The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Lesson (Morning) August 1, 2024.

Part 2: Tisha B’Av – The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction

• The Breaking of the Vessels

• The Correction of the Breaking 

• The Sorrow of the Shechina [Divinity]

• To Raise Shechina [Divinity]

• “Between the Straits”

Reader: In this period of In-Between the Straights, we will study selected excerpts on the topic of Ruin As An Opportunity For Correction. You can find the study materials in Sviva Tova and in the Arvut system, and you can also send us questions through these websites. Anyone asking a question in the study hall is asked to stand up, hold the microphone close to his mouth, and speak loud and clear. Ruin as an opportunity for correction. The first topic is: The Shattering of the Vessels, Excerpt One – The Breaking of the Vessels. 

Reading: (00:35) 1. Baal HaSulam, Ohr HaBahir, “The Breaking of the Vessels”

The breaking of the vessels. The correction that comes through this preliminary breaking in the way that the breaking itself is a great correction. Some interpreted that it is a corruption in order to correct. However, this phrasing is incorrect, for we should ask about these words, “Why should He spoil and then correct? Let Him not spoil and He will not need to correct.” However, the thing is that the whole point of the correction and the great benefit that the Creator contemplated in the beginning of creation would not have come to the world were it not through spoiling the vessels in this manner, and whose entire correction is in the matter of clarifying the matter from the beginning, that they were never spoiled.

M. Laitman: What's clear to us from this? So, was there any corruption or not in the shattering of the vessels? How should we relate to it? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:36) This is exactly as we are being taught, everything is proper, the only problem is with our perception of reality. We have to agree that our perception of reality is incorrect, we have to agree to see that. We will succeed in, if we succeed in correcting our perception of reality, we'll see everything was proper, so that's how we should look at it. 

M. Laitman: Okay, more? Is this correct, or do you have something else to say? But to the point, no?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (03:19) As much as I understood it, he writes that it was a purposeful corruption. Actually, without this corruption, only or only through this corruption, it is possible to reach the realization of the thought of creation. Only this way is possible. 

M. Laitman: Only through the spoiling of the vessels in this manner, and whose entire correction is in the matter of clarifying the matter from the beginning that they were never spoiled. 

Student: Kabbalists write, they bring in these concepts of corruption, shattering, but why is it called in this way? It's a certain action that is not corruption, actually. 

M. Laitman: Why? 

Student: Because, seemingly, there was something that was whole and it was corrupted, but it wasn't whole, otherwise there would be no need to perform this action. So, it's not correct to say about the previous state that it was whole and now it was corrupted. But rather there was a need for it because the previous state was not whole. I'm saying all these concepts.

M. Laitman: The flaw that existed in the previous state was not clarified, was not revealed and that's why the shattering took place. And afterwards it's clear what happens between the vessels, but it needs to be corrected.

Student: But Kabbalists speak from the perspective of the truth, not from the perspective of how we perceive it. But from the perspective of what actually, truly, happens in the vessel. When we hear the word corruption, spoiling, then the previous state seemingly was perfect, whole, there was no need to come out of it. But if it wasn't revealed, you can say it's not corruption really but rather it's revelation. I'm asking about this rhetoric about using these concepts. It's something that Kabbalists make us get used to, why relate to this development? It should be a positive development from a state that is not whole to a state that is more whole, and refer to it as corruption, as if it's regression? 

M. Laitman: Because that's how we need to accept it, that’s how we need to accept it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:11) The state was whole and I think what happened is not so much corruption but much as separation, concealment, and then coming back to the whole state. So, it's a process of recognizing everything, so it's not really shattering, it's just a process of sorting scrutiny. And moving from a place where one doesn't know to a place where he does know. We came from adhesion, we should come back to adhesion but to make it more tangible maybe. Why we use things, terms like correction or corruption, and there is no corruption in a place that is whole but this is the corruption.

M. Laitman: Yes, it's only a road to people, you're right.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:06) Was the corruption in the world of Nekudim because worlds were created afterwards? So, it seems like it's not a corruption, or was it in the soul of Adam HaRishon? 

M. Laitman: Why not?

Student: Because afterwards, seemingly, it was corrected, the world of Nekudim, when the worlds of Atzilut Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya were created?

M. Laitman: It's written about Adam HaRishon that it's not corrected, he was without correction. He was born out of the Creator, by the Creator.

Student: What corruption was done in the soul of Adam HaRishon? Was he broken just like with the shattering of the vessels? 

M. Laitman: By wanting to come to the answer: What is the purpose of creation? 

M. Laitman: Okay, we'll see the next. 

Reader: Excerpt #2

Reading: (08:29) 2. RABASH, Article No. 19 (1985)," Come unto Pharaoh – 1"

In spirituality, breaking is similar to breaking a vessel in corporeality. With a physical vessel, if it is broken and you pour into it some liquid, the liquid pours out. Likewise, in spirituality, if a thought of will to receive for oneself enters the Kli, the abundance pours out to the external ones, meaning outside of Kedusha [holiness].

