Morning Lesson June 11, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 1:
Rabash. Article No. 27, 1991. What Is, “If a Woman Inseminates First, She Delivers a Male Child,” in the Work?
1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, we learn that the upper light is in complete rest, meaning its direction is constant, that's how it wants to bestow to the created beings. And, we too, have to accept in that way that in truth the world we are in itself does not change; rather only we change our perception, our feeling, our thoughts, desires; all that belongs to the person, that's what's changing. Therefore, everything depends on the extent to which, and the direction to which we change because we exist in the light of Ein Sof, which means something that is constant, that constantly exists and it's only up to us to choose the direction towards which we change and evolve. This is actually what the whole wisdom of Kabbalah is teaching us, let's see, let's see what's going on here.
Reading Article (02:23) “Our sages said, “if a woman””
2. S. (39:01) He writes that a person asks for what he feels that pains him the most. The question is how do I feel suffering, pain from not having bestowal to such an extent that I can ask for it?
R. Yeah, the fact that I have no suffering, that's a fact. I don't receive a deficiency from the Creator but not asking for such a deficiency, do I have to reveal the deficiency for the deficiency?
S. And if I have a deficiency for a deficiency will that bring me suffering from not having vessels of bestowal?
R. Then probably yes.
S. Why?
R. To the extent that he lacks it.
S. But he doesn’t lack it.
R. But if he comes to such a deficiency then he lacks.
S. That’s a question. How do you come to such a lack that to such an extent it pains you?
R. Yeah, that's already a question. How do we achieve a deficiency that we essentially don't need to bestow? So, what do you want me to answer?
S. The question is from a person asking for bestowal to be lacking for him can he develop such a lack, to such an extent that it will really cause him suffering, that it will make him pray?
R. If he sees that he cannot reach the purpose of creation without it, reach something important without achieving vessels of bestowal, he doesn't even achieve the degree of his friends and so forth. Then probably this will bring him torments, he will be tormented and thus, he will demand and ask.
S. So what should be one's main attention to, in order to get closer to such suffering, for what he doesn't have or a lack for it, a deficiency for it or for how great and important it is?
R. How great and important this is is beyond him but that which he lacks is really the greatest, most important thing.
S. So what, a person should constantly be attentive to how much I don't miss bestowal and regret it?
R. Yes, probably.
S. But this way he's only focused on himself, concentrated on himself, I don't have, I don't have, I don't have?
R. Yes, so what do you do?
S. This is why I asked, if our work is actually to appreciate this form, this manner of bestowal?
R. We have to understand what are we truly lacking and are we able to achieve this deficiency or that we just have to pray? And to pray means that we will have a deficiency for a deficiency, how do we achieve that?
S. I guess if we're impressed by this being important and impressed by others.
R. Meaning if we look at others and see that for them this is important then by the nature of the will to receive I do want to also have that, right?
S. Right.
R. Even though I don't need it. So this is like a person being poked in one eye and he's asking for the other one to be poked, it's something like that. Even if I have no deficiency for it because we all come from the same single vessel which is Adam HaRishon which exists in each and every one I can receive that kind of desire too. I can work on it and receive some deficiency that exists in someone else and then I will ask more and more and more and accordingly I'll connect to such words and such people that will awaken me to acquire vessels of bestowal.
S. So to try to summarize what is our work here, to appreciate the society, to pray that we don't have a deficiency?
R. To be as close to the society as possible and it doesn't matter in what state I see the society, I have to be closer to the society, that's one. Two, that I need to try and receive from the society their principles, their goals and be bonded with it. That the environment, the society is like some boat that I take to reach the shore.
S. And the rule of the prayer when a person does this work of getting closer to the society?
R. The purpose?
S. The role of the prayer, the purpose of the prayer?
R. The purpose of the prayer is that the Creator bestows this deficiency to me and the Creator organizes that place in the boat for me which is the group and together with them I arrive at it. I can't arrive on my own, I have to do it with them so my request, my prayer already comes together with their prayers and we somehow get closer.
3. S. (46:51) When I prepare myself to a prayer I have to pay attention to the Giver? What attention should I give?
R. You need to be certain that the Giver wants to bestow and He has what to bestow, He has everything and all those things need to be as a preparation within you.
S. In other words when I turn to the Creator I have complete faith that everything I ask of Him, He will give me, if I really need it?
R. If you ask correctly then you will receive.
4. S. (47:41) Rabash makes a distinction between prayer and request. He says that in prayer there is power but there's also request. What's the difference between them?
