Morning Lesson December 15, 2020 Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves possibility for errors 

Hanukkah - Selected Excerpts from the Sources, #17

29. R. We are in a special time, our world as the result of the spiritual world also contains various signs, symbols of how spirituality is renewed and how there are spiritual corrections in our work. So what we go through in our world is kind of a symbol and indication of our corrections in the spiritual world. So there are good days and special times that we need to know how to go through them and especially states that we go through during the year which symbolize our progress in building the soul. In resurrecting Kelim, reviving the Kli called the soul of Adam HaRishon, the broken soul that we attract and re-establish rebuild as a single Kli. In that there is a whole process we have to go through from the most broken state to the most complete state, corrected state. That is essentially the whole process that we have to go through and according to that process on this way of correction there is the beginning of the correction the recognition of the shattering which is referred to as Rosh Hashanah and also Yom Kippur the day of atonement, that is the recognition of the shattering then the beginning of the correction which is called Sukkot when we begin to draw the surrounding lights and then after a series of correction there is another stop along the way called Hanukkah where we raise ourselves to the level of Binah, the level of bestowal and after that there is some part of the path that comes Purim and so on. In the corporeal world it is just symbols that we look into but the existence of these states is spiritual. If we rise to complete faith above reason it is called Hanukkah, if we rise from this complete faith from bestowing in order to bestow to receiving in order to bestow this is called Purim, we are studying the states that we all will have to go through each and every one. So we the created beings are the results of the shattering of the single soul, the Kli of Adam HaRishon and that is the correction that we have to go through this is why we are called Bnei Adam, the children of Adam HaRishon because we are pieces of that soul. The state of Hanukkah the level of Bina bestowing to in order to bestow there are many stories that we learn about it to teach us what is this degree Bina where we only light the candle and we don't use the candle.  That is a reference to bestowing in order to bestow that we don't actually accept and receive something into the desire. So Baal HaSulam and Rabash also explain a few more details about that state that we need to approach and enter and may we enter it soon.

Excerpt 17 Reader (04:52 - 05:13)

30. R. We are talking about a state that we used to have in the past it's not about the candles that we have today, there was a cup with oil in it and a wick which is kind of a thread made of cloth let's say and the cloth would be lit and the oil would go up through the cloth and it would then be lit. So that the oil itself can't be lit, the wick itself can't be lit but when the wick absorbs the oil and then the oil begins to vaporize through the cloth as it rises up through the cloth that form is actually the right way in which we can produce the light. There are a lot of details here because this is the result of the spiritual state so we can learn a lot from the oil, the wick and the fire representing the spiritual Kli that already is corrected and is Illuminating. We will see that. He says we have three conditions that have to be met.

Reader continues “The candle which is the vessel in which....” (07:00 - 09:17)

31. R. In other words how can we light the light, meaning reveal the Creator, how can we? When we have in this way where we work that we have three contradictory things well, the cup with the oil, the wick and the light we can't put them together because the oil doesn't burn, the wick itself doesn't burn and the fire can't catch the oil or the wick unless the wick is contradictory to the oil and it absorbs oil. Meaning we don't want to receive spiritual work but because we have no choice we do approach it so we absorb from it against our will this is how it happens. That we are included with the spiritual things that are in order to bestow and make concessions, that we have to be friends with one another and with all of those things that we engage in even though we don't want to, it turns out that we absorb the oil in the wick. Whether you want to or not you see another lesson, another congress, another meeting of friends, time and time again we absorb the oil and the wick although we don't like this work, I don't want the work. I am thinking about the future state and I want to discover everything, to know everything, to control everything, the end of correction, call it what you want. I don't want any end and I don't want any correction. I want to feel good, to understand, to feel, to know, just as my ego, my will to receive wants and imagines for now I have no choice. Now I'm doing these things that I by which. like a wick to absorb the oil. I am included with what is in all of the material that is the wisdom of Kabbalah brings me even though I don't understand it or feel it but that is how it works. Until I absorb enough material inside of me then I am in a state with the friends and everyone and all of those conditions and then it starts to burn, it lights up. Then I begin to see in this process it's real results, by this I am revealing the Creator who is in the created beings and brings them the new spiritual state, faith above reason which is called Hanukkah. A parking midway.

S. There is an oppositeness between the wick and the oil. The wick are the contradictions in lack of understanding and the conduct of the Creator in the world and benevolence and the oil is awakening sweetness and pleasantness, how do we live between those two polarities?