Kedusha means “for the Creator.” Anything outside of “for the Creator” is called Sitra Achra [other side], namely the other side of Kedusha. This is why we say that Kedusha means to bestow, and Tuma’a [impurity] means to receive.

For this reason, we, who were born after the breaking, desire only to receive. Therefore, we cannot be given abundance, for it will all certainly go to the side of the Sitra Achra.

M. Laitman: Questions? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:00) He writes, here, that with the shattering, the light comes out and later on it seems like there's a danger that it might go to the Sitra Achra. 

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: The question is how do we guard ourselves from that because it seems like there is no choice. In this process, the light will come out and come back in. How can we guard it so it at least won't go to the Sitra Achra?

M. Laitman: We are vessels, they speak of us, they say that we came out of the state of connection between us by the entrance of a greater deficiency between us, a greater desire. And we need to determine if those vessels are going to separate and lose the light that was in them? Or we can capture them and reconnect them again. 

Student: So, it turns out that we have to keep the intention each time, an intention that is very far away from my heart, at least. It's very high, not clear really, so what does it mean to bestow? 

M. Laitman: We're not making these connections there, somewhere in the world of Ein Sof, Atzilut. We are doing it between us, it's enough for us, for the time being, to start coming closer to one another in love of friends. And by that we will begin the correction of creation. 

Student: For a moment, in this attempt to do it with the friends, a thought about myself comes into me.

M. Laitman: Okay, so you have to correct it, you have to feel sorry about it. Ask the Creator to correct it and participate in the correction.

Student: Is this considered that the vessel was broken or?

M. Laitman: No, no, no, it wasn't shattered, everything was shattered already before us. We, merely, reveal what exists in our broken vessels, okay? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:19) So, what is hidden is the quality of pleasure or the measure of the pleasure? Because there's light and there is a vessel, the vessel enjoys.

M. Laitman: It's possible, possible. I can't say yes or no about it. 

Student: Why, I mean, what's the purpose otherwise of creation? To do good to His creations.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, if we enjoy, as Baal HaSulam writes, from the sweat of life, it's just sparks, little drops that we get from the pleasure. The light is not felt, the pleasure from the light is not felt. We enjoy from all kinds of, you know, such things, such trivial things, we even enjoy the fact that others suffer. Why, how do we say, the trouble of many is half a comfort, I suffer less; that's what we enjoy from. But the moment that we start to rise above that, that's already something else. It's a different kind of pleasure.

M. Laitman: Yes,

Student: So, I'm asking, it's the measure or the quality of the pleasure that is hidden? 

M. Laitman: Yes, it's hidden, yes. 

Question (Kyiv 1): (13:56) According to this excerpt, how in our connection do we not allow such egoistic thoughts so the upper abundance would not come out?

M. Laitman: I don't think we're capable of preventing the revelation of the shattering of the vessels. But we can be prepared for it, the moment we reveal the broken vessels by our own efforts, we will ask the Creator to correct them. That is the shortest way, the correct way for the correction of the vessels, okay?

Question (Novosibirsk): (15:13) Their whole correction is in that the matter is revealed from the beginning that they were never corrupted. All of their corrections enter this category that they were never broken to begin with. What does that mean?

M. Laitman: It means that we are learning about things that were shattered, in potential but not in practice; and that's where we can correct them.

Reader: Excerpt #3

Reading: (16:07) 3. RABASH, Article No. 13 (1990),"What Does It Mean that by the Unification of the Creator and the Shechina, All Iniquities Are Atoned?"

The breaking of the vessels, when there was a mingling of the will to receive for oneself with Kedusha, because of which the vessels broke. Also, there was the matter of the sin of the tree of knowledge, which caused holy sparks to fall into the Klipot [shells/peels]. It follows that the breaking of the vessels and the sin of the tree of knowledge caused the creatures that come after, that the will to receive receives its sustenance from ABYA of Klipa [singular of Klipot].

M. Laitman: Meaning, after the shattering, the spiritual light fell and entered into vessels of reception, and then our work is much more difficult.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:18) Why is it more difficult, if the holy sparks wouldn't fall, we would have no way to rise?

M. Laitman: As it's written, not them and not their reward.

Student: I don't understand?

M. Laitman: Meaning, we would not have such work but, this way, we have to locate the vessels of bestowal that are held captive by vessels of reception. And distinguish them, and then remove the waste from the nourishment, from the food, and then correct. Correct what's left in the food, and the waste, pour that out take that out.

Student: Okay but at least we have something to do, otherwise there would be nothing to do at all. Because it was separated, the vessels of bestowal wouldn't even be there. 