R. Well, in the prayer there's prayer, meaning there's a request. The prayer in its foundation is built as a request. If we have no request, we'd have no deficiency, we wouldn’t pray and we wouldn't turn, that's the main part of prayer. More in prayer is also a part of praise and gratitude and all kinds of things by which we awaken ourselves to the request, the main thing is the request. We awaken ourselves by having to engage with the force that is merciful, caring, loving, truthful and so forth. So we have Who to turn to. Now the question is we basically understand and accept it from our teachers, the Kabbalists, that if we turn correctly then we’ll receive. Now the only question is what is the right plea? So we're told about a few conditions here: the ten, connection, a single goal, yearning, consistency and so forth. So we have to gradually collect them and raise them to the Creator and thus, see how much it influences and corrects us according to what we feel. Does He answer us or not, and how, and this is how we are essentially in dialogue with Him. That's how we advance. I begin to study Him, it's just like in our world, I study a person that I'm in contact with.
How to speak to Him, what to do to get what I want. And that's how we connect between us because it's essentially the most important thing and after that we turn to the Creator, that's it. We're already as a ten more or less, a group that is willing, each one of us is willing to give up on his ego in order to connect with the others because the Creator hears the whole. Meaning how people can give up on their ego in order to connect and turn to Him, the Creator. This is referred to as One receives one; the Creator is One and if we want to be close to Him we, too, should connect and be as one on behalf of the created being. So this is how we gradually come to scrutinies and increasingly powerful prayer. It’s in order to show us where are we still not diving in correctly and taking care of it correctly. So we receive these signs of descents, disappointments and so forth. That's because the upper light which is basically the Creator's force is showing us where we are and how we are at the farthest point from the Creator.
5. S. (52:42) It says if a person merits, if a person is rewarded then he wants to work in order to bestow?
R. For himself.
S. He's awakened from above and he sees that he didn't succeed, he gets a descent because he sees that he can't and then if he doesn't escape from the campaign he’s rewarded. Then he recovers and he comes to the real prayer. So he uses the term if a person is rewarded, he uses it twice.
R. What are you looking at me for?
S. So what, are we dependent on being rewarded, granted from above?
R. No, the reward is purity which means that a person receives some aid, some assistance from above, is being awakened by say an indirect awakening. The Creator can have all kinds of forces that evoke the person and awaken the person and then he recovers and becomes alive again.
S. In the end the deficiency has to come from the person and of course he's awakened from above but in the end the deficiency has to come from the person, that he chooses it, right?
R. This is the question, what does it mean a deficiency on his part? To begin with man does not have any correct deficiency, so bit by bit, he's working on receiving more and more and more deficiency from connection with the environment. Hence, specifically through the environment, though it's not that it exists in the environment; in the environment itself there's also nothing but in the relation of man towards the environment, through the correct attitude that he has towards the environment he extracts the force of bestowal.
S. In other words, to understand this idea that he’s rewarded from Above, it means that if he was refined to such a degree he would get work in that degree right? It's not like he's granted something or won the lottery?
R. No, no it's clear that the reward is only on the way as he receives more and more counsel, desires and discernments from above.
6. S. (55:45) What in the right relation from a person elicits from the environment the power of bestowal?
R. If he wants a force of bestowal and he understands he doesn't have that then he needs to turn to the Creator to receive that and he can do that only through the environment.
S. He writes when a person prepares himself for the prayer he must pay attention to the Giver and this is the hardest. How should a person prepare himself correctly for the prayer?
R. He writes about this in many places, one should try to get closer to the Creator. How? By being in desires or plans to bestow and with that he turns to the Creator and asks for help.
S. How to make the difficulty in the preparation into an easy preparation?
R. Speak to the friends and work a prayer together; that's all together what the created beings can do in a useful way.
7. S. (57:09) He gives an example of sustenance, meaning although he has no sustenance he should pray to come out of prison and he feels from the bottom of the heart that what pushes him away is the sustenance. So how does he pray to come out of prison?
R. He tries together with the friends. They talk about it, they scrutinize it. Is it really the deficiency or not so much.
S. Although he feels from the bottom of the heart that what pushes him away is what he doesn't have in the necessity?
R. I don't understand exactly the words you’re using.
S. He gives an example of sustenance. A person feels that something is missing in his necessity and this is what pushes him away from the Creator?
R. That he lacks necessities?
S. Yes. So in that state how can he pray to be freed from prison?
R. He can't, he needs necessities first.
S. So what is he praying for?
R. For necessities. This is what I'm saying, I don't understand your language.
8. S. (58:35) He gave an example, if a person is in prison even if he has a problem with necessity, getting out of prison is more important than necessity. This is what he was asking about.
R. Yes, if he has that.
S. If he feels that he's in prison and he also has a problem with necessity, he puts necessity aside. It's more important for him to get out of prison.
R. Yeah.
S. The question about the text. When he gives the example of the sustenance and the prison is it really a comparison between two necessities of a person? That something is more important for which he should pray?
