Morning Lesson December 17, 2021, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam - Shamati 172. The Matter of Preventions and Delays
1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, you see that we have gathered here in a special way today in one of the places in our center in Petach Tikvah, in our world center and the hopefully when we change our place, we change our luck and when we change our luck, we change our place. By such movements and gatherings we can still achieve the changes that will shake up our vessel and progress it further and further to the correction. I truly hope for this. This is why we said that we will make some changes at least here in our center and even though we have to keep all the restrictions. I was also told to stay in my place, in the meantime not to join any group that is gathered here one floor below where I am and to do it like this. Hopefully, we will learn from this something and see what happens. We are very cautious from the negative influences that might happen. I do not think it will happen but still we should also look at the world through this condition as it says the doctor has the right to heal and accordingly, we have to progress according to our external connection as well. Even though the internal connection the more we can work on it we will and everything else is in the hands of the Creator, it is also very interesting and is joyful that after the lesson we also have a meal as we used to have on Friday, a hummus meal on Fridays. So we are going to do that as well and we will see as it the one-time thing or we can do that once a week or once in a while, we will see, we will also try because the more we wake up on our end the more we can hope to affect changes in the whole Kli and thus we will progress. As it says when you change your place, you change your fortune so let's see what the change will be, how it will influence us...
Reading Shamati 172
2. R. (05:46) This is how it is I am going to read it as well so this is the Article 172 Matters of Preventions and Delays. All the preventions and delays that appear before our eyes we feel, we think every day is going to be easier, we are going to feel more attracted to reveal something new, we see instead it is the opposite, there is more difficulty or kinds of disturbances. Baal HaSulam says it is but a form of nearing even though it seems to ask as if we were moving away and it is preventions and delays. Why is it nearing, because it says but a form of nearing, the Creator wants to bring us closer so he gives us this feeling that we are moving further away and every day we have more difficulties quantitatively and qualitatively, all these preventions bring us only nearing, why? Because here first of all we need to identify that these things come directly from the Creator, there is None Else Besides Him and these things come to us only to give us a place for the labor to come closer to him.
Since without them they would have no possibility of approaching the Creator if he would not reject us, he is not rejecting us really, he is revealing to us that we are further away and when this feeling comes to the person it gives the person the possibility to show that he does want to come closer to the Creator. This is because by Nature there is no greater distance as we are made of pure matter while the Creator is higher than high, only when one begins to approach does he begin to feel the distance between us both between the friends and between the Creator. Any prevention one overcomes, each such prevention brings the way closer to that person, meaning and this is also a question, because if he sometimes feels that when he overcomes, he comes closer to the Creator and he better understands, he better feels what's going on. Then of course he has another prevention and other distance but it is not preventions it is just the Creator is tweaking our range of sensitivity to higher precision, showing us where we are as opposed to him, and this is where we are in relation to each other. Since towards the Creator we cannot, we never can measure it. We can only measure the distances that exist between us, between the friends; and the same distance exists between us and the Creator.
This is so because one gets accustomed to moving on a line of growing further where the Creator shows him that he is a further away each time and the person tries to bridge this gap somehow to make it shorter. So when the person feels that he is distant, it does not induce any change in the process, meaning still craves and yearns to reach attachment to the Creator, to come closer to the Creator. This means that he activates himself in giving, connecting, loving, others since he knew in advance that everything that appears this way, that every day he feels that he is growing farther and despite that he has to overcome and to bring himself closer and bring himself to a state that it does not cool him off, it does not push him away. Actually he is moving on a line of growing further or getting farther because this is the truth, the Creator shows him better and better where he is, that there are not enough words to describe the distance between us and the Creator. We cannot say what that distance is, it is just the disparity of form we cannot even measure the extent of the oppositeness of form.
Every time the person feels the distance to a greater distance than he thought and it causes him no contention, he knows that it is getting closer, that the Creator raises the sensitivity the person has for this so-called growing distance, the person understands that it is not that the distance is changing but he came to a point where he can become the accuracy of the distance between him and the Creator in a more sensitive way, in a higher sensitivity. This is a sign he is getting closer so we are feeling that we are getting further away every day, that we have to start anew, that we have to overcome ourselves. Once again make effort and connect to the friends and so on, this feeling does not awaken disappointment in me or fatigue. These are signs that once again I lost what I had before once again, I am indifferent, I am apathetic, I do not feel anything. This is a sign that I got into a new distance between me and the friends and me and the Creator and actually I am closer to them, this is what he has to understand. This is actually opposite to our emotions, opposite to our mind, this is how we have to see a state I am in, to imagine them in the right way and as a result I will have an opportunity to get closer.