M. Laitman: That's clear but, still, we don't pray for work, we pray for correction.

Reader: Except #4

Reading: (18:50) 4. RABASH, Article No. 13 (1990)," The Importance of a Prayer of Many"

We should believe what our sages tell us, that all the pleasures in corporeal delights are but a tiny candle compared to the pleasures that exist in spirituality. As it is written in the Sulam Commentary (“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” p 173), “This is the meaning of the breaking of the vessels that preceded the creation of the world. Through the breaking of the vessels of Kedusha [holiness/sanctity] and their fall into the separated BYA, holy sparks fell along with them to the Klipot [shells], from which came the pleasures and love of every kind into the domain of the Klipot, which pass them on for man’s reception and for his delight.” It therefore follows that the majority of pleasures are in Kedusha.

M. Laitman: We can feel, there, the pleasure when the sanctity illuminates. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:12) I feel that if we don't scrutinize this thing, it's just like we just gloss over these excerpts. So, why should we relate in a negative way to our state, to our work? Why are we being taught to hate this state?

M. Laitman: That's what you feel from the words of the Kabbalists? 

Student: This is, also, what I feel from you, not them, and not the reward, maybe this is exactly about that. Why the approach that we're being taught here is that it's a bad state. Why should we relate to it in such a way?

M. Laitman: Because through this action, we were distanced from the Creator, and not only that, we are in opposition to Him. What is good in his eyes is bad for us and vice versa. So, why should we respect that state?

Student: Because the other part of what we study, which is our work, we're being taught out of our work to love and to bestow. And to look at it in a form of a righteous, to invert this form to a form where it did come from the Creator, and it is the Good who Does Good. That is our work to do that, to seemingly invert the negativity that we feel, and we receive from above, the incomplete state. And our work is to make it complete, whole, and here it's seemingly an approach where that state is not good. Maybe because of that we have to relate to it that what comes from above our present state is not good and we have to hate it. Maybe that's the right approach, maybe that's how we need to learn it. Seemingly, the Creator created for us a state that is not whole.

M. Laitman: Not whole?

Student: So, we have to internalize that the Creator created especially for us a state that is not whole. That perception also is something that is something we have to feel in the work? I need to think that the Creator created for me a state that is not whole, incomplete?

M. Laitman: Yes, yes, that's the difference between the wisdom of Kabbalah and Hassidism? Among the Hassidic, everything is good and benevolent, the Creator is in the center of creation. And He thinks of each and every one, how to bring him to correction, to wholeness. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we have to, first, go through our fall into in order to receive. Understand where this comes from, and why, and by raising MAN through prayer, we can reach in order to bestow, sanctity, holiness.

Student: So, the fact that now I don't manage to understand it 100% is actually correct, that this is how it is. Because this is what the Creator wanted to begin with?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:09) What is good for the Creator, I, seemingly, see it as bad and vice versa; what He sees as bad, I see as good? I have to invert this state?

M. Laitman: It depends on the state you're in, if you are in the evil inclination, then everything that assists the evil inclination, you accept as good. 

Student: How do we get out of that state? It's like, before you called it the vessels of bestowal are in captivity. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How can we come out of that state? How can we get to know this prison, this captivity, if it even helps?

M. Laitman: Slowly, see how the will to receive is working on your ego, and is separating you, removing you from the Creator, from attaining Him, from feeling Him.

Student: Can we merge to a whole state without getting to know it, understanding the reason? And, seemingly, a certain revelation is required here which is beyond, in order to make that leap and adhere to Him. I feel that something is missing, here.

M. Laitman: You lack nothing, only when you read and you try to understand, you're trying to apply it, practically, with your friends. And through the connection with the friends, you come to a state where you see, where is the state of wholeness and where is the incomplete state. And in this way, you scrutinize it and you advance.

Student: So, this correction is done in the circle with the friends, with new discernment? 

M. Laitman: Only.

Student: A person also changes individually out of that? 

M. Laitman: Of course, it becomes one out of ten. 

Student: This truly requires certain adhesion, a total adhesion with the Ten? 

M. Laitman: The realization as we learned. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:46) I wanted to ask, why don’t we study at this time the whole topic of the shattering. Can you explain what's in it? 

M. Laitman: I'm learning what I'm being offered.

Student: There is nothing in this period of In-Between the Times, something certain that we have to think and work in this way. Now we're in two weeks of this time of the ninth of Av, I understand that this is why we're studying materials about the shattering, right? 

M. Laitman: Maybe, ask them. 

Student: Right now, we just need to study.

M. Laitman: Ask them, scrutinize it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:28) I'll answer to the friend and all the friends. We're now in these times of In-Between the Straits, it's three weeks from the 17th of Tammuz to the 9th of Av. It's a period of time that describes the straits, the narrows of the people of Israel, a time of distress. There are materials that engage in the shattering and the correction, and other stuff, topics that we'll get to. So, we study the sources in the spirit of time according to root and branch, we also want to understand it.

