The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) November 8, 2024
Part 2: Lesson on the Topic of “Parashat Lech Lecha
Reader: Just like every Friday, also today we're going to read selected sources from the portion of the week. The portion of the week is “Lech Lecha”. We're going to start with our first excerpt. It's from Genesis. “Go From Your Country and Your Kindred”. This is what the first heading will be. So the first portion of Lech Lecha will be on that heading.
Reader: (00:30) Lech Lecha. “Go From Your Country and Your Kindred” Genesis 12: 1-2.
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
2. Rabash. Notes 344 (1980) “Go Forth”
Reader: We're going to read number two. From Rabash.
Reading (00:56) When he wants to walk on the path of truth, he is told “Go forth from your land.” Eretz [land] comes from the word Ratzon [desire] (as it is written in Midrash Rabbah, “Why was she called Eretz? Because she Ratzta [wanted] to do her Maker’s will). In other words, a person must walk away from the previous desire, which was only to satisfy the will to receive, called Lo Lishma.“From your kindred, and from your father's house.” This pertains to one’s prior upbringing, which is called “going by rote.” This is regarded as “your kindred.” “To the land that I will show you” is the desire to bestow.However, he cannot obtain this desire because it is against nature. This is why it was said, “that I will show you,” that the Creator shows the person this land, meaning the desire to bestow. A person can assist the Creator in showing him the desire to bestow only with the desire, when he wants to be rewarded with such a desire. However, by himself, a person cannot emerge from his customs.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (2:46) To want such a desire to be able to bestow, is that not against nature?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: Why, it's also to bestow, or is it still in order to receive?
M. Laitman: No, it's a desire to bestow, as it is.
Student: So how could it be that a person would want something that's connected to bestowal, and it's by his ability?
M. Laitman: That's what's written. That's all. If we ask and conduct actions, and give exertion, so then we receive the desire that we didn't even have.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (3:46) Where he writes here, go to your land, and so forth. It's not that a person needs to do something, like to get up and make some kind of change on his behalf. The Creator commanded. It's almost like commands that are about to happen to you now?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Where is the participation of a person here, that's what I'm trying to understand?
M. Laitman: Seemingly in the portion.
Student: He says to the land that I will show you?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Meaning the Creator will show you everything. What does a person do here, if it's all an awakening from above?
M. Laitman: He exerts.
Student: In what?
M. Laitman: In order to go, in order to walk.
Student: But what is demanded from a person?
M. Laitman: That he wishes to see where to go. That he wishes to feel the forces in order to move forward. That all needs to be inside the person.
Student: The Creator commands him, awakens him, takes him out of his desire, shows him the next land, the next desire, and does everything in him. And a person on his behalf? It's not that he can decide, I'm not going, I am going. It's a command in the system?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So what is there for a person to do here? Can he resist this command?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: Wonderful. So this is what I'm trying to understand. What is wanted from a person? He's being commanded.
M. Laitman: That he will wish to move forward.
Student: What makes him want, what desire does he need to add to the desire of the Creator that controls him?
M. Laitman: I don’t know. I don’t know.
Through that in which he studies about the new land, he receives a certain attitude to that and asks that he will have no inheritance there.
Student: Where is a person’s participation? What is it expressed? What is he expecting? What is the person expecting here?
M. Laitman: He expects that he will have a place there, in the new land. That in which he incorporates in the vessels of bestowal.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (7:00) I hear in between the words that are being said here, that for each such command that he's told, a person within him needs to say, I agree.
M. Laitman:Yes.
Student: Meaning, go forth from your land, I agree. I agree. And then, he kind of remains without nothing from himself?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Meaning, he agrees to concede for more. More and more parts of his, until nothing remains for him? So what does he hold on to?
M. Laitman: The Creator.
Student: How does he build a Kli of relying on the Creator, trusting him and giving up everything if nothing remains for him?
M. Laitman: That he concedes everything that he had. So he starts seeing that he has an opportunity to hold on to what's called a new land.
Student: Meaning, out of agreeing to concede, a new Kli is supposed to develop somehow?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But he can't envision that this is about to happen?
