The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Morning Lesson: June 2, 2026.
Reader: Dear friends, in the first part of the lesson we'll learn from a lesson from January 11th, 2002, based on the article, “Go Forth From Your Land,” from the writings of Rabash. We will read the article, in the Ten, we have 15 minutes.
Reading: (00:48) Go Forth from Your Land
Article No. 5, 1985
“Go forth from your land, and from your homeland, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
This is perplexing, for it is not according to the order of reality. This is so because first one comes out of one’s father’s house, then from one’s homeland, and then from one’s land. This is what the interpreters ask.
In the work, we should interpret that “your land” comes from the word Ratzon [desire] as our sages said about, “Let the earth put forth grass,” it was delighted to do its Maker’s will. Accordingly, “Go forth from your land” means from your desire, which is the desire with which one is created, called “desire to receive delight and pleasure,” which is regarded as self-love. This is why he was told to go out of self-love.
“From your homeland” means that father and offspring are cause and consequence, reason and result. This is so because the result comes from the drop in the father’s brain. By that, the result later emerges, as we explained in previous articles. In other words, the labor, when a person is going to work, is in order to receive reward. It turns out that the labor gives him reward. Were it not for the reward, he would not have made any effort. It therefore follows that a person keeps Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] in order to beget a son, which is called the reward.
Considering the reward, we’ve already said that there are two kinds of reward: 1. reward in this world; 2. reward in the next world.
It is written in The Zohar (“Introduction of the Book of Zohar,” item 190), “And those two, says the Holy Zohar are not the essence.” It is explained there in the Sulam [Ladder (commentary on The Zohar)], that it is because they were built on a foundation of self-love, called “desire to receive in order to receive.”
It therefore follows that if a person exerts in Torah and Mitzvot in order to receive reward for his will to receive, then both the father, meaning the labor, and the offspring, which was born out of that labor, and which is called “reward,” were all on the basis of self-love. This means that the drop in the father’s brain, called “labor,” from the beginning of his work his thought was only of self-love. Naturally the offspring that was born, meaning the reward he expects to receive, is also a reward of self-love.
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.
“And I will make you a great nation.” In Midrash Raba (Chapter 39) “Rabbi Levi said, ‘When Abraham our father was walking in Aram Naharaim and saw them reckless and eating and drinking, he said, ‘I wish that I will not have a portion in this land.’ When he came to Sulam Tzor, and saw them weeding at the time of weeding, and hoeing at the time of hoeing, he said, ‘I wish that I might have a portion in this land.’ The Creator told him, ‘To your descendants I have given this land.’’”
To understand his words in the work, we should interpret that Eretz [land] means Ratzon [desire]. Be-Aram [in Aram] has the letters of Avram. When Abraham walked from Naharaim—Naharaim comes from the word Nahor [illuminated]—then he saw that there are people who desire only the lights. This is called “eating and drinking,” when the aim is for the reward. This is why he said “that I will not have a portion in this land,” meaning I will not have a portion in this desire, when the intention is only on the reward, and the work is not appreciated, only the reward is appreciated. This is why he said, “I will not have a portion in this desire.”
“When he came to Sulam Tzor,” Tzor comes from the word Tzar [narrow], meaning that they felt Tzarut [narrowness] in the work. He saw that they were in the Sulam [ladder], which is as a ladder set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven. “He saw them weeding at the time of weeding, and hoeing at the time of hoeing,” meaning that all their thoughts were about man’s work, and they were focusing their intentions on the correctness of their work. That is, the Kelim [vessels] where the abundance should come should be proper. And they did not pay attention to the fruits, which is the reward. Instead, they were looking at the order of the work, and this is the meaning of what he said, that they were weeding at the time of weeding, and hoeing at the time of hoeing.
Then he said, “I wish I will have a part in this land,” in this desire, which is aiming for the work to be proper. And the reward, which is the fruits, is not their business. It was said about this, “The concealed things are to the Lord our God.” In other words, the reward is the Creator’s business, and we need not look at the reward, but in any situation we are in, we are satisfied that we have been privileged with having any contact with the work. This, to him, is a great privilege. And only the revealed things are to us, which is the actions.
By this we should interpret, “and I will make you a great nation.” Gadlut [adulthood/greatness] is precisely the action. Among those who work, greatness is only work above reason. Only there they feel its importance, but they do not take into account the lights that they receive through their work, since the lights have to do with “the concealed things are to the Lord our God.” This is the work of the Creator—who does what He wants.
They did not ask of Him to give them because this was not their purpose. They have only one purpose: to bring contentment to the Creator without any reward, for all the reward is in that they have the privilege of serving the King. They do not care what service they do for the King, whether an important role or an unimportant role, since all they think of is how they can delight the King.
This means that, for example, not many people want to take upon themselves unimportant roles. They immediately jump on them because here they can delight the King, since not many people want it.
The lesson is that not many people want to go in the direction of work above reason, as everyone thinks it is regarded as a lowly work and regard such work as exile. Therefore, those who want to look at that—at their ability to delight the King—want specifically that role. This work of theirs is called, “Raising the Shechina [Divinity] from the dust.” This work is also called “Shechina in Exile,” and this is the only work they want. But work in order to receive lights and abundance from above is something many people want.
By that, we should interpret what our sages said (Shabbat 127), “Rav Yehuda said, ‘Rav said, ‘Welcoming guests is greater than welcoming the face of the Shechina, as it is written, ‘And he said, ‘My lord, if you have found favor with me, please do not pass.’’’ RASHI interprets, please do not pass, and he left Him alone and went to greet the guests.’” We can say that he learned this matter from what the Creator had told him, “And I will make you a great nation,” meaning that the main thing is the act and not the lights. That is, the essence of their work is love of others, and he has no consideration of himself.
Therefore, although welcoming the Shechina certainly delights the body more than work on love of others, here, after the Creator had told him, “And I will make you a great nation,” it means that you will have the greatness primarily in actions. Therefore, here he had a place where he could show himself, meaning that he would be certain that he does not want to look at the profits, as it is a great profit to be rewarded with welcoming the Shechina. Still, he chose the act, meaning he did not intend for any reward for his work, but the main thing was the work.
Here he found the place of scrutiny—for this is certainly a great thing to relinquish the reward and receive the reward of work. Normally, it is to the contrary: one labors in order to receive reward. But he did the opposite—giving the reward in order to receive labor. He learned this from what the Creator had told him, “I will make you a great nation,” as was said, that the greatness is primarily the action.
Reader: Let's go to a lesson from a lesson from January 11, 2002.
M. Laitman: (16:25) We read an article from Rabash “Come Forth From Your Land,” and this is basically our whole matter, to exit our desire each time to a higher, greater desire. The truth is the Creator created a will to receive, and there's nothing to do about that. If we can go from one desire to another desire then we're moving from a smaller desire to a greater desire.
The matter is that to not become a greater egoist each time, which is also good, it's also development, but the matter is to have the ability to use the desire, to rule the desire to get to the goal, which is that this desire will serve as a means. Our egoism, our will to receive, is a very special vessel, very precious, by which we can achieve everything, reach the degree of the Creator. If we want to use it in order to achieve that that usage includes two corrections.
First correction is that each time a person receives a will to receive, he makes a restriction over it. Restriction means that the will to receive doesn't govern me and dictate to me what to do, but rather I dictate to it what to do. But there's a question here. If we're all made of this will to receive, then how could it be that I will now plan my actions and deeds in such a way that I will govern the will to receive? So who am I to plan and to rule? I'm the same will to receive, so as much as I try to chase my own tail like a dog, nothing's gonna help.
I can't exit myself. Meaning one who is completely immersed in the desire to receive is not even aware that even if he wants to govern himself- he still exists in the same will to receive. And so that's what happens to the person. The person can't see and understand and feel that he exists inside his will to receive, because inside the desire there's all kinds of facets and aspects of it. There's different aspects of giving and receiving.
And it seems to us that we're made of various qualities, opposite qualities, and not just a will to receive, and that's it. If you tell a person, you're just a beast and that you only want to receive, he's offended. But there are special people who reached such a degree of development that they receive what we call a point in the heart, which is something that no longer belongs to the will to receive. Something that enters from a different nature, from a higher nature. And then a person begins to feel unpleasantness because he has two kinds of nature in him now, and he can't compare them or equalize them or connect them together, it can't be connected.
So he doesn't know what to do about that until he comes to the development of that point by the wisdom of Kabbalah. There's no other means that can develop a new desire that comes from another world. And because the wisdom of Kabbalah also belongs to the spiritual world, meaning the study and discussion of matters related to the spiritual world brings the person upper light, surrounding light.
It's not felt, it's a special force which develops the point in the heart until the person begins to have a truly greater point in the heart, along with the will to receive, which also grows egoistically, and both of them are always in contrast to each other. A person feels that there's a struggle within him, and that he's always about to explode and he doesn't know how to determine any step forward in life. Where is he? What am I? Who determines anything? He begins to feel himself more and more broken to pieces. And it's a long path until he goes through each and every discernment of his soul. Before that, he can't move to another degree. That higher degree is where he's already shown the true spiritual world. And then he can truly control himself with a second nature, a spiritual nature. And also in the spiritual world, in order to develop, “go forth from your land,” each time from one desire to a greater desire, he also encounters clashes. But the clashes he encounters in the spiritual world are between Klipa and Kedusha, shell and holiness.
M. Laitman: So, before the barrier, before he moved to the spiritual world, he had inside his will to receive, inside his egoism, a desire to receive and a desire to bestow, seemingly to bestow. It was still to take advantage of others in order to enjoy. It's still a will to receive, but it is covered in such a way that it gives something in order to receive. That's before the barrier. After the barrier, there's also a will to receive and a will to bestow, where the will to receive belongs to the Klipa and the will to bestow belongs to the Kedusha. What is the Klipa saying? The Klipa, the shell, in the spiritual world, it lures the person with something else. It's not like in this world. In this world, the will to receive tempts him with all kinds of pleasures of this world: food, rest, sex, money, honor, knowledge, control.