M. Laitman: You should talk about it, let everyone know.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:13) We learned, here, that the whole matter of when a person thinks of himself, so everything supposedly goes into the shells, the Klipot.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: You also answered the friend that each one thinks that the friends will do the work, he's not taking the work upon himself. So, also, when a person is not in that togetherness with his friends, does he also have the responsibility to watch over his thoughts, even in the simple actions he's doing from day to day? To see that he's supposedly not drilling a hole in their common vessel, the way he behaves. To come out of himself also when he's alone. That's part of the work you support in the Ten?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:10) About what you said the difference between the Hassidut and Kabbalah is that we have to reach a point of knowing the depth of the will to receive, that process. 

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: What does a person do that for a long time, months and years, he's not in this and not in that. But he's still active in a Ten. He works. He's active. He invests.

M. Laitman: He should incorporate himself with the learning and with his friends, and that will bring him to the right point.

Student: Also, I want to connect it to what the friend asked. In our Ten, sometimes for long periods of time, we're searching what to add, how to add. And sometimes there's a feeling that on one hand we're in motion or in work. On the other hand, we don't really find what to add, it's like we're in neutral. The engine is working but nothing's really advancing us.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: So, there's that personal feeling that I was saying and, also, a group feeling in the Ten. What can we practically do in such a state? 

M. Laitman: What to do with my friends who have, grown old, it's written. They don't want to advance further, anymore, but are willing to just keep their warm chair. There's enough place, there is air, here, nice atmosphere. And we continue this way from day to day, I'm not against that, too; it's also not simple. But a person surrenders to it.

Student: I, truly, feel from the bottom of my heart that there's friends in the Ten that really make a lot of efforts. I don't feel that they've become old, I feel on myself that I don't have the forces. I'm trying to always find forces but when I see other friends in the Ten, I see that they are investing, I'm saying it from all my heart. But still, that search is there, but you can't find it and it's for a long time, already. We really want to add, also in the workshops and the questions, it's like we're recycling your answers, our discernments. And there isn't anything that will really take us up to a next stage.

M. Laitman: It can't be without a deficiency, on your part, you have to see your real situation, in the desirable situation. And from that deficiency that you attain between them, to pray.

Student: I can’t reach prayer, I do have hope for it.

M. Laitman: Just cry out, cry out, don't call it a prayer. Just shout to the Creator. 

Student: I don't have,. I hope I will have. Today, we decided we have a work meeting, Thursday ,that we're today we're taking that first step in the Ten. What's the right way, what's the first step towards what we just scrutinized, is there a recommendation? 

M. Laitman: Today you'll talk about it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (33:18) You answered the friend, the Ten has to determine the true state in the Ten, the desired state. What does it mean to determine the true state because we were saying each one sees his world different than the other?

M. Laitman: Talk about it among yourselves.

Student: How to speak about it and not reach it?

M. Laitman: To go one, inside the other?

Student: How to do it right and to really have a benefit from it and not just to?

M. Laitman: With calm and love, calm and love, that's it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:08) It's felt that the friends really want to work and go deeper. But there's a state that we go into really deep scrutinies and we can't really find the language to speak about it together. Working in three lines, working for a Lishma, everything Baal HaSulam gives us in his letters. We can't talk about it because it's very internal, it's not clear if we are working correctly.

M. Laitman: Ask the Creator to explain to you to clarify to you both the state you're in, the state you should be in, and how you shift from one state to the other. That’s it, it's all in your hands; I am here not in order to tell you news but to help you shift from state to state in the right direction.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:24) You answered a friend what to do with my friends who got old, that they don't want to advance. It's comfortable here, I have a chair, I have ventilation, and they're starting to surrender to this, they're agreeing, okay.

M. Laitman: That, too, is not, it should not be slighted.

Student: So, we put the check mark on it, but how do we go ahead? How do we not remain another day, another lesson, lighter work?

M. Laitman: What stops us from advancing, we have to scrutinize what's stopping us? Maybe, it's the Creator placing obstacles in our way?

Student: Maybe we're advancing, maybe the illusion is that everything's okay, another lesson, another discernment.

M. Laitman: If there is no habit in it or there is a habit in it, only and nothing more than that, and we're not adding, meaning we're not adding a deficiency from day to day. We don't want to advance more and connect more between us and a bit from between us to the Creator. Then we have to search how do we obtain these desires and realize them? 

Student: How do you do that? Again, how to reach and that burning again and not a habit?

M. Laitman: Yes, of course, we should discover that new desire but we need to talk about this and regret not having it. To pray, to ask, that's it, you have to see that if we don't receive innovations, new renewal in our situation, it's like not getting food.

Student: What's in that talk between the friends in the Ten that can reignite everything again?

M. Laitman: He thinks, he talks about it; Baal HaSulam talks about it, Rabash, too. 

Student: I'm saying cause you come out of the lesson, you come out full from Baal HaSulam’s letter from what you're saying. So, the feeling is that something is happening. And then that feeling of something is happening that you understand, that you feel that you advance. So maybe it cancels the deficiency, then the burning, maybe you are searching for something else?