M. Laitman: It could be that, no.
Student: Simply in the experience, in the feeling, it sounds like something scary?
M. Laitman: Nice. It really is the case. Yes.
Student: Meaning that there's a certain fear that he needs to accept upon himself?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, how does he hold on to this fear and not?
M. Laitman: He asks the Creator in return. Raising to him all the doubts, complaints, suspicions.
Student: Okay.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (9:49) If we can go a little deeper. Rabash begins in his explanation that when he wants to go on the path of truth, he's told, go forth. Meaning, as long as I don't want to go on the path of truth, I won't be told, go forth.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So it feels like the work in our Ten, it's like a beginning state where we start to develop this desire to go in this way, and also in the writings of the Kabbalists. When the Creator says to the land that I will show you, how does He show a person this land? How can I actually see and know that this is the correct direction?
M. Laitman: He gradually opens that for a person, showing him where He takes him. Therefore, it is upon us only to agree and to become stronger.
Student: Can this clothe through the Ten, where the friends show me certain behavior, etc.?
M. Laitman: Yes, for sure.
Student: And here I need the support of the friends to agree to this?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Because he ends in this excerpt where a person himself cannot emerge from his customs.
M. Laitman: Yes. How could it be that I exit my desire, if other than the desire I have nothing?
Student: So how really?
M. Laitman: I feel myself connected to my friends, and then that I can rely on them, and through them I bring myself out of this hole, from this land.
Student: Because if I can share, I feel like we're in this kind of state that is locked, where the friends can't advance without me, and I can't advance without the friends, and the Creator is bringing us to a certain state of prayer, that we have to raise this prayer together?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And just ask for forces?
M. Laitman: Very nice.
Reader: We're going to number three from Rabash.
Reading: (12:38) He was told “Go forth from your land,” meaning from your will to receive, “and from your homeland,” meaning the offspring that were born. “From your father’s land” means the reward that was born out of your father’s house, which is the labor that begets a reward of self-love. From all these he should depart.“To the land that I will show you.” That land means desire to bestow. On that land, meaning on the desire to bestow, on that land, that is, on the desire to bestow, he will be rewarded with the Creator revealing to him.“That I will show you” means that the Creator will reveal Himself to him. Conversely, on the will to receive there were restriction and concealment, and it became dark there and separated from the life of lives, which causes darkness.Therefore, I cannot be revealed to you on your desire, but only on the desire to bestow, called “equivalence of form.” At that time, the restriction and concealment are removed and the Creator is revealed to him.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:51) The process that a person, the Creator puts a person through is interesting, where at first he does a concealment and restriction about himself, and we come to a state where there's no revelation, and then if I understood correctly, he writes that whoever performs a restriction and concealment upon his will to receive, then the Creator removes the concealment he did. It's as if the Creator is doing a certain reinforcement to this game. Now the question is really, it's like we're missing this link from the beginning, because he's talking about very exalted matters that the person wants to advance on the path of truth. What's the truth? The person is the will to receive only. He doesn't have the quality of bestowl. It's like we're missing this link, and it connects to what the friend said earlier about the matter of joy, that when we receive this revelation in the love of friends and establish this vessel of love, the fact that on Friday all the friends come from all over the country, the hall is filled with no space left, and there's this thickness of joy. This joy brings us to want to incorporate in this desire to receive and advance. So I just wanted to emphasize there are also several questions about joy and sadness, so you can really, from all these states, advance. So I just wanted to share.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:33) He says that a moment a person doesn't use the vessels of reception, the Creator removes the concealment on the vessels of bestowal. Now the desire of the Creator is to bestow to the world. When He removes the concealment from this desire of to bestow to the world, there's this great pain, where thus far He related to me as a child, and from now on He's showing me all His concerns, and now all His concerns are dependent on my ability to contain His concern for the whole world. In the degrees of prophecy, He says that the degree of the Messiah is the degree that we'll be able to expand in all and come to the lowest place and be able to spread amongst everyone. We see that Baal HaSulam and the Rabash, it was restricted and now you as our Rav expand it to the whole world. My question, I want to know how I divide this concern of the Creator to the whole world and dilute it. My question is from this degree onwards, where the Creator is disclosing his concern to bestow to all the world his sorrow and inability and the responsibility that's upon me. From here on, is there another degree that is supposed to be revealed? Because seemingly you're telling us that from here on there's only the group, there's no more leader or someone that contains all this sorrow himself and filters it towards me. That's my question, what is this filter that makes me, the Creator, not be able to bestow because of me?