3. S. (13:55) How do we nevertheless, adapt that delta, this gap between us?
R. This is by overcoming the sensation of the distance and you want to get closer on top of the distance even though it seems for you, you have to understand the distance is just how you feel it, how you are shown through your individual personal perception. Even though your accuracy, your sensitivity between you and the Creator is greater now you feel as if you measured before the distance in meters and now you are measuring it in centimeters. Of course it looks bigger to you, you see the distance is great. It is not correct that distance is actually in our short-term but the feeling of the distance that you’re further away greater because you are working with a higher level of precision and this is what you have to understand. Why does that happen to us like this, so that we try to establish ourselves in a way that we do not work for the distance, we instead yearn for the equivalence of form this is a totally different discernment, if I first crave for shortening the distance between us, now it does not matter to me. I do not pay attention to the distance that separates as I pay attention only to the connection between us and this parameter is completely different, it is not on the same ruler, it is not the same unit, it is not like physical distance, this parameter. This is how we feel this in our desire to receive, in our desire to receive I might feel that I am growing further but if I activate myself in bestowal, it is already a different kind of distance, different kinds of line of contact with the Creator. So I might feel greater and greater distances between us, as it says that one who is greater than his friend, his inclination is also greater than himself. The more a person comes closer to the friends and the Creator, he thinks that he hates them, does not want them, reject them, as the Sages write to us and we have to understand this feeling that it is correct it is truthful but it comes to us in such a way that they would transition ourselves to a different line of connection between us. Where we do not care in what discernments, details, feelings we have whether we are similar or not similar but how much we are above them in the form of bestowal and if he wants to be in mutual giving then the more opposite, we are or more distant we are, the more the opportunity to bestow, to aim to get closer above the disturbances, above the distances between us, this is what we have to do, so let's do some exercises like this and progress.
4. S. (18:35) It is not clear that the feeling between us does not shorten the distance, what does it do?
R. It depends on how you measure the feelings, this is what it says, that the matter of preventions and delays where does it start. All the preventions and delays that appear before our eyes are but a form of nearing, what is nearing if I feel that I am further away, that I am pushed away from the path, from connection, from everything now so it says that the Creator wants to bring us closer and this is why he gives us the feeling of being further and all these are preventions only bring us nearing. How can this be so and yet even more since without them, without feeling further we would have no possibility of approaching the Creator, how can that be, how do we use the fact that we feel further away also between us friends and between us and the Creator. We feel left alone, we feel detached and empty so he says this is because by Nature, there is no greater distance as we are made of pure matter, just desire to receive, opposite to the Creator while the Creator is higher than high, the desire of complete bestowal and love. Only when one begins to approach the one begin to feel the distance between us and the Creator, how that distance is actually becoming greater and greater and it is a true feeling because the person is given to see and feel where he is and where the Creator is and this feeling and this understanding of the distance is in man’s vessels and in any prevention one overcomes, when one he feels have far he is as if he was rejected back, any prevention one overcomes brings the way closer to the person, bring him closer to the Creator. Meaning the further we feel ourselves the closer we actually get to the truth until we get to discover the Creator in a vessel that shows on one hand infinite distance between us and the Creator, disparity of the form, disparity of desires, qualities on one hand. On the other hand we begin to see and feel through this that we are getting closer already in some equivalence with him. Where does that come from, because we get accustomed to moving on a line moving further away, it does not reject the person, this growing further, so if the person feels how far he is each time, it does not cause any changes in this process. He goes above that and keeps going moving closer even though the Creator stays further away ok fine but I have an opportunity to make another step forward, meaning that the person knows this in advance he knows that the path will seem further and further each time and this is a sign that he is a successful, that he is moving on a line of growing further because this is the truth that there is not enough words to describe the distance between us and the Creator how opposite we are. So each time he feels that distance to a greater extent than previously thought but it's causes him no contention, no rejection, it actually does the opposite, he discovers this is the truth and this is the sign that we are getting closer although in our feelings we are getting we are growing farther but in truth we are getting closer.
5. S. (23:58) The delays and preventions in the ten cause us to come closer after we resolve them but what I feel ,that throws me all the time from the spiritual path, is the disturbances in the physical life. The constant explosions you get from physical life instead of bringing me closer, it makes me more distant, it causes instead of being concentrated on the ten and our work, I instead get disturbances from physical life and engage in it instead of being engaged in the real thing, which is the spiritual work.
R. I think this is due to the lack of connection with the friends even like that you can solve the problem is if you are more connected with the friends and then the physical disturbances will not detach you from the ten and from the ten and through the ten to the Creator.
S. I am trying to become connected to them as much as possible but nevertheless the physical disturbances do not stop, it's like the Creator is telling me that He is testing me, all the time giving me hardships that are increasing. Because in spirituality I feel I have that ten that protects me but at the moment I have physical problems I also pray that my friends will be ok, I pray for my friends but the physical disturbances keep coming without stopping.
R. You are going to see later that the Creator is scrutinizing your life and your spiritual progress and the physical disturbances are actually very specific to each and every person and then comes this one virus that changes life in various levels for everybody in all aspects. Each one is also found in a change of our personal lives meaningful change is happening so we decided that we even coming here physically in our lesson, and more than 400 people came, and after that we also have a hummus meal, and we will try to somehow wake up the situation and move it from the state that it cannot move forward. Maybe something will come out of it. I really hope that we will lead the healing process and not wait for it passively to go away because if we just sit and wait, despite our spiritual work we see that it is not going away so we will try to speed the process up.
6. S. (27:45) How can we perceive these obstacles, that they will strengthen the closeness between us?
R. The obstacles the field them the field days disturbances that fact that few hours ago I wanted to hear feel how to get closer to the friends so they created to study about the system of the world's that weren't of the person how to entertain the see this world and see them discovered them now I am indifferent, I do not care, I cannot move myself I am willing to just do my work and disconnect from spirituality I can just I cannot move myself I cannot lift myself from the couch from the TV and so on meaning we see that these things become more and more heavily and the where does it come from of course it all comes from none else besides him only the only the Creator orchestrating it for us pushes as into these estate reject thing as it through all kinds of states that belong to spiritual development and this is how we progress that by overcoming get these disturbances and this is one should help his friend and we can do all kinds of actions maybe instead of twice a day three times they even for 15 minutes each time because they do not understand about the more I think in my mind that the in some time at some time I need to connect to the friends and I do not feel like it and disturbs me I do not want it and what this is what is happening to me if I still think about this even just think about it as a disturbance then I connected another face to face but at least face to back, back from my part but I am still connected to spirituality and it is worthwhile even if it is as a disturbance so here we have to understand the whole world is progressing to connection through disturbance is the whole endemic and all our problems in general like he says all the preventions and delays that if we're both to us and the men kind of course on a different level but all of it is only at sign of nearing the Creator is attracting was pulling as closer to him this is how the unacceptable even if I do not accept it for now I do not want this but I still come to the group and do the activity of the group or something I still do more and more actions towards getting closer and even though it becomes more and more difficult for me each time it is because I am progressing.
7. S. (52:08) This article speaks about how a person who discovers the distance, the gap, between him and the quality of bestowal and does not argue with this, but in other articles it is written that he is willing to remain in that distancing permanently. I do not understand.
R. This is very simple. There comes a force of heaviness, the burdening of the heart, as we call it, and I just want to stay where I am and fall asleep. Rabash used to say that if there was a sleeping pill he could take and swallow to fall asleep and never wake up, he would like that pill.
8. S. (33:34) How can it be that the more a person feels distant from the Creator, he is actually closer?
R. When he feels that he is farther, it is a sign that he understands that the distance between him and the Creator is real. The distance grows more and the bigger it becomes the more he is shown the truth, that in his vessels he has advanced in seeing the distance in a more truthful fashion.
9. S. (34:27) Is the Creator something we can never reach because He is constantly distancing Himself from us and that all the disturbances are just to help us remember that this is the path?
R. We still do not understand it, we still haven't entered measuring the distances. We have to understand that we think that the Creator is farther because we are in opposite qualities. The farther the Creator looks, the closer He actually is. It will continue to be like that until we start to perceive the Creator through the qualities of bestowal.