R. Yes the latter. He has to choose the true necessity, yes.
9. S. (59:40) It is written that the Creator awakens the person first and then the person awakens to want to bestow because he wants to get the flavor, the taste of bestowal. But the Creator awakened all of us because he awakened the point in the heart and we came to the ten. I don't understand how from being together, are we all searching for taste and bestowal? Because he says the Creator has no vessels of reception. We want to get a taste in vessels of reception but he cannot give vessels of reception. At the end of the article he says you're asking for something that the Creator doesn't have, he doesn't have vessels of reception so he cannot give them to you. We all come with the desire to receive flavor in the beginning. How from all of us in the ten coming with a deficiency for flavor do we develop something new that the Creator doesn't have, if I'm explaining correctly. No?
R. Can someone explain?
M. He says at the end of the article when a person wants to get flavor in the work he wants to feel it in his vessels of reception but he can’t. The Creator even if he wants to give him he can’t because the Creator comes from bestowal. So what are you asking about this?
S. I'm asking, He awakened all of us first, He awakened the point in the heart, He awakened the deficiency to come here and we came. So how from the connection between us comes a new deficiency which is not what he writes at the end. How do we from the connection of everyone, from the deficiency to receive taste in bestowal can we have a new deficiency which He can't grant us?
R. That we connect.
S. Yes, if I connect another one and another one and another one then we have big deficiency to receive flavor in bestowal. But it's written in the end that He cannot give it.
R. So what does He give?
S. That's what I'm asking. How do we ask for something that He can give?
R. What can the Creator give, so? According to our prayer the Creator can give taste in bestowal. If we ask then He can give that. That we want to bestow not because it's tasty but because we will have an inclination for it.
10. S. (01:03:12) First of all the request comes from the will to receive and if it's not a clean request, pure, it can’t be answered. It’s hard to express it in words. You can yell out until tomorrow that you want bestowal but it's not real.
R. So how do you make it real? It’s to the extent that we are together and we yearn to be as one man with one heart; then our request becomes sharper and more aimed at the goal. That's it, it’s only through our work, through our connection.
11. S. (01:04:38) The flavor in reading prayers and saying them out loud, is it in order for the heart to hear and want?
R. Yes.
12. S. (01:04:57) In the article he talks about the difference between the prayer and the request. He says that there’s the prayer that our friends wrote which has the holy names and it has the power. Now it is clear from your words what is more important is the prayer and request that the ten does. I wanted to know what role do the prayers that were written by our sages have, how much should we dedicate to it?
R. We will get to that, in the meantime we are preparing ourselves for that. Later we will read prayers by Kabbalists and see how they were aimed on the path towards the goal.
13. S. (01:06:10) Can we say that the ten should dedicate itself absolutely to spirituality, to separate itself in this from all of humanity and constantly develop the right deficiency to reveal the Creator? Is this correct to say?
R. That’s true but what does it mean to disconnect themselves from everything? That is the question, how much we have to be together in a single connection in order to reach the goal.
14. S. (01:07:04) In the beginning of the lesson we read that we constantly emerge from the current moment to the future moment. Is it where we lose everything? What is special about the present moment which is called here and now, our willingness?
R. Yes, we have to work according to what we feel now because that is what we are receiving from the Creator for sure and for that we have to respond first.
15. S. (01:07:46) You said that we learn and study the Creator in our work, in our prayer, in our reactions. How do we do it? What does it mean to study the Creator, study his reactions?
R. Well that’s by going on the path together, going through all kinds of states. We better and better try to recognize the Creator who is facing us. It’s natural that this is so.
S. In regards to the prayer that the ten builds you talked about the prayer of the Kabbalists. Everyday we write a prayer as a ten. When we do it every day it becomes kind of automatic, routine. How do we renew the prayer, how do we add something new to it, how do we add some additional connection, maybe connection with the sages?
R. Everyday I need to focus on what I feel that comes to me from the Creator to a single sentence and in a single sentence I should respond to Him as well.
S. You mean one sentence for each prayer?
R. At least for each one.
16. S. (01:09:30) In your introduction to the lesson I heard that the upper light is in complete rest, its direction is fixed and it wants only to bestow upon the created beings. So how can we adhere to this eternal upper light and use everything we read about in the articles? How can we express it in the connection between us in the ten?
R. Well, basically in your reply you already gave the solution. We have to nullify ourselves and cling to the friends and from the adhesion with the friends we need to feel that we’re in a truly new vessel which is called ten. In it we can already depict to ourselves all of the actions that should become realized in the collective vessel. The most important for us is to reach the ten.
17. S. (01:10:54) It says in the article as an example they were giving after the Eighteen Prayer that a person says a prayer. He says my soul shall be as dust to all and then it says certainly a person does not want the Creator to grant his prayer. So what does this mean?