M. Laitman: Yes, you need to sit and think.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:57) How can a person see if he's in a habit or in a renewing, an innovation?

M. Laitman: I don't know, pray first of all, first, pray.

Student: What prayer, either I have a prayer or I don't have a prayer, I don't control the prayer. I come every morning to the lesson, I want to understand if I'm doing it from a habit or maybe I'm renewing myself. How can I check that? 

M. Laitman: What's the reason you came to the lesson?

Student: The alarm clock was ringing, and I woke up and came.

M. Laitman: Good, that, too, is good.

Student: Wait, I don't understand, it was also yesterday, and the day before, and for years. But I leave here with an awakening, I don't leave here just the way I came. So, I want to see if it's a habit or is there a renewing, here?

M. Laitman: Well, there is some renewal here, of course.

Student: Okay, so I can, that's my life, that's it, so what will be next? I am not really dealing with it, in the past, I used to. What the result would be, I could get mad if I didn't attain a result. Today I come, I renew, I'm happy, there's a lot of gratitude in the heart, the next day, same. In between, I do what I need to do in society and that's how it is, so?

M. Laitman: Okay, I understand.

Student: So, is that okay or?

M. Laitman: I can't say that it's okay but you have to say it because you have to do. To take actions in order to come out from that to a better state. 

Student: And what are the actions that if I do them I can? 

M. Laitman: You have to take actions by which it will, at least, seem to you like you can rise from that state to a higher state. 

Student: How will you feel a higher state, between the state I just described? That I come to the lesson and leave with an awakening, what could it be higher than that? 

M. Laitman: So, you have an awakening?

Student: When I come out.

M. Laitman: When you come out of the lesson.

Student: For years, I, supposedly, every time I'm actually shocked every time from the huge gap between what happens in the lesson and what happens in life. It's like two different realities. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: And the gap isn't closed between the years, I'm asking for years. Go to the archive, you'll see the same question for years. How can I take the lesson into the day, how can I take the awakening into the day? In the past, if I got mad that I wasn't successful at it, so it became a habit. I'm really trying to understand, is it okay to keep living this way or is there something I can do with this? 

M. Laitman: We’ll, scrutinize 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (42:44) I also want to join into this state: That the Creator is like drying up, on one hand, like we say, we leave with a privilege and gratitude to sit together, to hear you, to hear Baal HaSulam, great gratitude. On the other hand, we keep hearing the Kabbalists' advice, I hear it, I feel it, myself. I hear their advice, supposedly, I know what I'm supposed to do but I'm not successful, I can't do it. There's, like, an order that a Kabbalist has, preparation to the lesson, preparation to sleep, adhering to the sources any moment he has, and so on. And you reach some kind of state, like a status quo. This is what I can do, I know there's a big gap but I can’t take those little steps ahead, even to hold on to the basic framework. I'm not even speaking about internal work and love of friends. So, we pray, and we ask, and another day, and another day, and a month, and a year, and you, supposedly, I also feel it on my friends. Each one became constant on some status towards the path and that's how it is. And there's a big desire, we hear it from the friend's questions, we all want to advance in our relation to the Creator, in relation to the path. And the Creator drives us up. 

M. Laitman: If this is what you think, then you've already come to a state where you can change the situation between you. You have to change the situation, I have nothing to say. Let's see from the excerpts, maybe there, we will find some way. I think that, as you said, anyone can say that he is in that state. It's already a state that dries him up and he's already despaired from changes. And he has no inner strength from within to cry out to the Creator. Maybe, we can connect between us also, so, each one, how he comes to the outcry with everyone. In other words, there is some sort of a general slumber, here, general sleep, here. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (45:57) I heard many times that one of the most important things is to agree with the Creator, with the states He puts us through. Here, there is a state that we feel, even together, of these years that we're falling asleep and no forces to ask. But it's in a contradiction of agreeing, is it okay to agree that the Creator is putting me to sleep, like you said, in a place for elders to come every day? On the other hand, you see that internally, you can't agree with it, and the prayer also doesn't come. So, it's like we read in the article, that thin line between upper and lower waters, and a person doesn't know how to fill it. Baal HaSulam wrote, how can I, and you want to surrender but you can't surrender. So, how to surrender to the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Pray, only prayer, only prayer to the Creator;  He can change our situation. Lift us from the state we're in, from this darkness. And shine for us, a little bit, of His goal and we will awaken and reach it. 

Student: But the prayer doesn't come, it, supposedly, comes, and then here, like the friend described here, it doesn't come. It's clear that prayer is the most important thing in our work but it doesn't come. 

M. Laitman: That's what's left for us, this is what's left for us. We, seemingly, were in all kinds of states and saw that nothing helps other than, to ourselves, to burst by ourselves to the Creator and cry that He will help us, shout. Otherwise, in this way, we've been in this fall for too long, in this decline. 

Student: So not to agree with the state.