10. S. (35:35) What does it mean to be in connection with the Creator during periods of distancing?
R. We feel the distance from the Creator; this exercise on the Creator’s part is called ‘my beloved is like a gazelle.’ We have to understand that it is only a game when the Creator shows us that He is farther, that He is running away from us. People also do this. You see this between us and children. Sometimes we play hide and seek with them, we show them that we are sad or angry, or we physically move away from them. We awaken different emotions in the child, for or against, and build all kinds of forms of understanding, of connections between humans, places, objects and so on. It is also like a flirt between man and a woman where sometimes they are closer and sometimes farther, or like we add spices to our food to make something more salty or spicy in order to waken the appetite. There can’t be any closeness without a feeling of remoteness, ‘the light excels from darkness.’ This is how it is in everything. The fact that we feel that the Creator is far from us is only in order to shake us up and get closer to Him. When we get a little bit closer to Him, He shows us that he is farther than before, so that we come even closer. At first, I feel like the distance between us is two meters but I feel this distance even more the closer I get to Him. Meaning that the more I chase the Creator, the further He gets from me. We play this game in the meantime where I change my attitude to the closeness, that I do not want to approach Him in order to grab ahold of Him in order to be fulfilled by Him, but in order to fulfill myself with my attitude to Him. I do not want to obtain Him in order to acquire or possess Him, but in order to bestow to Him. I do not need to shorten the gap for this, I just need to broaden my heart in bestowal. I get closer and closer to the Creator by moving from measurements of reception to measurements of bestowal. There are all kinds of changes in attitude of values and states in this interplay between the Creator and us. This is how we progress.
11. S. (39:45) What exactly does it mean to be connected to the Creator?
R. Connected to the Creator means that I feel that I'm always running to bestow to Him. I do not leave this tendency day or night; my state does not matter. I want to reach a state where I give to Him, where I bestow to Him, and the state I am in does not matter to me; only my relation to Him matters. We are then in equivalence of form.
12. S. (40:42) How can a person control feeling of nearing and distancing from the Creator?
R. Yes, a person can control this if he is above the restriction. The main thing for him is to get closer to bestowal and not on the line of reception. It does not matter to him how much he feels or doesn’t feel, but what is important to him is to bestow and to that extent the person can get closer and reach adhesion.
13. S. (41:24) It is written that the sensation of distancing does not cause any anger. Can we feel sorrow for the distancing?
R. This all depends on the person. If he understands that the feeling of distancing gives him more of a tendency to come closer to the Creator, specifically the fact that the Creator seemingly distances himself. The truth is that the distance does not change. The Creator is raising the sensitivity not of the distance but of the disparity of form between Him and the person. The Creator shows us how far we are according to the difference in our qualities and our goals. The person should then rejoice since he sees himself closer and higher because the Creator made him more sensitive. Look at a baby: everything is the same but he becomes a little bit more mature and wiser. This is how we come to adulthood. In Kabbalah, to become old means to acquire Hochma, wisdom. We understand that everybody is in distance to one another and nothing changes in anyone except the fact that you can be above your nature, to forgive the other, to come closer to the other. We learn this a little from our corporeal life that we cannot change anyone. We can only learn how to rise above our nature and give an example to others in order to connect. Our mutual connection is all aimed towards the Creator. We will then be able to rise above our nature to one another and reach a connection between us; our connection with the upper force leads to the end of correction. Do not try to bend one another or try to correct the friends, instead only try to help one to rise above their nature.
14. S. (44:34) How do we lock onto and maintain this game with the Creator that you are talking about?
R. First of all we need to continue talking about it and to continue to see that we cannot do a thing other than pray to receive wisdom from the Creator that can help us connect above our nature. We need to try to accept each and every friend as he is. I am not going to change him or bend him or her, and I don't relate to him or her directly. Rather, each and every friend is the form of the Creator that appears to me, that’s coming towards me. This is what ‘behind every friend stands the Creator’ means. I see billions of people in this world and this is how the Creator can show me His form relative to me. Instead of seeing these billions, it is enough for me just to see my ten. If I work with them, I do not need to change any of them. I just need to give them an example of how I relate to the Creator. The Creator and the friend need to be the same thing. It is even more important how I relate to the friends.
15. S. (46:42) Should we expect the sensation of love of friends to appear between us as a result of these actions of bestowal?
R. Of course this is what has to happen because if I say that behind every friend stands the Creator then I need to relate to each of my friends. Let's say if we are talking about our ladies, each of my friends has to be like the Creator. They even say that even more sensitivity I need to relate to my friends than I relate to the Creator, with the Creator each is willing to get along with, it is the upper force. With friends we can somehow change them ,bend them the way we want. Therefore if I change the attitude to the friends like I would relate to them as to the Creator then this is already a serious change in me and this is how we can advance more and more, this needs to be also within and outside, in some measure both in this and that.
16. S. (48:12) How is it possible that we feel distance and lack of love, should we see nearing to the Creator through this?