In the spiritual world, the shell brings the person pleasure from godliness. It brings him, like the Rav writes here, reward. You'll do this, you'll have that reward. You'll do that, you'll have that reward. And a person has to discard and degrade the reward each time, meaning achieve such a degree, such a correction, that he disregards the reward. The reward is unimportant to him. And the reward could be revelation of the Shechina, meaning eternity, godliness, wholeness. These are things we don't even understand, that level of fulfillment and pleasure. The Klipa brings everything to the person. The Creator deliberately gives it this kind of forces. And a person needs to undergo the same correction as he did before the barrier, restriction so that he doesn't surrender to what the shell brings him. And after the restriction, when he prefers, when he corrects himself, it doesn't just come all of a sudden. I want this or I want that. It's work where a person each time makes efforts with different means through study and dissemination and something else from which he acquires the upper force that helps him overcome what the Klipa brings him, to not want it. To overcome doesn't mean that I want it and I reject it. If I want it and I reject it, it means I'm replacing one thing for another thing. Rather, a person comes to a point where he feels aversion from it. And then instead of all those revelations, he prefers adhesion. Meaning the compatibility, the similarity to the Creator is what he prefers, which is in fact the labor itself and not the reward. And thus each time from land to land, from desire to desire, he rises until he acquires the entire land of holiness. Meaning that all his desire becomes corrected in all the Kli the Creator created, in all the will to receive, the upper light will rule. And that's essentially our path. And everyone must reach the highest point where he fulfills his entire soul with the upper light. But as I'm right, one who doesn't make it in one life cycle, does it in several. But certainly it's possible to do it in one life cycle. It all depends on the person. If he was given an opportunity, the possibility, the rest depends on him. Any transition from one desire to another happens only by man's labor. Go forth from your land, meaning the Creator pushes, but actually man has to go forward. Any questions? Well, probably I didn't speak clearly.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:05) I understood that the whole thing is about we're receiving the desire from the upper influence. So now if I have desire for money, honor, desire, then this will be desire for something spiritual. And the state, when a person is in a state where he doesn't see the desire, it's as if he has no attainment.
M. Laitman: What can that be? How can it? When a person begins his path, we are very crude. We're not sensitive in our feelings. Look, I don't feel how thousands of or billions of atoms are now, you know, poking my skin. I don't feel it. There's a certain threshold of sensitivity, right? Same with our soul. The soul is built from the tiniest force that we can't even imagine and all the way to the greatest power of desire.
And we begin to feel in our consciousness from a certain specific threshold. Say, like in this world, a person is born and if he felt in his desire from zero to the height of, to the level of being born, he wouldn't be able to bear it. So I have to hold everyone else's desires, their suffering, their desires, to always be in connection with them. So we feel ourselves, because of that, under some guard. We feel ourselves egoistic. We're locked in our shell. And to the extent that we can develop, we can begin to feel more discernment. So what happens in our development?
Let's say that I have now started studying, and during the study I sit with the book, and I have this inner point- the point in the heart that pushes me to find something in life. Like he also writes in the Introduction to TES, what is the point in life If a person has that question. Then if he doesn't have that question, there's nothing to talk about, then it's not Kabbalah. But if he has that question, “What is the point in life? What am I living for?” And it's a question that almost everyone feels, at least at a young age, and then they suppress it. So if a person carries this question, and he studies, and he awakens the upper force on him. He doesn't feel that. We also don't feel the light that works on us now, as we engage in these writings.
Now, when I read this portion, “Go Forth From Your Land,” what Rabash wrote, this article, from the degree that he wrote it, the degree that he was on while he was writing it, I draw surrounding light upon myself, and it begins to develop my spiritual desire, the point in the heart. So from this point, something bigger begins to happen, greater and greater, but I don't feel it. I'll feel it maybe after two, three, four months, that there's something new. And then again, I keep studying, in another month or two months maybe, maybe a year, where I don't feel almost any changes, and all of a sudden, boom, there's something new.
So in our feelings, we don't feel every change, every moment, even though they happen. They happen, these changes within us all the time. But until the counter changes the number, I didn't see that it was working, right? So the number changed, or some other indication, and that shows that the wheels were spinning all the time. So the same thing with us. That's why we need a lot of patience.
There's a reason why he writes that the measure of patience needs to be in a person, in this engagement, and then he succeeds. If not, he doesn't, because the sensitivity to these tiny wheels that spin happens, it comes later, after a long time, a person becomes more sensitive, and then he goes deeper into his will to receive and begins to see it. So what does it mean? We say that the righteous have no rest, to the point that every moment they feel ups and downs, every second, every few seconds. And what I feel once a week, once a month, maybe a few good days come to me, then a few bad days. I have a bad month, then maybe one or two good days. And a person who works in advanced degrees, to him, the threshold of sensitivity is so special that he begins to feel changes every moment. To him, it's like breathing, in and out. It's up and down, it's very short and precise. And on top of any small discernment he already makes a correction. He has some labor. So we need to remember this. We need to remember that this is how it happens.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:21) When a person develops and becomes more sensitive, then he can also be offended easily by nonsense. How to not get offended?
M. Laitman: There's no choice. What we're talking about it's just talk, it's just words, it's not going to help. What we're studying, the external material we're studying, also doesn't help that much. It only helps us make, good in the labor. What really works and changes things is the inner desire. How to not be offended, how to guard oneself from different changes on the pathway?
Student: And not to be harmed by nonsense. From the right things, yes, to respond, but there are things that can be indirectly, but a person meets them.
M. Laitman: You mean temptations?
Student: No, he responds incorrectly.
M. Laitman: (35:16) It's not going to help. I could give you a thousand different pieces of advice here, but it's not going to help. Because a person develops, and if he needs to go through something, he will go through it. Even when people come and ask for some advice, and I give them some advice, it doesn't work. The truth is, it doesn't work. Just to calm the person down for now, for a while, because if he has to undergo some discernments, he'll undergo them anyway.
The things we go through, we cannot escape them. If you won't collect these things on your path, you will later lack spiritual sensation. In all of these dents and stabs that you feel on the way, if you don't go through it, you'll have no vessel. And every person is hit differently, and feels pressures and inner turbulences differently. Everyone feels it differently, but it's unavoidable. We're only saying that the track is what you have to go through. And on the way, you can change your attitude to what you're going through.
Meaning, ultimately you'll feel differently. But getting hit for a moment, you will. But you could just get hit for a moment, and then immediately correct your attitude to that, and keep going. If you're in a group, in the study, in the process, and you know strongly embedded on the track, on the journey. But if you're on your own, and your framework and schedule is not so organized, and then how you're hit, and how much it delays you in a certain state that could take weeks or months until that state comes to such a ripening that it will push you forward until you have no choice, and you have to advance from suffering.
So, the path of light or the path of suffering, is actually the same path. It's just how much you stand still after every blow, and you don't know what to do. That's what it's about. Either you receive the blow, and you know that now you can use it, or you receive the blow, and you don't know what to do. Like a donkey that doesn't know what to do. So, you get hit again, and again, until the mind comes naturally to indicate that you have to move. But there's no reason to think that I can change something about the points I have to go through on the way. No. You know, people think you can change your destiny. No, you can't.
What we can, in the worst times, in the worst possible times, how you relate to every state, to each and every state, to any revelation, if you relate to it purposefully, then it brings you to the goal. And then the feeling you have is different, and the speed at which you go through states is different.
So, everything depends on the labor. The labor increases your speed, and then you go on your track from below upwards, both fast and pleasantly. Because the soul descended from some place, from the soul of Adam HaRishon, each and every soul descended to this world, and in the track that it goes down in the same track it has to rise, and so all those points of descent, it's like all those points of ascent. So you need these vessels in each and every degree, you need to collect them and make corrections over them. And that's how you rise higher. So you can't change the path of how it descended and then rise in a different path, in a different ladder. You have to rise in the exactly same track. Just how you relate to this ascent and how much you participate and understand what you're doing, that changes your entire path, only that. The person doesn't change any point in his life besides the relation to that. But that attitude, that relation, gives you a completely different reality.
You see, you could be right now in a certain state, a bad state, everything sucks, doesn't know what, I don't know what. But then you're told some good, beautiful words here and there. And what changed? Nothing. But suddenly you feel the world is different. Did anything change besides your relation to that? No. So only changing the attitude to the process and the speed that you can truly reach the end of correction while in this life.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:58) How can a person maintain his initial impression, inspiration, not to calm down, not to fall into a rut, not go to your exercises with the laziness?
M. Laitman: How can a person maintain his initial inspiration? You see when new people come they're so interested, they want to advance and after a few months, you see, the air leaves their wheels, and bit by bit he starts falling asleep, he can no longer come. He just filled himself up already to the point that a lot of people leave, also. Again.
The way he writes in the “Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” the Creator places a man's hand on the good fortune and says: “Take it.”
Meaning, He takes your hand by giving you a desire. And He aims you and He says: Here, take it and go. It's truly from within in the form of forces and desires, that's how we're organized, and that's how it happens. And a person comes and sits down and he has a good and correct desire by saying, come take it. He says, you should take it. But to take it, it's already a problem. To take it means to work, not when He gives you a desire, but rather that you take it and you advance by yourself.
How can you advance without a desire? Without a desire, we can't move. We don't want to move. If we're all made out of the will to receive, how can you move without a will to receive? If I don't want something right now, how will I do it? I'm not the Creator that can create a desire in me. And how do I know which desire I need in me in every moment? In other words, we need to figure out how to create in us a new desire, that it will be in us each time, will be conceived in us a new desire.
In truth, all those desires are on the same path that I have to go through from above. When do I feel I do not have a desire? I feel I do not have a desire in a state where I still don't feel my degree. Let's say, right now I'm in a certain state. It's a dark state. I don't want anything, nothing. I behave according to habit. Both in here in the Kabbalah, also in my regular life. I come here to study, I go to work. Everything is just going around and around. Where can I improve things here? Only if I'm obligated from the outside. If I don't have a desire, there has to be someone on the outside that will obligate me. If I can obligate myself, then I already have a desire. We're talking about the state where you have nothing. I can't even move my finger, right? So there has to be a group, an external framework. He writes about it in the article called “Freedom.” The external force can be either can be either the Creator or other created beings, the society, these two forces can operate on me and that's it.
If my desire weakens, let's say, take one of the friends here, someone who was on fire to advance, if I have a desire that's less than his, if I have a desire less than what I had before and I was like, doesn't matter night or day, I was on fire, right? Why did I lose it? The desire came down because somehow I did not arrange for myself an external group, an external force that will obligate me because I could not choose anything, rather only that I caused the society to influence me. I can't do any action on myself like that, only something outside of me. That's why the pressure from the society, organization, order, framework, a certain daily schedule that I established that I'm obligated to live up to, that I'm being awakened. That's really the only means other than the Creator that can bring me a new force.
If not the society, then somehow by myself I might hear something. I open a book and gradually comes to. I come to a lesson, and it's enough that comes a certain change from the Creator, from nature. I put in enough labor and suffering and thought so that the wheel will turn and a new number will snap into place, right? Meaning a new degree. But in truth, the acceleration can be only through the environment.
M. Laitman: (46:32) He writes about it, meaning we are the will to receive and we cannot change it and we cannot do anything by ourselves. No corrections. All the corrections that we learn about and with our yearning for the next degree, that invites a reforming light, the surrounding light. Where do I take the yearning to reach a new degree? Only from the society. If I don't have it, if the Creator didn't give it to me, if I don't have it from before, then it's society. And even if I have it from before, each time this yearning just gets turned off each time. Why?
Because if I add labor, I receive the yearning from before, desire from before, the labor that I put in brings me to a new desire. So each time, in place of the previous desire that I had, let's say 10 grams, now I have a desire of 20 grams. On 20 grams, I don't see that I have a surrounding light. I have some response from spirituality. I begin to see darkness. So why do we enter these dark states? Because a new desire comes to us, a greater desire. If I wanted to drink a cup of tea and I was given a cup of tea, great, I got what I wanted. But if I wanted to drink a glass of wine and I got a glass of water, what's that about? I was in a beautiful state. I felt myself full. I learned, I understood, I felt good in life. I had some certain impression, future would illuminate. Later, this state I begin to forget about it. Why? What happened? Why should it pass? It passes because my will to receive grows. There's no such thing as just forgetfulness. If something changes, it's a sign that man's inner vessels have changed. What do we have inside us other than the will to receive? My will to receive grows, then that portion that grew, I feel it as empty. The filling was filling in the previous desire, and the desire that now was added is empty. And I begin to feel this new state gradually passing, passing, the desire growing, growing. What should I do with this new desire? There's no fulfillment. I need to go and attain fulfillment. Each time I need to labor. There was someone there.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (49:07) If a person does develop slowly, if he follows the Klipot, the shells, after the shells.
M. Laitman: A person who follows the shells is like a person in this world. He develops according to his desire, let's say, only according to his desire. Just see the kind of blows you can get. Do whatever you want in society. All my life, I just wanted to walk around in my pajamas, why do I need clothes? I feel something tasty, I take it from the little shop. I go through a state, I wish to cross the road, so I just walk, I don't care, they want to drive, I want to walk. Can you exist this way? What does it mean to do according to the desire? You always don't follow your original desire, you always make calculations according to external environmental conditions, how much are you able to use the desire? And typically, to such an extent that if you do make the calculation, you'll see that you never actually carry out your desire.
The way you were educated, and what they bring you now, and advertising, and everything, you'll see it's, none of it is yours. Meaning, we're like a computer, but all the programs were put in from the outside, and we work according to these programs. So, to come out of these programs, to view them from the side as it were - that it is, none of it is mine. And is truly my original programming, that I should work accordingly, according to my vessel, and to fulfill it? This is called recognition of evil. It's the first stage, a person reveals it to himself, but then you understand that there's no way to live according to the desire, truly.
I have a house, a family, kids, see already how much I, how much I'm obligated. Which of those desires are mine? Nothing is mine, and if a person advances and reveals even more, he simply sees inside of his desires, the upper force that is there, that is twisting him around.
So it turns out that a person comes to a state where he sees that he doesn't change anything, he's got nothing in life, neither in thought, nor in the desire, or the action that he does by himself. Meaning, whatever you see on me, I'm not doing it. The I, if I could distinguish my I from what you imagine as my image, my character, the I is something completely, it's like a point from the outside. A person, as a result of the study can gradually come out. You come to such a state, he can come out of himself and see himself as a desire, a machine working according to orders coming from above, and that there's nothing independent about it.
M. Laitman: (52:59) And then, it begins to, like in the article, You Hand Me From Behind, from before, there's a beautiful article in the book “Sages fruit. But then they gave you this point that allows you to see yourself from the outside. Now you can begin to think, who do you truly wish to be, whose program do you want to be running? Then you come to a state where you, you begin to justify the Creator, and you begin to justify godliness. That everything that He did, all that He did before, and what He's doing now, and will do later on. The problem is that now, you're advancing together with Him. The same thought. Meaning, every action, every thought, every desire that now floats inside of you, you feel that it's coming from Him, and you wish to realize it together with Him. This is the degree of the righteous, that looks at his body, at his soul, like at a vessel, and he wishes to apply the same actions on it, as the Creator.
And in truth, when a person then discovers that he has completely no free choice, again, we come to the same point, that everything depends on our attitude to what we're doing, what we're thinking, who we are. It's all about the attitude.
We cannot change reality by itself, ever, only our attitude. When we discover the purpose of creation, all reality appears different.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (55:11) What we learn is that we basically need to develop the desire for spirituality, to increase it. But there's a matter that each time a desire comes to have money, or honor, or sex, or something. So spontaneously there's an attempt, at least for me, to take it down. Meaning, instead of raising spirituality, we try to take down the desire. And this means that even what we study, there's a spontaneous action that happens.
M. Laitman: Spiritual?
Student: No, it's an attempt to take down the corporeal desires, and then relatively to feel that… Of course, what we're talking about is raising the desire for spirituality, not taking down the corporeal desire. So how do you overcome this spontaneity?
M. Laitman: Each and every person is going through a process of development. Some native person in a jungle, it doesn't matter. Each one develops and each one must reach the purpose of creation, which is equivalence with the Creator. And each and every one possesses changing desires. A person that receives a point in the heart and feels that he is about to develop purposefully towards the entrance to spirituality, he doesn't know what is spirituality, but something above this world, something greater, eternal, all these definitions, right? Something like that.
Then he begins to see what is happening with him. On the one hand, I want spirituality - I sit here, I study and everything - suddenly I get a new thought. If the new thought about corporeality, let's say sex, money, honor, it doesn't matter, if this thought comes in such a way that I don't even feel that it's here, then it begins to control me, I suddenly want something else. It comes from within and I gradually forget about it and I enter it. It could be a gradual thing, it could be a sudden thing, without awareness, I'm already working according to the new desire, a different desire. It happens to all people who develop from desire to desire, through all the generations, all the incarnations, thousands of years. A soul comes and develops. In place of one desire, another desire, and that's how it is, and a person just goes unaware from one to another, and now I want money, now - honor, now no. Together with it I also want to rest, and together with this, something else, and so on and so forth.