M. Laitman: I think we shouldn't. But why is it that we have many friends, why? Because each of us can pray from his personal state and ask the Creator to help. 

Student: So, I only have to ask for the friends, not for myself? 

M. Laitman: Only for the friends, you can, they will all lift you out and in this way, each one will feel that the friends awaken him and elevate him.

Student: So, that's the agreement that I won't have anything but only the friends? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, may we succeed. 

M. Laitman: This is how we should advance. I see the powers we have if we wake up, and also in the feminine part among us, it is also a very special and strong part. And if we hold each other, support each other, we can wake up, quickly, from the deep chasm to a high mountain.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (50:44) Do we need to restrict the pleasures we get from that tiny candle? Because I heard in the wisdom of Kabbalah, compared to other wisdoms, we don't have to restrict our enjoyments. 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes, but you direct, but do you direct yourself correctly with everything that's revealed to you? That's the question. 

Student: I try, personally, yes. 

M. Laitman: Try? Okay, fine. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (51:29) Is the peak of our implementation in the morning lesson and the rest of the time is just a preparation to attain? Or maybe the opposite, that the morning lesson is preparing us to implement during the day? 

M. Laitman: I don't know, it's not written this way, it can happen every moment. A person may be praying and thinking about it during the day, and suddenly he wakes up at night and some thought and desire and prayer comes to him in connection with the Creator. And it could be the other way around. You can't say it. 

Student: I know that in this world, there's always a central point in life. If I were an athlete, I had that race I would prepare for. 

M. Laitman: Okay, so?

Student: We don't have like a peak moment? 

M. Laitman: No, I told you, there isn't, the Creator sets it up in a way that a person can't determine this in advance.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (52:50) This topic of prayer and requests were revolving around it. About 14 years ago, I remember you told us for the first time the story of Rabash, when he told you why didn't you ask. You said it in excitement with your throat choking up. And I remember a friend stood up and asked with pain, why is it so hard to ask, to reach that plea. And it's 14 years, I don't know where that is in spirituality, but here we're at the same point. I don't know how long trying to scrutinize on one hand how to come out of the habits of the routine, the dryness. On the other hand, we can't reach the prayer, yet, and we understand in our brains that that's what has to happen. I'm sure there are a lot of friends that also share this pain in their heart but, still, how to break through this cement wall? After so many years that we're doing with huge forces, with the women that joined that are giving us a lot of spirits. And it's felt, but still, we can't break through, I feel that I want to ask and it doesn't happen, I'm sure other friends too, I don't know. We want to do a deed and it's clear that it's up to us, not you, so what's remaining? That the mind will really activate the feeling that only the prayer will save us?

M. Laitman: Prayer, each one must feel that he must, he's obligated to his group to pray. To pray from the morning to the next morning, around the clock, as much as possible. Be in a request to the Creator for his connection with the whole group and likewise, everyone. 

Student: Again, we're at a place that we need to and you're repeating it, here, you're saying it now. How do we take it from the brain to the feeling? What are we lacking, we feel we're lacking, maybe something else. Maybe this is that point of the needle that Baal HaSulam is speaking about in the letter?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: What else are we lacking? 

M. Laitman: We're lacking a lack, a deficiency. 

Student: Is that a type of sorrow? 

M. Laitman: Perhaps, it's accompanied. 

Reader: Excerpt #5

Reading: (56:36) 5. RABASH, Article No. 179, "Ibur [Conception] – 1"

After the sin of Adam HaRishon, the creatures are regarded as broken and dead Kelim. That is, their Kelim are only in self-reception, separated from the Life of Lives. There is only a spark in them from the Reshimot of Ohr Hozer [Reflected Light] that remained and descended in order to sustain the Kelim so that through it, they will be able to rise for the revival of the dead.

That spark is a spark of Kedusha [holiness] and is a residue of the Ohr Hozer. We must raise it, meaning receive it in order to bestow, which is called “raising,” meaning raising MAN. By this, a Masach [screen] and Aviut [thickness] are made, on which comes the filling, when the Ohr Hozer fills the Kelim to an extent that will clothe the lights (Ohr Yashar [Direct Light]).

Reader: (58:00) Again, Excerpt 5 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (59:25) It appears like there's a recognition of a new state from the question, from this. It’s been, like, this thread that's been going on throughout the lesson. How, on the one hand, to be in complete gratitude for what is being revealed; and at the same time, demand the awakening, the change, to invent these new inventions for awakening? How do we maintain gratitude along with the request? 