R. We are in those contradictions, our whole lives we are in contradictions if we weren't, we wouldn't distinguish between light and darkness, between the Creator and the created beings we wouldn't notice anything we won't even notice ourselves, we would be like animals. Animals and beasts don't even feel themselves, who they are or what they are, they don't have a feeling of themselves, we people also can't feel and discern who we are. Psychology deals with it but what can you do to know who the man is, you have to rise to a higher level than the man and from there study man. Like I am with little kids I can monitor them, supervise them and study them to help them because I am above them. How can I be above a person in this world only if I rise to a spiritual level this is why you see what the world is like, where no one knows what is going on although there are as many people as there are each one has his own opinion changing it because he doesn't realize what is right or what is wrong but because it awakens in him that's where he goes. So we have to try to reach the higher level and from there to learn. So what is the ten, what is the oil jar, what is the oil, what is the wick that he speaks about very clearly here is all the wrong things that is in spiritual word that I don't want, that I am against that I have resistance to the oil and then precisely by resisting, I put together this composition of oil and then I reach the light. Then I begin to understand what is going here in front of me. 

Excerpt 18 Reader (16:18 - 18:37)

32. R. In simpler words there are a lot of words here and it's written well indeed, but to the extent that a person can relinquish himself before connection in a group that wants to advance towards the purpose of creation, to the extent that he can annul himself he makes of himself and of the group together the wick, the string that absorbs the oil. The Petillah, comes from the word Pesulah, faulty, because no one wants it in the end but because by threading the strings together until it becomes a thick thread because one can't absorb the oil only when 10 threads that are strong together, tied together they create coarseness between them and into this coarseness they can suck in the oil and the oil goes up the wick and then you can light up the oil at the end, at the very edge of the wick and then it will burn. This is how it works. So there is work here where we don't want to connect, we don't want to make of ourselves a wick. There is work here that we don't want to do, but when we connect together we agree to be included with the oil, so that the oil will go up in us, because through one thread it won't go up. It has to be the threads that are connected between them. if we could see that the oil goes up, not in the thread itself, but rather in the space between the threads because there is always a space between them. Otherwise it doesn't go up, in each thread and then between the threads there is a little bit of air, and there the oil goes up specifically between the threads, in the connection between the friends. Then all of the friends who want to be connected although they are very different no one wants to absorb the oil. But when they are together against their will, the oil begins to go up in between them. The Creator then lights the candle. The Creator then lights the candle, he begins to become revealed.

Excerpt 19 Reader (21:43 - 23:53)

33. S. Is the role of the wick and the waste of barn & winery the same in the work?

R. Yes of course we have that from Sukkot where we had to be clean from it, yes.

34. S. (24:29) This excerpt is a bit difficult for me. We say the Creator is doing good that does good and we keep repeating it so why is it always contradicting man's mind, the wick is the thing that's driving us nuts, why do we need this concealment?

R. Without the concealment you wouldn't be discovering the Creator with just as without the darkness you don't reveal the light, you the created being has to consist of two phenomena together, darkness and light and the advantage of the light is from within the darkness.

S. He is saying in 19 as the flame is tied to the wick of the foreign thought this is only to observe, he wants to put a flaw in his work why always against?

R. Because if you don't have bad you don't know what good is, it is impossible to have one without the other, you're like a little baby wanting to feel only good, so with babies we really do make certain that they feel only good but a person who wants to develop intellectually in his feelings and in discernments, do you understand, discernments, they are always in between this and that and that and this. So we have to teach through all what the contradictory states that the advantage of the light is out of the darkness.

S. Are there people who feel good on the path?

R. You have to feel good from having scrutinizing between bad and good. This is how you feel good not only the good because there is no such thing in reality as only good. Anyone who says something that it is good already says that it is different from something else which is bad.

S. He says it lets him understand that he has nothing to do in the work that if you're not working above your brains you're wasting your time.

R. Correct, if you don't obtain faith above reason you remain a beast.

S. How can I be above the path and feel that everything is good, not what I am attaining?

R. If you agree with the path and every state along the way that you go through you don't decide that is good or bad according to the situation itself, according to how you feel about it but according to the goal. Then you are constantly connected to the good.