Now, when I come to a state, through the study of Kabbalah, where I develop my point in the heart, that it begins to be more than a point, but actually have a volume, that's a point from above, not from this world. Because if I develop it, I begin to hold on to the other nature as well.
So I begin to see myself from within it, and I begin to see how desires rise in me, certain desires compared to other desires, and I can perhaps arrange them this way, maybe that way, I acquire two points in me, a desire to receive, and corresponding to it, this point, from the desire to bestow up above, the point in the heart.
Then I begin to see that I can somehow distinguish between the desires, and maybe I can also govern together with them. This they show this to a person, and then they begin to have a problem, how do we educate a person right. How to walk, either to walk,to go rather in such a way that when a new desire comes, let's say, for a certain lust you will destroy it completely. You get into fasting and torment and mortification and everything not to feel, to bind yourself. I don't know. Somehow you destroy it. If you destroy these lusts, these desires for advancement, for honor, for money, for sex, for food, for all kinds of things, if you destroy them, then we also don't need great spiritual forces.
M. Laitman: (01:00:11) So the spiritual forces calm down and you simply destroy yourself, and you are in a desire called inanimate. But this is the education of the collective, the masses. Masses who cannot grow in a special way toward the Creator, to grow spiritually, then they say any lust, any desire, anything that comes to you, walk this way and just break it down, destroy it. And then, these are the masses. The less they use their mind, it's more respectable, right?
If you do commandments, Mitzvot, if you do all kinds of things without thinking, you are held in high regard, you're called more orthodox, more of a believer. This is the path of the collective. The path of the individual is opposite to the path of the collective, the majority, right?
The path of the individual is that you get all these desires, don't destroy them, leave them, they're great, now you're blowing up, you want to swallow the whole world, money, honor, women, food, rest, everything you want, right? Don't destroy it, rather, on top of that, grow the point of the heart, that it will be greater than all these desires, you have an opportunity.
In spite of these desires, you will invest yourself in the group, in the study, in the friends and all the means that can help you grow the point of the heart and you grew it to such a state where even those disturbances stop appearing to you as disturbances. Spirituality is more important to you compared to spirituality, so you also grow. So you didn't destroy yourself, you climbed up a degree. “He who is greater than his friend, his inclination or his desire is greater,” so you truly become a greater vessel.
That's the difference between the education of the collective and the education of the individual. That's why Kabbalah is something very subtle and you can't quite go to the whole world with it and say, “come, everyone.” That's how it's organized, that those who come are gradually, they get, pick up experience and they figure out if it's for them, yes, if it's not for them, they go back out to the collective education. On the outside, either he wants or he doesn't want. , he enters the collective form of education, even through advertising, radio, TV, even if he's not religious, I'm not talking about religion, I'm talking about secular people, nevertheless, it's something else. We need to develop a true desire, true desire to be wiser, to be, to want more. You can do it only by developing a desire for spirituality. So all your senses, all your abilities, beastly as well, they grow, even in the intellect. You begin to see all those professors, right, you understand, even in the intellect, the person who studies, begin to see them as flies, even because he doesn't subjugate himself for the world to receive, rather the other way around, he builds on top of it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:03:29) What do you do if I don't have desires at all? You don't want, I don't want anything to advance?
M. Laitman: If a person wants nothing, it's a period. In the beginning you want, I remember you sat next to me all the time, also your friend, I remember he was next to me, he would pour me a glass of water, now that's about, he's now sitting a little farther out, I'm afraid he will, you know, he will find an even farther spot. So, what, so what's happening? There's no desire, that's what I said. When you have a desire, only this desire that grew now from the left, it doesn't shine, nothing shines to him from above. You need, you need to use your exertion in order to, for something to illuminate for it, so we change our states only by changing our desire. If you don't feel an attraction to anything, it doesn't mean that you have no desire. It means that you don't think you can fill your desire with something. Desire is empty. It grew.
You always had a great desire. You always raise a person, you never bring him down. You never bring him down. All of humanity is advancing, so are you. So you had a previous desire, and the surrounding light would shine, and you would yearn for the goal, and now the desire grew by 30-40%. This 30-40%, the surrounding light, does not shine for it any longer. Why? You have to fill it. You have to put in the exertion, and invite additional surrounding light, until you cross the barrier, and then the surrounding light will clothe in you as inner light. But you have to labor, and exert now, on top of these 30% that are now empty so another force will come to you from above, another desire.
When the surrounding light will shine to you from up ahead, you'll feel another ascent, as we call it. You'll feel a desire for Him. Why do I say 30% or 40% are in you as a new desire, and not more? Because you're still here. If they would give you, let's say, 80% new desire, and all you had left from the previous light was 20%, from the surrounding light, with 80% new desire, that's empty, you'd have stayed at home, to sleep.
It all depends on how much the surrounding light shines, for how much desire, and how much it does not. That's the whole thing about importance. So our work is how to increase, to grow the surrounding light so it will shine on me with greater force. It will correct me, and it will pull me forward.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:06:37) Is this attitude that you're talking about, within this attitude, do I have choice?
M. Laitman: The only choice that you have, the only choice you have is that you were given a desire, a beastly desire. They introduced the point in the heart into the beastly desire, so the surrounding light shines to the point in the heart from afar, and then you yearn. You yearn for the place from which this light is shining, and it's shining to you from the root of your soul, which is somewhere there in the end of correction.
The surrounding light shines from this complete cell, to this state where you're in right now, that's screwed up and empty. It shines from such a distance, but this means that you received an awakening from above. Besides that, you will not have any more awakening from above. You got it, that's it. We're done. One time, this is the meaning that the Creator places a person's hand on the good fortune, and says, “take it.” All the rest, you have to attain by yourself.
Now, how can I attain it by myself? So it talks about it in the article “Freedom,” but only through the society to demand from the society to provide me an awakening. That’s it. He explains it in the article of “Freedom,” you should learn it. I studied with the women, with the women group as well. Our women, the members of the group. Also, anyone who's new here, and is married, and his wife wants to come to the lesson, it's possible. It's today from 10 to 12, every Friday. So, if the man comes here, a woman can also come. So, he explains there, in the article “Freedom”, that you don't have neither in your desires, nor in your thoughts, or your perception, and your intellect.There's nothing that you yourself can determine. Everything they give you from the outside, they fill from the outside. They left only one thing for you, and that is to find a society, and influence the society, so that it will influence you. The society here, it's not important. It can be greater, or smaller. You need to obligate the society to bring you a desire for spirituality. That's the only thing that we seemingly have to do.
Other than that, nothing. He goes over each and every detail in a person and you shouldn't even think about things where you seemingly change something. It appears to you that you're changing and you're choosing and nothing.
Meaning, now the way you sit, your body chose this posture because right now it's the most convenient and comfortable out of all the circumstances around you. That's it. Next moment something changes in the atmosphere, and the body, or you will change your posture. That's how it is in molecules, atoms, and even the most exalted things in the person. Nothing comes to him from within him that he determines, and decides, and chooses. The only choice out of all of nature, the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking in us, including the highest thoughts, doesn't matter. The only choice is a society that can advance me beyond this world.
Meaning within the framework of this world, we're all beasts and there's no… you shouldn't think about changing anything. The fact that you change your attitude to spirituality, that you want to go out there, of course that changing changes the process of your world in this world. But to change or to control something of this process in this world, nothing. You went through your life to this state. How much, you know, how long have you been alive after all? You can see. Have you done anything? You went through something? Which of the days you actually planned, right?
So we have to understand. It's a very subtle point. It always eludes people. You have to determine. Guys, a few friends, doesn't have to be a great society, maybe five, ten, doesn't matter. You should demand. You must awaken me.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:11:55) If, let's say, I think about the study, or the group and...
M. Laitman: That's not important. If you're thinking about that same point of choice.
Student: And in the middle of the work…
M. Laitman: The desire operates towards that point that you can activate. You understand? Meaning you have one button and the millions that look like buttons here, and behind them there's nothing. You press, you know, it's like a... You have a panel with millions of buttons, and none of those buttons... When you press either one of those, nothing will happen. There's nothing connected to it behind, except for that one button. Until a person discovers that, many years go by. Many years. When you see this, he writes about this in all kinds of articles, Baal HaSulam, but... in truth, it doesn't penetrate. It doesn't penetrate our... More? I'm not listening to the veterans here.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:13:12) Let's say I work. Is there a meaning whether I'm working with another partner or working alone? Does it have meaning or not? Is it even connected?
M. Laitman: Like it or not, a person receives a bunch of thoughts from outside. That's why when Baal HaSulam came into Israel, he brought leather processing machines. He thought he would open like a little factory for leather processing in Jerusalem, and take some people that want to study Kabbalah, and they'll work together, and study some together, like this, before the work, in the middle, and after. And that's how it will be, like such a group.
Certainly, where a person is whether he wants or not, he catches viruses from the place. All kinds of thoughts, desires, foreign desires. And the choice of a society, on any degree, on every level, is the natural choice that operates. It's not a law that works only to a certain measure in spirituality. But if he enters another society, it doesn't work. Of course it does.
But the question is to what extent you build the connection with some society, other society or not? If, when Rabash was young, in his—in the 30s, he was paving roads, he was working there. It's not like today where, you know, everyone gives out money to everyone. So everyone worked. No one got some kind of support from the government. The British mandate, they didn't give anything to anyone. So everyone worked. There were a few seminaries where people worked there, but people worked. And he worked in paving roads from Jerusalem to Hebron.
So, there were many doctors, professors, they all worked paving roads. So he says, they start the work when the dawn comes up, and they go to—and they keep, finish work when the sun sets, it's dark, you can't work. That's called a work day. After that, you eat, and they start the discussions, he says, until midnight, politics and all kinds of things, and he would go to sleep. So they looked at him. How are you disparaging our society? Look, he's a philosopher, he's a doctor, he's some professor of something.
Back then, there was the immigration from Germany, all the intellectuals, we are talking, we're discussing things. He says, so he told them, you're little children, like in kindergarten. That's how I look at you, and I have nothing to say with you. Kind of, he saw that, they saw that it's not from… and he used to go to sleep at 6 p.m. They finished work, he'd go right to sleep. He would get the key from the kitchen, for the kitchen person in charge of the kitchen. What on the kitchen? It was along the road, there were little huts that they would put while they're working there. And why did he give them the key? So instead of the guy, the supervisor there, he could warm the water for the tea for the morning. So you can get up at 3 a.m., enter the kitchen, boil the water, and start studying. He had a little candle, back then also, you had to see how much fuel you have for your little lantern. And that's how he would do it. So you can always escape one society into another society. Or even if you're in a society, but if you kind of despise it or disparage it, then you're not incorporated in it. It all depends on how you brainwash yourself, in short.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:17:52) I'm saying the opposite. How can I use it? If I work with a partner, so it can give me forces during the day, because I have to work anyway. So maybe if I…or does it contradict?
M. Laitman: I don't quite understand. What does the common work help you come to Kabbalah? I don't understand.
Student: It gives me more forces.
M. Laitman: What, it gives you importance for Kabbalah?
Student: No, in a regular work.
M. Laitman: Oh, that's something else. That's also good. I mean, you're choosing for importance. I come to work. Now I start to study Kabbalah. Spirituality is only important to me. Usually people start disregarding the rest things, their family, their work, and everything else, because spirituality illuminates nothing else. It illuminates, let it go to hell, right? That's what happens. It's not good, but that period can be very harsh in the beginning. There's nothing you can do about it. A person is altogether a person, a human being. There's people that lose their jobs in many other cases. We have to seek other things also in the work, meaning all kinds of supporters, all kinds of reinforcements that will help you stay in it and persist. That is needed. But only for a specific need that I must work, that if I don't work, I don't know how to sustain myself. If I don't sustain myself, I won't be able to study Kabbalah, meaning also through that whole chain of causes, I connect that to the goal as well, to the spiritual goal. Then everything enters into that same culture.
Certainly, that's worthwhile. Yes, it's very important. What you said right now is a very important point. Meaning, a person who just is lit up on spirituality, there must be someone who supports and sustains him in corporeality as well. Yes, it's a must.
Rabash truly looked over the people not to leave their jobs and to really be meticulous in everything he told about his life, and how he worked in construction, and as a cobbler, he ripped Mezuzot, and in the IRS, whatever he worked, even though how hard it was for him in these workplaces, he used to fall asleep because to work as a clerk in the IRS, he would fall asleep and erase what he wrote there, and then he had to write again, you know, because at night he would study. So the best was to work in the construction. You bend the iron there and think about what you want to think.
Also, you emerge with physical efforts so your body also gets renewed, not just the nerves. He also told our guys that whoever doesn't work physically should do some sport. We need to work with our body. Otherwise, it's very hard to sustain this work. Okay, more questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:21:22) Our organization, how is it conducted? Do you talk to politicians that come here? It's not simple that all people's desires are... People are only concerned with themselves.
M. Laitman: So what you're saying, you're here for the first time, right? Okay, I came here. I'm looking. At 3 a.m., they're sitting here. Today, I think, more than 100. How many? Did anyone count? 130, 140 men. It's nevertheless a quantity. And we're talking about some one thing, and the rest of the things, they're talking about it's not belonging, and not associated with anything, and there are ways, not politics, not the state, not the nation, not education, not the land of Israel, or the people of Israel. How will we advance and grasp the goal and be in peace, and rest, and all the rest can go away, right? Is that how it looks? Wonderful, so I understood him. Is there an answer? Well, will someone answer? I'll tell you. Just like we spoke, we are not capable of doing anything. We need to see this. You can't. Right now, you can just believe me or not, or believe what he writes here. We are not capable of doing anything in this life, in this world, in all the cases of what are happening here, besides one thing, to choose the society. Again, I'm returning to that same seemingly nonsensical thing. Choose a society that will obligate me to long and yearn to the Creator, and to the extent in which I equalize with the Creator and take and acquire His forces. What does it mean, degrees in spirituality? Degrees in spirituality are the measure of my equivalence with the Creator. From the first degree, all the ladder of degrees is the extent in which I'm similar to the Creator. What's similar? In power, in understanding, in control, in providence, in everything. If, as a result of our actions, from the study, the group, and everything, we acquire the forces of the Creator, first of all, we start to receive His mindset. What does that mean, that mindset? That we start seeing our world from above, where from above down to our world come down all kinds of cases that appear to us as cases, and phenomenons, and thoughts.
Everything comes from above. Our world is just a consequence. And I can actually, when I can rise and see our world from above, then I have the intellect of how to do it. I have the force, the power how to do this. And I actually have the ability to perform corrections in this world. Why is it called corrections? Because I receive the force according to the intellect. And in our world, if I develop not paying attention to Kabbalah or anything, then I receive force without the intellect. It's not a must.
You see, there's nuclear bombs to those who don't even know people who are in our world. You see what's happening? It's only in our world. In spirituality, there's no such thing. In spirituality, to the extent in which you grow more, you first receive the mind, the intellect, the understanding, the vision of the whole system with the causes and the consequences. And then, when you see it and it's integrated in you, you can't do bad, because it already becomes your nature. Then you're given accordingly the forces. And then you can really do deeds that are called corrections. But in our world, what do we have to go to the politicians? They ask me, why don't you go to politics? What do I have to do there? Who should I argue with and about what? They're not doing anything, also. And we know, we see, whoever you vote for, you'll see. You'll see the next day, he's like a puppet. He does not what he did before for sure. If you want, he's been that way. It's not like... And that's how it is with each and every one. Our world is not a world of actions. It's a world of consequences. So, what should I go into them and be a puppet like them? There's no need for it. It's a nice question, but nothing a person wants to change. There's no means for it in this world. It's impossible to find here. It's the lowest, the bottom world. If you rise from here, you'll be able to control it. If you're here, you're in this nature, you're being controlled. Okay? Well, let's study.
Reader: Let's share impressions from the lesson, and what from it can we take to implement in the future.
Reader: Let’s go to the next part, and sing a song first.
Song: (01:33:43)