamed, but I'm dealing with it nicely. If the friend gives me, it's hard for me until I pay him back. So, it forces me through shame. With what shame are we working, and how do we work with shame from bestowal?
M. Laitman: We work with completely different types of shame. We don't even perform a calculation between them. I don't even know what to say about this.
Student: I wanted to ask let’s say, there is a situation where a person understands that everything, he's given is worthless. How can he prepare for it in advance, so he doesn't have to deal with it alone against the shame, but that he will get some help?
M. Laitman: If they do all these actions together, so also this action will be together. Otherwise, how?
Student: So, they need to somehow talk about it?
M. Laitman: You need to force each other that the actions will be more clear, more out, and more revealed.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (47:23) Let’s say, within reason, I didn't sleep enough, I can't go to the computer, sit in the lesson, above reason, a person can drive in a hundred kilometers and come to the lesson. We have to act out this bestowal, so above reason, I have no boundaries, I can do anything. So, how not to overdo it?
M. Laitman: Everything depends on the preparation. That's it.
Student: So, there is a boundary to the act of going above reason?
M. Laitman: A boundary of what?
Student: Of things I can do. Let's say, I wake up two hours earlier and I still feel okay, you decide, and where should I put the limit in such a game of love?
M. Laitman: When the body can't already, that's something else, but then you just can't, but in principle, there are no limits to this.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (49:09) It's written here, above reason, anything can be, except we need to overcome with faith that the Creator can help, above nature. What is the meaning of faith? What meaning are they talking about here?
M. Laitman: Faith.
Student: To believe that the Creator can help us go above nature?
M. Laitman: Yes. Okay. We're actually done. We are done with the lesson. What else do we have?
Reader: Now, we have a meal, the Saturday morning meal. And announcements. We will end with a song.
Song: (50:42)