S. So how do I hold on to the path if I don't feel good?

R. Do you have a group or not?

S. Here I do, # 19

R. I look at this group here you should have been at the top already, I guess you're not included in them enough.

S. What do you mean I'm not integrating with them enough?

R. Well look at those strong people next to you.

S. What is the help that they can give me that I don't feel?

R. A feeling of confidence, confidence that they are with you on the path and the main thing is that you need to reinforce one another because the more you are connected the oil, the evil inclination goes up the wick and becomes a good inclination, because it goes through the resistance, the friction, the Petillah is false and when you want to absorb the evil inclination and turn it into good this is called the oil going up the wick.

S. So the wick is in the ten, it exists there?

R. It exists but the relationship between them has to be scrutinized by you. Good luck to you.

35. S. (28:44) Very interesting and emotional excerpts there is such a feeling that the flame can't compare to the middle line somehow is that right?

R. Let's say it is but I don't want to get into what is not written, normally we go into what is written.

36. S. (29:19) You said the whole world has to go through this state called Hanukkah and we have to teach a state called faith above reason how does that happen?

R. No, we don't need to do that, not the whole world has to go through it the way we do, the whole world will get it ready made, how did children get what we prepare and work for them and we received it from our parents. Likewise we are included from generation to generation, we only need to correct ourselves and prepare the infrastructure for anyone who wants to come after us. But they will advance in a different way, in a way that we are the Rosh and they are the Guf of the Partzuf of the soul so they won't have to do the same scrutiny they will only have to be included in us.

37. S. (30:36) You explained the matter of the Kli the oil and the wick and during your explanation I had the question what does it mean to light the candle and you said the Creator lights it. What do you do when the candle is ignited?

R. The sign that the candle is burning is that we can perform an act of bestowal above reason.

38. S. (31:11) If you could explain what is the sentence of the suffering and the reward?

R. According to the deficiency so we can reveal the feeling, not more and not less both in terms of quality and quantity but mainly in terms of quality the more I have in the deficiency in the vessel to that extent I can distinguish discernment and feel what the feeling is in it.

39. S. (32:08) What does a person say “the good that does good” on the shattered state itself or on giving the possibility to put together the whole state?

R. We should say good that does good over everything from the perspective of the Creator there is no difference in all of these states and actions, in the operations they are all good. This is how a person should try to see them that he is really in the good who does good.

40. S. (32:45) What is in the exertion that without it we can't attain spirituality?

R. Exertion gives you the quota, the amount, the Kli, the deficiency, and in that deficiency you discover the goal. Without the exertion, the labor you won't be able to do anything, it is not something that you can buy with money or something in particular given from a side. It is only according to your efforts as Baal HaSulam writes nothing is obtained except through labor, nothing is obtained except through labor. Nothing spiritual is attained except through labor and the amount of labor determines the amount of filling, the amount of nearing and adhesion to the Creator. In our world you see it all so according to what you can reveal flavors in the food according to your hunger, according to your appetite.

41. S. (34:01) I didn't really understand what the oil is?

R. Why does he write?  

S. Let's go to # 17. Again in the end of excerpt 17 he says the clarity and awakening that bring one to crave Torah in the work and to feel the sweetness and the pleasantness of Torah in the work of oil.

R. I will put it differently to the evil inclination that resists the Creator when we resist the evil inclination and overcome it then we absorb through the evil inclination, through the wick we absorb something from the Creator and by that would light up the candle. The oil is light of Hochma but you can't receive it, you can't process and digest it because it is just oil, you can't use it in any way. You are working on it with your flaws, with your wick so when you do it you absorb the light of Hochma despite your nature through a great exertion as if you are sucking in to the wick and then you can light it. We will see it, a little more and a little more and we will discover it.

42. S. (36:06) Work is still working in the wick by tying us together?

R. Yes when we object to the false when we resist them this is our work, when we unite among us and turn ourselves into a wick which is ready to absorb the oil which enters, which is the light up Ein Sof that enters us a little bit and then lights up and starts to burn. 

S. What is the flame that burns between us?

R. It's not between us it is in the connection between us it is the upper force, it is the Creator of whose qualities we can absorb between us and then he is actually the light itself and then He is revealed. The revelation of the Creator between us is called creating the right connection between us which is called wick, we rise above our flaws and then we get above the flaws above wick is a resemblance to the Creator and this is what burns to what extent we can reveal the upper light in the world, to light it up to the extent that we are connected among us and in our connection that we can be similar to the Creator. To that extent the oil goes up the wick and we can light up the light, in truth the light of the candle is lit up by the Creator, we will learn that there are many discernments here, more internal ones. It is beautiful.

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