M. Laitman: I don’t know.
Student: You don't know the filter or the group is that which will, the filter can be revealed or it can come after now?
M. Laitman: It has to be now, the group.
Student: That's it there's no here?
M. Laitman: None.
Student: And this relation where a person discovers, like the friend said earlier, that he listened to the news, or like the friend spoke, that he feels that he can't do anything. How do I take this and aspire to him? How do I aspire to connect, let's say to the friend and to the friend that's responsible for the meals and for the content? How do I aspire like to a giant to connect and to envy that he cares more and can’t?
M. Laitman: From your actions.
Student: In every possible way try to connect with him?
M. Laitman: Yes, that's all.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:27) Nice lesson, but I have a few things here that it's hard for me to accept. Look, he says that I will show you, means that the Creator will show him, and because there was a concealment where it became dark and there was a separation from the life of lives, which causes darkness. We're going through this, you know, we're reading like parrots, but we're not noticing what's written, and that's what I feel, and that's what I'm going through, what I've been through. Meaning when a person enters darkness, what are you talking about? How do you come out of such darkness? You're in darkness where an abyss opens below your feet. What could save you altogether? And besides that, we're forgetting that actually the Creator is telling you, you have to come to such states, such depths, that you will cry out, that you'll come to such despair, that you will let go of the will to receive. Where is this being heard in the lesson? I don't hear a word about this. I mean the thing is that actually I feel?
M. Laitman: You don't hear the shouts that you have?
Student: What cries? I don't see anything. They're even laughing when they hear the lesson, they're drinking coffee. I don't feel like we're going in the right direction. Meaning from my life I have learned to come to such depths that you put your hands up and you say, wow, Creator, listen, I am in such a state that even if you come here now, I don't feel that you can take me out of this swamp. How can we come out of these states that he's writing here? Listen to what he's saying. He's talking about such darkness that until you invert this behavior of yours, there's no choice that I'll take you out of there. You'll remain there and you will be stuck there. How to come out of this darkness? He writes darkness as he writes here. We're going over this, we're passing this along. Look what he's saying. This darkness, we know that we have to come to the state of despair. Until we come to the state of despair, tell me, can we come to a state that's kind of like a different behavior, different feeling? How can you come out of such darkness?
M. Laitman: You can't.
Student: Oh, well, you've said it more than once. I remember many times in lessons that we have to reach this darkness. And not once we talked about this, all of us, how we have to come out of this darkness. So people are nice, and they're saying we're coming to a convention in two and a half months. I want to ask you, can you come to a convention without coming to such darkness? How?
M. Laitman: I don't know.
Student: But do we need to reach this darkness?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And do we need to be despaired from our lives?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: You're saying harsh things.
M. Laitman: Why is it hard? What do you have in your life that you're afraid of becoming despaired from it?
Student: Do you want me to tell you directly, or do you want me to make it nice?
M. Laitman: Don't say I know.
Student: So I'll tell you. When I open my eyes in the morning, I see despair around me. This one was killed, this one got a missile on his head, this one into his car. I see around, and I'm looking at myself. I also received a certain missile into my house, as if it's a terrible feeling. If on one hand it would be good, and I'd say, okay, well, we're making equivalence of form with the troubles around us. It's not so good at home that you can say to me that, oh, wow, equivalence of form with Him. You said to be equalized with the sorrows of others. How from all this? How can you come out of this? At least feel a little bit better towards outwards. I see that also inside that I'm feeling.
M. Laitman: The sorrows and troubles come from the surroundings.
Student: So how do we come out of this darkness? This darkness is horrible?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How can you? What advice do you have?