R. They are waking us up towards closeness, towards nearing, even if the Creator is delaying just like in the article that my beloved is like a gazelle, this is how we are progressing. Always our progress is through the distancing and again it is not distancing, it is just psychologically it seems to us we are distancing, we are seemingly shown numbers that we are coming closer to some place, like travelling on a train and they are telling you that we have another 10 kilometers to go. In another few minutes we are told now we have 8000 meters, so is it 10 or 8000, what is the difference? It is 8000 but it is less than 10 kilometers even though it is a big number 8000, a larger number, but it is in meters and it is not kilometers, it is in more precision than before and this is what confuses us as we go through this. If we continue with our eyes shut on the path of bestowal then we go through all these things in a directed short manner.
17. S. (49:56) If the Creator gives you a problem that extends for a long time, does that mean that the person did not complete the work to achieve the right prayer for it?
R. Of course we do not finish the work until we finish the final correction, the forms of work, these are the things that change, this is what we have.
18. S. (50:22) How can we change the qualities to feel the Creator through quality of bestowal?
R. We are already talked about it, this is the work between us in the ten and then prayer to the Creator to help us to be connected to each other.
19. S. (50:44) What happens if you feel that the distance is infinite, if this is how it feels like?
R. So what, I need to go on the line of bestowal and if I go on the line of giving them, to the extent I feel myself more distant, the bestowal I have to the Creator is more powerful this is called it is from the distance that it should bring forth it's bread, we will learn about these discernments.
Reading Pri Chacham: (51:25)
20. S. (53:50) We read in the article that he knew this in advance, the question is what helps the person who is now feeling far that he knew this in advance and this is how I feel that if we are far and we knew this in advance it doesn't really help us?
R. It doesn't help because we are operated by the feeling and not by the intellect, the intellect can bring you all kinds of smart things and you can be wiser but nothing will help you in life. What will help you is to change the feeling and the feeling we change is by the effort between us and our appeal to the Creator and then we receive the reforming light that can change us, only in this way.
S. To the Creator and the prayer, this is how I can add and achieve emotion ?
R. You attain the feeling to the extent that Creator changes your vessel, your senses, to the extent you change.
21. S. (55:20) Does the Creator give us these obstacles so we can feel the evil inclination controlling our perception?
R. Yes, he is disclosing to us what distance there is between him and us in our feelings, in our understanding so we could try and come closer and to discover where the obstacle is and then we pray together with the Creator for him to lower the obstacle and then we can come closer, this is how it works.
22. S. (56:17) Is the goal of the Creator in making us feel distance because this brings us closer?
R. Only that brings us closer it all comes from the lack of connection, from darkness, from misunderstanding, the great distance between us and between us and the Creator. It all comes from the deficiency. Then as we are awoken from this lack then from that we get through this true nearing and from the Creator we do not get the awakening, from him the only get the feeling of distancing and from that we awaken. This is written about it in the book of Zohar, that “I am awakening the dawn and not the dawn awakens me” and the Creator says “my son's defeated me” because I send them states of darkness and they invert it to light to even remain in the darkness just to perform nearing to me even from darkness.
23. S. (57:41) It is written that yearning and craving is the face itself. What does it mean?
R. That the Creator as he is distancing from us and it seems that he is hidden, that he is concealed but we feel that he is distant and he is concealed. I am feeling it, this is already as salvation, this is already a vessel, a deficiency and a lack in me by the Creator being concealed, hiding, being distant, where am I, what about me, all kinds of such calculations of the person. So is it nearing or is it distancing, what did the Creator do to me, he gave me the possibility to come closer to him once more.
S. Do we understand well that revelation is from within the concealment, from within the darkness inside the concealment, that is what we have to find?
R. It is so, beautiful, wonderful you said it very nicely, there is no revelation unless it is from concealment, there is no light unless it is from darkness. Exactly this is the rule, this is the main rule.
24. S. (59:36) Can we say that the distance is there for us to be able to pray?
R. Certainly, the whole revelation that the Creator built is awakening in us, a stimulation, a stimulus meaning it says my beloved is similar to a gazelle, where a gazelle that runs, is running away from a person, he nevertheless veers his head backwards and looks at a person as if by that he wants a person to be drawn after him, to follow. Even though he is distancing, he also wants a person to run after, this is how the Kabbalists describe how the Creator distances, it is kind of like a flirt, he is distancing yet inviting us to follow. Because by distancing there is a lack that he evokes in us and the lack that he evokes in us there's a point of connection that is greater and greater. Where he turns back his head towards us as he is running from us and then it turns out that both in the posterior and anterior, he writes about that in the article about my beloved is similar to a gazelle, in concealment and revelation we come to a connection with the Creator.