M. Laitman: Yes, that's really the way we have to try and hold on and feel. I don't know. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:00:17) It's written in the prayers, not for ourselves. If we want the awakening because this gives contentment to the Creator, we delight Him by this, so this can work out. On one hand, I feel the deficiency but I don't ask for the filling only so I can satisfy my own deficiency. But because I want to use it in order to please the Creator. But if we don't have the feeling of the Creator, yet, and the feeling of the desire to bring Him contentment, then we have a problem. Because the only way to receive vitality from the light is, as we read now, a screen. So, what's missing is the feeling that we can bring contentment to the Creator, He doesn't give us this feeling. If we could feel it, then we could work in this. So, some friends, perhaps, are feeling it and then they can maintain this reality without a problem. On the one hand, the deficiency, and at the same time, the filling because they can do it in order to bestow. But without the intention to bestow, there is no solution to this distress. The will to receive remains dry, and will remain dry, because that's His purpose. It shouldn't be filled. It should be used in order to bring contentment to the Creator. So, what can be our complaint or our demand in that state? When we understand that what we're lacking is the feeling of the ability to bring contentment to the Creator, basically the desire to bestow. And I also don't know what it is. 

M. Laitman: What do you recommend? 

Student: I think only mutual help and mutual support can take us through this period of 400 years in Egypt. Because it's a long period of dryness, when the will to receive doesn't receive what it wants because it doesn't understand what it's intended for. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, simply to keep the laws that the Kabbalists are telling us: Love of friends, incorporation, believing in it. And this will be our outlet.

M. Laitman: Can somebody add to him? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:02:49) I want to describe the difficulty: If I'm with myself and I'm trying to do something, it's a lot easier for me. But anything that we approach toward the Ten, whether it's talks, meetings. We suddenly get this heaviness that is so difficult because you no longer feel your own weight, you feel the weight of the friends, with what heaviness they come, and then we all go into some sort of a paralysis. It's like we've grown and we have to take care of this growing, to talk about it some more. So, it'll be clear to us, it's not personal but we feel the heaviness of the friends. And then we lose our naivety, we lose the picture. 

M. Laitman: Okay.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:04:02) To add to the friend, it turns out that the Creator is, seemingly, playing with us, so we will agree not to agree, you described it as a flirt. Is there a situation where we shouldn't agree with the disturbances; that there's a disturbance, in terms of faith of not coming to the lesson? I have to not agree with it, what happens may be not up to me. But my attitude should be that I disagree with it, and in that, I should agree with the Creator. 

M. Laitman: Yes, well?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:04:41) Yes, I want to join the friend, as well. I want to say that this is the point of darkness. They say that before the dawn, it's the most, it's the darkest. The difficulty here is the difficulty in discerning whether I'm doing this with my own strength or with the Creator? And to relinquish, to concede, that my own strength is what has to die, that’s very difficult. This is why we're in the darkness before the dawn.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:05:18) I'd like to continue the question: How to give thanks because when we're grateful, it's not clear what we need to do. Maybe, there are things that we shouldn't be thankful for? Do you understand the point, the question? How to distinguish, what to be thankful for and what not to be thankful for?

M. Laitman: Okay.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:06:08) No one cancels the end of Correction. We have the privilege of being in a place where we have the means to see the process, to be part of the process. We have the means, we have the teacher, we have the group, the Tens, the books. On the corporeal level, we see the whole evolutionary process, Baal HaSulam calls it, the press of evolution, compresses everyone and it’s expressed in indescribable torments. We've been given an opportunity to awaken that same deficiency out of love of friends, out of bestowal upon the friends. And Rabash writes, there's a way to the Creator, through the love of friends to love the Creator, and people are looking for results. Friends are looking for results, I want to feel. First, give to the friend, enjoy, try to enjoy his happiness. Establish this minimal level of bestowal and then you'll see. So, the goal is to be there all the time. Why are we missing this, on this first degree, love of friends, we're missing it. We're looking for a direct connection with the Creator, it's the most selfish thing that can be. Why doesn't He help me, why doesn't He benefit me in my vessels? 

M. Laitman: Okay, thank you.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:08:12) You asked me before if I have an idea, suggestion. A few months ago, I heard a dear friend, saying, men don't hug. I want to give a practical advice in the preparation for the lesson, during the song, to hug the friends. 

M. Laitman: That it softens the heart? 

Student: It shows your intention. It's essential, it's critical if you begin your learning, if you're going toward love of friends or not. If you were dry in the beginning and didn't want to take upon yourself love of friends, you won't receive wisdom afterwards. This approach has to be even stronger, to believe even more to soften the heart. In the first moment, we have to know that the softening of the heart will allow the Creator to come in to do the work. 

M. Laitman: Agree, we have to try. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:09:31) You mentioned the powerful women part that we have. In recent years, when we talk about it, a prayer rises, the power of the woman. I would like to ask, what can we men, specifically, in this very special time that requires this prayer from us. What should we develop in us? 

M. Laitman: We hope that what?

Student: For this deficiency of a woman. 

M. Laitman: We're hoping that the women will join into our deficiency and to our prayers. That in this way, we will reach the whole prayer, a complete prayer to the Creator, that’s it. Where are we, Reader?

Reader: We are in Excerpt #6

M. Laitman Reading: (01:10:52) 6. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 81, "Concerning Raising MAN"

It is known that because of the breaking, sparks of Kedusha [holiness] fell into BYA. But there, in BYA, they cannot be corrected. Therefore, they must be raised to Atzilut.