M. Laitman: It's impossible.
Student: What do you mean it's impossible? This is giving me such a?
M. Laitman: Until you reach a true prayer, you have no chance.
Student: How can you explain to me what a true prayer is? Because so many talk about this. What a true prayer is?
M. Laitman: That your deficiency will be directed precisely at the Creator.
Student: Oh, what is this thing? Where my prayer will be direct to the Creator. How can you explain to me? I think that we're doing great work here. We come every morning and there's this effort. I appreciate these people. I see they rise every morning. And this one says we don't have reward. That one says I didn't get a salary. First of all, I appreciate that they're coming and don't feel anything. It's the darkness as it is. And it holds the friends. But how can you go through such darkness and come out of it? Either you're telling me let's get into even greater darkness or even lower so that we'll be able to connect. Like he says here, without darkness you can't get anything. So my question is what? Do I have to get into more darkness? Or do I have to start rising from this darkness? Or is it not enough darkness? Or is it enough darkness?
M. Laitman: It's enough.
Student: It's enough darkness that we're feeling, and what are you suggesting for me to come out of it?
M. Laitman: Start rising.
Student: How do I rise? That's what I'm saying. I see it's horrible around me?
M. Laitman: No, look at how the child climbs.
Student: How?
M. Laitman: On his mother's dress.
Student: What does that mean? Give me a tip?
M. Laitman: The tip is that you need to connect with your friends and start climbing them. Rising through them.
Student: And that can take me out of the darkness?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What do you see? Is there a chance during this period?
M. Laitman: Yes. Everyone has a chance. Everyone.
Student: That's what we call my sons have defeated me? The Creator is playing this game and you have to defeat him?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Well, may the Creator help us.
M. Laitman: The Creator will help if you want it.
Student: I understood.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:57) What great gratitude. We're opening up everything here. He continues and writes that, therefore, I cannot be disclosed upon your desire, but upon the desire to bestow. And to the friend, it really feels like the desire to receive has no chance to receive anything in this world. There's simply no chance?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And we have to come to this state called the equivalent of the form. But for the desire to bestow called equivalence of the form, at that time the restriction is removed and the Creator is revealed to him?
M.Laitman: Yes.
Student: I feel like something, some upper reality needs to open up for us that we begin to live in, which is seemingly disconnected from this world.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: In that same line, it feels like it can truly be revealed from the connection between us as we learn?
M. Laitman: Only.
Student: How do we disconnect from this world and demand that connection?
M. Laitman: Emotionally. That we have nothing in this world. It only brings us death.
Student: With that, we continue to see and feel and go through states and incorporate with the public and all that's happening in the world and we can see to what extent it's truly darkness and disconnected from everything?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Can we use it in order to raise a prayer, to awaken a prayer?
M. Laitman: Yes. We can rise from darkness to light.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:15) I love the darkness because it's matter for a prayer, but I'm also afraid from the darkness. What is my night lamp?
M. Laitman: You sleep with a night lamp?
Student: No, but I used to, and my child has a night lamp, and he's not afraid. Because there's a little light. Where is it? Where's that drop of light?
M. Laitman: Between the friends. Only between the friends. In our world, you have no spark of light, nothing at all, but only with the friends.
Student: That's what I wanted to hear.
M. Laitman: Okay.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:53) Lech Lecha. Does the Creator tell this to everyone?
M. Laitman: Actually, yes.
Student: And to every person in the world?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And can we ask the Creator to do it now? Because it feels like the command has not come to everyone yet?
M. Laitman: Yes. We can discuss it and pray for that, ask the Creator to direct all of us to that same goal, to connection, yes.
Student: Because the world would look different if everybody would hear this command.
M. Laitman: That's right.
Student: So it's part of our work that we demand from the Creator that Lech Lecha is for every person in the world.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: For us, for our work, it feels like the Creator tells us every day Lech Lecha. What is the call now for us? What is the time now? What is the Creator asking now for us?
M. Laitman: We need, today, to try and connect between us, in order to find the common desire, a common goal, the Creator, and all of my friends, all of the friends, in one place. And to bring about that which the Creator awakens between us, that it will be felt in each and everyone's heart.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:20) Earlier, when you were asked, where is this drop of light? You said, between the friends, only between the friends, in our world, you don't have a spark of light, but only with the friends.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: If all this light is between the friends, why is it so hard to attain?
M. Laitman: It is because you need, like, two stones that make fire. You need two flints. You need to chafe them up against each other until they have sparks, and then from the sparks, you'll have something next to them.
Student: In this connection with friends, there's those that there's more resistance, and those with less. These big sparks, where are they?
M. Laitman: We don't know. We cannot identify those sources according to their ability to express sparks.
Student: What's the difference between the work a person does that's in coming closer to one person with the resistance from one to ten is two, and another friend let’s say to come closer to him, there's a resistance that's eight or nine or ten. What's the difference in the efforts that we do to connect to such a friend and to such a friend?
M. Laitman: We can see that in advance, according to our desire to connect with one or another. But that's all a lie.
Student: What's the meaning that it's a lie? If now, if we want to take it to the practical work in the Ten, in the work, you have a friend that it's easier for you to connect with, and there's another that it's harder. So, you usually go to the easy one. The question is, the big money is actually where it's more difficult to connect, and we should labor there and do more work. Right, you can't immediately jump to the harder things, so we have to start to the easier ones and then, but is that our work in the Ten? Constantly concentrate?
M. Laitman: Our work is in connection between us, and from the connection between us, we need to attain that common desire.
Student: What happens when I succeed to connect to a friend? How do I know that I succeeded to connect to a friend? According to what you said earlier, that's where the sparks of light exist.
M. Laitman: That you are with him as one man with one heart, and more than a warm connection with him, you need nothing.
Student: That's how it's felt, that besides this connection, we don't need anything.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So actually, if we look at this, like you presented it now, so in the connection between us here, first of all, there's the Ten, and there's this great society, so there's actually here a huge matter here, just like there's money on the ground, you just have to bend down and pick it up, it's like that.
M. Laitman: We need to attain that patiently, that you're willing to relinquish this or that, and more, only in order to be in this heartfelt connection with a friend, so that the Creator will want to be in your common heart.
Student: So if I were to summarize what you said, in the Ten, we need as much as possible, as much as a person is capable, to concede himself for the benefit of advancing towards friends, and in this nearing, we can start as much as possible and gradually reach a greater connection. But that's where the work is.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (39:25) I want to connect to the friend only in order to be close to him with my heart, or do I want to bestow to him?
M. Laitman: A heartfelt connection means that the heart includes all the emotions and states.
Student: And can I do this? Or in the efforts between us, we're supposed to discover that we don't have the strength to do this?
M. Laitman: They are supposed to reveal it, yes.
Student: And the correct result of our efforts to connect is the common deficiency for resolve? So this deficiency is considered the deficiency of the Ten, where everyone wants this ability to bestow to friends?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And how do we, what's the transition from here, from where we discover such a deficiency, to putting the Creator into this?
M. Laitman: Without the Creator, we cannot attain any connection between us.
Student: So where is the deficiency to bestow to Him?
M. Laitman: To the Creator?
Student: Yes.
M. Laitman: Out of connection between us, out of that in which each one wishes to bestow to others, all of us together who connect, and we wish to bestow upon the Creator.
Student: This sum of the Ten becomes that?
M. Laitman: That should become our inclination, our tendency to the Creator. Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:18) It says, go forth, and I will show you a new land, a new desire. Why not come? Come and see, it's not go and see. What's the difference? And why does he say it?
M. Laitman: The difference is that you need to go alone to this new land that the Creator will give you, that he will show you, and accordingly you will progress.
Student: What does it mean to go alone?
M. Laitman: Alone means without the Creator. Don't grab him by the hand.
Student: But it's without me knowing where the goal is, seemingly?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: In the darkness?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So alone doesn't mean without the friends? I'm alone. If I'm with friends, then there's something to hold on to, there's a hand to hold on to?
M. Laitman: If you have friends, then you will be able to hold on. If not, then you'll be able to feel on the way that you have no friends.