Reading (01:01:35) Baal HaSulam “it says my beloved is like a gazelle…”
25. R. (01:02:01) Specifically through concealment and revelation we discover the Creator there has to be revelation and concealment together, from concealment we have the coarseness and from revelation we have restriction, the screen and reflected light which is how we reach him and they go hand-in-hand, there is not one without the other. Seems to me that the same letter begins with concealment and revelation. We will not wait, we will reach that in another opportunity.
26. S. (01:03:03) To the extent that the Creator grows farther from us it awakens a question, what are those vessels and now to understand that we are actually advancing in the right way towards adhesion with the Creator?
R. We need to try to depict the relations between us and the Creator as relations between us and the group and to try to inside the group play all of those states just like the person and the Creator. Then you will see how this works out, as all of a sudden, a certain kind of a theater, like a complete play filled with all of its details, through which you can sort your life and understanding and everything. It is truly like in a very deep acting in where you have like there is 64 or just like on the chessboard, all the possibilities that you have on that chessboard ,here you also have the same thing as well with the ten to scrutinize the endless details between you and the Creator .
S. How do I know that I'm on the right track?
R. Only if you're trying to do it in the ten in a live way. Try and start doing all these relations between you in the form of your acting at this, you're playing this and then you'll see how that will evoke in you even more questions and discernments but it will be before you like the correct demonstration. In which let's say you're reading something in some book, just like you read a book that talks about a chess game and you take the chessboard and start to play on it and then you start to understand what is happening there, what's happening here between all the different forms. Then from now you start to understand more and more what's happening but here you have a game with people with friends and behind every friend the Creator stands. As you deepen the relations between everyone in the ten you start to see there, the whole world, the whole of reality without any exceptions, you don't need anything except for that. When you enter the ten and scrutinize all the forms of relations that could happen between everyone out of that you learn the nature of the Creator all together. You need to come to a state of, come and see with your relations with the friends. We need to repeat this rule many times and, in our obligation, our commitment to do this between us in order for us to truly agree one can understand that this is how it works. Therefore from the principle of creation the Creator created the vessel and shattered it and gave it to us and altogether we need to constantly be drawn towards connecting all these vessels together. Not physically but rather in a purposeful way that is aimed towards the goal.
27. S. (01:07:59) How do you behave with the disturbances? Do you fight them or do you submit to come to them and lower your head under the wave?
R. There are different ways, if you can assist others and with them work, then go for it and if not then you should at least work in a way that you are in their hands. In which you are nullified this is also a form of participation.
28. S. (01:08:48) Turns out I want preventions to happen because that's how the Creator wants me to advance and my question is do you, should you pray for prevention?
R. I don't understand the question whatsoever, you're being told that there are no preventions that the Creator wants to advance us, if you receive his help like a prevention then you're in preventions and not an advancement, in progress.
S. Yes but in our life, we always get preventions?
R. I don't understand that what do you mean in life you get preventions, is the life something or are you something?
S. Both in physicality and spirituality we've received these preventions.
R. So you're being told these are not prevention, these are invitations so that you will come near so you will increase the pace.
S. So do I need to pray to the Creator to give me preventions and that's out I will….?
R. We need to ask the Creator for prevention or for help. Where did you read about prevention that you're asking like that all of a sudden? We need to ask only for advancement, connection, embrace. That's what we need to ask for, what are you asking for prevention? You'll receive preventions because that's your future advancement that you need to do, it will now always stand before you like a prevention. So that you will change your attitude, your opinion, your reason towards what is before you and somewhat move from in order to receive to in order to bestow from reason to above reason which is considered that you are overcoming the prevention and then you make a step forward in your attitude and your changing of your attitude towards what is before you. As you receive it not as a disturbance but as a place to transmit to the next degree. That's it ,to uplift oneself to raise oneself, to receive that prevention that appears to you that way, which is as a prevention, it's not a prevention but you'll receive it in order to overcome it, if you receive it that way it's a sign you made it step forward.
29. S. (01:11:39) Is through the obstacles the Creator wants to show me how not corrected I am?
R. The Creator doesn't just want to show me I'm not corrected, it's clear that I'm completely not corrected and it's clear that he did it to start with. the Creator wants us to overcome, for us to overcome the obstacles that he places before us and for us to overcome it above reason. So that I will be able to overcome each degree that is ahead of me by developing the force of bestowal, the force of connection. Then in this manner we advance, this is what we need to see. That's it, there are no more preventions other than discovering the distance between us. Then it appears to us like the distance becomes greater, that we are more contradicted to one another, that suddenly I see the friend worse than I did before, more distant than I am. That I have no patience to tolerate him, these are all things that we discover along the way more and more and that's actually a sign of advancement.
30. S. (01:13:13) How to tell the difference between moving further from a lack of making efforts and growing further in a way that it's actually nearing?
R. That's not so important. Eventually it's the same thing, we always have such questions, is it me that's distanced or is it the Creator that distances me, is it I that fall or the Creator that caused this to me, this is not a problem. The problem is how in the moment I'm in now, how do I perform that action?
31. S. (01:13:55) How can the group take advantage of the distance that our friend feels in order to advance forward?
R. But altogether the group is a collection of friends and each and everyone understands the correct advancement can be only out of coming closer to others. By that each and every one really comes closer to others. This is what brings them the feeling that they become one body, they become one body.
32. S. (01:15:39) We've been many times in a congress and now we're also preparing ourselves for a congress, in this coming congress the feeling of coming nearing, is that a correct feeling that we're working in a congress in a connection or should we actually feel we're getting more distanced when we connect in the Congress? Is that coming closer to the Creator, how do we interpret when we connect in a congress?
R. I would ask now to have a recess, let's have a song and then ask this question again.
S. From Shamati 172, we're working towards the congress, we feel happiness towards the friends, is this a correct feeling? So when you are in a congress, we feel connected as if we feel the Creator, is this a correct feeling, an illusion or should we feel more distant when we're in the Congress, working in the preparation, how should we work with this?
R. Look how we should work and how we do work, these are two different things, what we should understand is that until we feel one heart, one desire, this means which is entirely aimed at the connection between us and at the Creator, and when each one in this desire dissolves and disappears. Meaning does whatever he can to be connected to everyone and to the Creator that is our work. The fact that each one has his personal work here because each one is different than others, that is something else that is not our business. That's arranged by the Creator just as he created us differently so does each one have his own personal feeling and each one has his own work that's it, we will advance. We are advancing now to why are we having all of these changes. The group is sitting here, there the group is organizing something and we want to enhance and speed up our advancement somehow without risking anyone. We have to maintain the rules of this world as it is written that the doctor, the physician is allowed to heal. The physician who is this doctor, what does he understand or not? I have to listen to this concept of a doctor. He's the one who sets the rules, that's what I learned from Rabash, he always listens to the doctor, what did the doctor say, he had one answer to all of this. That's why let's advance this way. Let's hope, by these meetings, meals here and there, small ones, maintaining all the rules, we will advance more and more and more. We will awaken ourselves and after us we will draw the entire humanity to come out of the pandemic to connection. We thought that this pandemic started two years ago, we had a congress 2 years ago in Israel, a big congress in the Exhibition Gardens in February 2019, 2020. Let's hope that we will come to that well this year, we won't, it won't work out this year according to this development because the Creator organizes us ultimately. He has a line that is directed at the final correction and until we make it there, he won't let go. In a short way so let's hope that we will reach the corrections and we will be able to have a congress then bigger than the Olympic Games. Let's do it.
33. S. (01:24:57) I like to express the joy we feel in the ten because what is happening now, we've been preparing for it all day and we're very happy about it. The question is how can we come closer to the Creator if with the ten in the lesson we have today which presents to us the physical and the virtual world at once, as one?
R. We have to accept all these things as two circles, we have a small circle which is the personal group of each one. We have a bigger circle which is the entire vessel, the Bnei Baruch including all of those who live in a kind of connection with us even though maybe they're not enlisted or they don't come to all of our events, maybe they're not even in the lesson but there are many people, so many people thousands and thousands, how many are there about? More or less in a big circle in the morning lesson we have 6,000 people with us and in general everyone that is connected to us? He can't estimate this, he can't measure it because every month if you check how many people go into the archive and all the lessons, all of our systems, there are a few millions so following them is the entire humanity. That's how the circles go, it comes in circles, it's a structure of circles.
34. S. (01:27:19) If the Creator is a system and in connection to everyone how can we give joy to the system and how can we feel that he is the one that we are giving contentment to?
R. If we connect between us, we are coming closer to that force that is in the center of the system and he is activating it and we are like a detector coming close to it and feeling his actions in us. This is called the revelation of the Creator in the created being. We discover in this detector in this Partzuf which is called 10 Sefirot we discover the Creator that established it to begin with and wants to be revealed in it and is revealed in it.
35. S. (01:28:48) How does our gathering accelerate our development?
R. From two things, on the one hand in the physical connection we affect each other, we bestow on each other. With the physical effect we can bring the friends closer or push them away because these physical shapes that I see they really affect me and they make a change in me. I have to see the shapes here, they push me away or bring me closer. Maybe I'm looking at the friends and I don't like something in their physicality. It's been written about it thousands of years ago in books that sometimes it was difficult for them to sit together. If one person comes to the lesson and he ate onion before the lesson, you know that's how it's written. He ate the onion, and another one came from work and he was working as a tanner processing leather. So even if you watch this before the lesson, it still sticks. It absorbs our bodies, it absorbs these smells, so it's hard to get rid of them and all kinds of things like that. I read such things that he can't help it. It influences everyone, so when we are at home we are in some sort of ideal situation. I don't see the friends as much as I see them when I am next to them. I don't smell them, I don't really pay attention to their faces, expressions, it’s easier. When we get closer to each other there is a bigger problem, right? When I pay attention because of my nature, I pay attention to their hands and legs and their speech, to everything. That's why our connection to our physical or virtual connection is very different. You know it's always this way everywhere, coming closer to another through a virtual shape is not such a problem, it's like, keep away. When there is no distance, it's a problem. You're stuck with a friend or not, a friend, just a stranger and you have a problem. You have to adapt yourself to that person not only internally but externally as well. You have to accept him the way he is and we have to relate to him as a part of your soul, and here there's a very big calculation already. It's not for no reason that we are with you revealing reality as we live on earth. We adapt ourselves, we are reaching the number of billions of people and we don't have places to hide away from each other, only behind the screen. We have to see how much we are able to annul ourselves and be able to feel others in a way that it's a part of my soul. I have no choice, a part of my soul. That's why there is great work here.
36. S. (01:33:26) What should I do that since the Corona began, I started going out from the morning lesson and I started feeling the vitality in our work and I have no need for physical meetings, should I overcome it and still attend physical meetings, because it sounds like you appreciate these activities?
R. I don't appreciate physical meetings and I think our virtual meetings can also be instead of physical meetings on condition that we have no choice. Let's say if people are far away from each other or they have limitations, they can’t approach each other physically or other reasons. But still imagine or check yourself, if you come to one room in that virtual group, if you come into one room and sit together and study together and drink, eat, talk and sing, what is the difference between doing it virtually online because it is still a long distance. If you, do it in a situation where you are in one room, there's a difference with respect to our senses, it is a very important difference and we can't even understand this. We are in something encapsulated, it closes us in the same room that’s one thing. We even breathe the same air, we hear from the same speaker, suppose we are in the same state. All these things, they affect us, that's how we're built, that's why I'm in favor nonetheless and I hope that we will go back to some kind of form of connection which is closer to the physical form. With Rabbi Shimon as well, they didn't have cell phones or anything but they used to sit in the cave and learn, yes. Well let's hope we too will sit and be like Rabbi Shimon where the whole world and eight billion people can come in and learn together.
37. S. (01:36:35) Some of the men met physically today, what do you suggest for women today to close the gap?
R. The gap doesn't close by the women doing like the men, we cannot skip physically over the bridge between men and women. Rather if the women will do what they need to do and what they can do because they are women, this will certainly be their complete correction. They don't need to take examples from men, they don't need it. This is a method of the correction of the desire, correction of a person's inclinations, his tendencies, his qualities, his connection with others and that's why. This is how we should behave, each one. We also don't know how each one makes an effort to annul himself to others but that's what we should do. Not to take an example from the men, not at all, the more you advance, you hear the method from me. This is the only method basically to rise above the will to receive. There used to be other ways to do it where people had these torments and seclusions and fasting and all kinds of different mortifications they used to go through. They used to go to exile without any food, to long distances and whatever happens, happens. That’s the meaning of going out of exile, there were all kinds of methods. Some of these methods you can find them in certain beliefs and religions but the true method for the ones who have a true tendency towards adhesion with the Creator is the method of the light that reforms, that is the strongest force, the highest of them all.
38. S. (01:38:58) It's very moving to see the gathering in the study hall. How do we create a situation where the whole world vessel is in one room?
R. That's what we're trying to evoke for us to do that, we want to evoke that. The way it will turn out to be, I don't know. Still let's pray together and let's ask, we know who to turn to and there's no one else that can do it, that can change anything but the upper force. With respect to Him we are all equal to Him, we are all equal. Let's pray to Him and He will help us to make such a congregation of us all, a congress that we will all gather in one place. It doesn't matter where, it could be some stadium, say something big so that we can all sit down, see everyone, sing, shout out and hear our friends, let's try it. Still the main correction is in the heart and the main thing is what we can be impressed with what we have today.