R. Be as dust meaning that I won't feel myself, my ego, my pride. That I’ll feel it as the lowliest thing in the world, that’s it. I have to take my will to receive down to the lowest degree. I can’t get rid of it but I ask the Creator to yearn to want to nullify it as much as possible. That I have to try to reach.
18. S. (01:12:30) After the Eighteen Prayer it says and my soul shall be as dust to all. Rabash writes, a person certainly doesn't want him to grant his wish. So he's asking what does it mean that the person doesn't want the Creator to grant his wish?
R. We can't demand the Creator, ask the Creator that our soul will be as dust. It’s the lowest, worst possible thing. We cannot ask for it but to try to reach that, that’s what we need to do. Otherwise we cannot measure any degree, any spiritual degree in the system.
19. S. (01:13:33) I heard in the beginning of the lesson that you said the upper light is in complete rest, fixed and everything depends on a person and how much he changes. In the article it says that a person asks the Creator and He doesn't want it because he sees that the person is not ready. So on the one hand it's an unchanging system of laws, on the other hand there’s a system of relationships here. So it doesn't work out. Which system do we need to build between us so it will be in a relationship with this rigid upper system of laws, so the Creator will want?
R. We have to build the system of connection between us “as one man in one heart,” more than that we don't need. By that we correct the shattering and we bring ourselves back to being as one man with one heart, meaning a single desire. And it is a complex desire and even though it is complex it is still inclined to connect to the Creator, that’s it.
20. S. (01:15:20) What is the difference in the deficiency that we want to see the friend’s merits and not the faults as opposed to a deficiency where we have to come to a state of love, where we have to see the deficiency and fill it, satisfy it?
R. If we start working on the deficiencies even though they appear to be not connected to one another later we discover that they are dependent on one another. Try to bring them closer, define the commonality for several deficiencies and you understand they come from one thing. We ultimately see the world through the will to receive and the questions are about how to bring us to see the world through the desire to bestow.
21. S. (01:16:43) In previous lessons I heard that we have to pray all day and be in constant dialogue with the Creator. How can we make this constant dialogue always come from the connection with the friends? I'm not with the friends all day or with the ten. How should this constant dialogue be expressed?
R. I imagine to myself that I’m in dialogue with the friends even though I don't see them and don't hear them but I have such thoughts that I’m connecting them in different ways. And by that I establish to myself some sort of an imaginary society, group and in that group I'm scrutinizing all kinds of incidents that can be between me and the society. That's how I advance in my scrutinies.
22. S. (01:18:04) in the beginning of the article it says that privilege is from the word refining, that our sages did not perform the commandments only to connect Israel. What is a refinement?
R. The refinement is where intentions to receive are gradually inverted to intentions in order to bestow.
S. And what is connecting the nation of Israel with the commandments?
R. The people of Israel are those groups that want to connect together. The people of Israel are the groups that want to connect together in order to receive and accept the laws of bestowal, to implement the laws of bestowal.
S. And why is he writing that refinement..what does refinement have to do with connection with commandments?
R. That by carrying out the laws of the spiritual nature, the upper nature which is varying aspects of bestowal, by that we get closer and closer to carrying out Torah and Mitzvot which are the laws of bestowal.
23. S. (01:19:36) By us speaking to one another and trying to compose a prayer can we come closer, enough to ask for a need to bestow?
R. Yes by talking to each other if you are aimed according to the Rabash article you are definitely getting closer to the right realization.
S. How can we prepare ourselves or aim ourselves correctly to reach such connection?
R. Try, simply try. Try reading an article and directing it in the ten.
24. S. (01:20:34) I heard you say that a person has to establish an imaginary society in him and advance in scrutiny in such a way. What does it mean to establish an imaginary society?
R. Imagine, I'm not sure how I said it. To imagine that he is in such an environment, I don't know. He needs to depict to himself that he is an environment that has to reach mutual bestowal between the friends and accordingly they can relate to the Creator. There cannot be a relation to the Creator unless as a result of the relationship between them and we really need to insist on this and understand that this is the law. Only to the extent of the connection between us can we connect to the upper force.
S. Does that mean to imagine the friends in the ten also when I'm not with them and have some scrutiny in the thought going on together?
R. It doesn't matter if you're with them physically or not.
S. Let's say when I scrutinize something in the physical meeting I hear what they're really saying and thinking and when I do it inside I imagine what they would answer me. So it's not as real?
R. I'm telling you one thing and you're answering me something else.
25. S. (01:22:34) There is a question that woke up in the ten. You were speaking about how a request to the Creator has to be that our soul will be as dust. What does it mean that the soul has to reach a degree of dust?
R. It means it has no rights. This is how I need to see myself correctly with respect to the purpose of correction. That we regrettably still have no rights and we need to try to connect between us and understand what more we need in order to be “as one man with one heart.” This is a correction.