M. Laitman: Yes. Number Seven.

M. Laitman Reading: (01:11:33) 7. Baal HaSulam, Letter No. 19

Due to the breaking of the vessels, all the Otiot were ejected to corporeal conducts and people. When one corrects oneself and reaches one’s root, he must collect them by himself, one by one, and bring them back to the root, to holiness. This is the meaning of “to sentence oneself and the entire world to the side of merit.”

M. Laitman: Read it, Reader, Number Seven.

Reading: (01:12:12) 7. Baal HaSulam, Letter No. 19

Due to the breaking of the vessels, all the Otiot were ejected to corporeal conducts and people. When one corrects oneself and reaches one’s root, he must collect them by himself, one by one, and bring them back to the root, to holiness. This is the meaning of “to sentence oneself and the entire world to the side of merit.”

M. Laitman: Yes, this is what we have to try, in each and every moment, that we remember about the purpose of creation, the purpose of life. To gather all of our desires, all of our vessels, thoughts, deeds, in order to correct and to raise them to Atzilut. Then we'll feel as much as our whole life changes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:13:54) I hope I'm not saying something irrelevant but in what he writes here, he says, we read this letter this week. About how after the breaking, there are no letters in spirituality, they fell to corporeality, and we have to copy them. In the lesson, and the friend also spoke about how we, kind of discussed, during the lesson, soon we'll go out to the day. And there's a feeling that there's a lot of work, there, but we don't always succeed in collecting the corporeal forms and connecting them to spirituality. 

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: He also said this week that the Creator is looking at every moment, very seriously. He doesn't make any concessions for you, on any moment, every moment, He expects you to do something with it. Is it possible to connect the whole day because we can't sit here all day and learn, Baal HaSulam didn't want this. We have to work, there's our home, the family, the wife, the kids. How do we connect every moment, is there such work? You once said, that you walk on the street so the Creator speaks to you through all the forms, He shows you. You're in this and that street, you just saw something. Should there be such an inner dialogue with the Creator every moment to connect everything you go through? 

M. Laitman: You have to try, you have to try, yes. Then also, life seems different, you are always in connection with the upper force. You are constantly speaking to Him, you try not to come out of it.

Student: How do I connect the Ten to this conversation? 

M. Laitman: Well, that's different, already, a Ten and the whole group, and the whole world. That's something you have to do. 

Student: In the first question I asked, you said, I have to feel that everything depends on me. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Is this a situation that you have to put yourself into? To feel that in the effort you're doing, you want to judge, to sentence the whole world to the side of merit? 

M. Laitman: Yes. May you succeed. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:17:02) The deficiency, the need to give contentment to the Creator. How do we touch only that deficiency, increase it, deepen it so that there is no other deficiency other than to bring contentment to the Creator? How do we come to that? 

M. Laitman: First of all, I'm not sure you can hold onto it the whole day but try. Maybe, divide all these things between all the friends and see how without calling each other. How through the air you can still draw everybody into that constant prayer. All the Kabbalists speak about prayer, that is with no stops. Let’s try to put it together.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:18:23) I'm left with a question.

M. Laitman: Which?

Student: It's impossible to touch a deficiency unless you have the greatness of the Creator, first of all, and gratitude to the Creator. 

M. Laitman: Correct, it's a zero.

Student: I can complain about how much I don't have, it won't help at all. How do we hold on to that and also take the deficiencies, as he says, raising them to Atzilut or raising them up? How do we both maintain the greatness of the Creator and don't let go of it, but on the contrary, in order to lift it even more, we touch all the deficiencies? 

M. Laitman: You can't be adhered to the Creator without something. Without what can't you adhere to the Creator? 

Student: Without the friends, the greatness of the friends, the greatness of the Ten, the greatness of the teacher, the lesson. This whole greatness put together and the gratitude for the privilege of being given this. Without this, there can't be the Creator. 

M. Laitman: Correct. 

Student: But to that, we have to add the deficiencies. 

M. Laitman: Meaning the connection between all those parts. Between all these components you are talking about now: me, the friends, the world, states, and so on. 

Student: Right, but deficiencies are also revealed to us. Now the friends are talking about dryness, sometimes they feel there's no progress, no advancement there.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It doesn't wake up for no reason, it awakens in order for us to add it. How do we maintain the wholeness and add this in order to increase the wholeness? 

M. Laitman: From within the wholeness, you do it, and this, and this, and this, yes? 

Student: Until a person comes to some sort of a real gratitude, he can't touch these deficiencies, it’s forbidden to touch them? 

M. Laitman: You can say so, yes. 

Student: How do we do this together? 

M. Laitman: That everyone thinks on a virtual level we connect without speaking. Or you can speak about it, a bit, but it's dangerous. It's worth keeping it, inside.

Workshop: