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

Daily Morning Lesson: June 8, 2025 

Part 3: Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #11

Reader: We will now watch a recorded lesson from the 14th of May, 2016. This is from the Preface 2, The Wisdom of Kabbalah, item 11, you can find it in the Writings of Baal HaSulam. Please.

Reading: (00:42) Now you can understand the real difference between spirituality and corporeality. Anything that contains a complete desire to receive in all its aspects, which is Phase 4, is considered corporeal. This is what exists in all the elements in reality before us in this world.

M. Laitman: Now, this means that in all the places that you can even imagine, the will to receive remains in its corporeal form in this world, or you might say the opposite, that this world means the will to receive in its form of receiving, of perception, which is called corporeal. All the rest of the places, the place means the will to receive, meaning in all the other desires, all the other manners of the will to receive, it is entirely in order to bestow, and then it is considered spiritual. 

Reading: (01:49) Anything above this great measure of desire to receive is considered spirituality. These are the worlds Abiyah, which are above this world, they and the whole reality within them.

Now you can see that the whole issue of ascents and descents described in the upper worlds does not relate to an imaginary place, God forbid, but only to the four phases in the will to receive. The farther it is from phase four, the higher it is considered to be. And conversely, the closer it is to phase four, the lower it is considered to be.

M. Laitman: Well, he is speaking from the perspective of a Kabbalist who gives us such definitions, and so for him, this is how it is, that the more the quality of bestowal rules, it is considered higher, better, and the more the quality of reception, then it is lower and worse. Corporeal versus spiritual, we need to get to know this really well, that the classification is in that everything that happens is grasped only in the person's desire, only inside the desire we define places, worlds, states, the whole of reality, and there are many subdivisions in the will to receive of ours. And so, we have many states, and it depends on the person how he determines these states, how he calls and names them. If we study the books of Kabbalah, we need to understand and to accept these definitions upon ourselves that the Kabbalists have determined. And especially the division between corporeal and spiritual. 

Reading: (04:12) We should understand that the essence of the created being and of creation as a whole is only the will to receive. Anything beyond it is not part of creation but extends from his essence, his self, by way of existence from existence. 

Thus, why do we discern this will receive as coarseness and turbidity? And we are commanded to refine it through Torah and commandments, to the point where without it we will not achieve the sublime goal of the thought of creation. 

M. Laitman: Meaning, what's wrong with the will to receive that we need to refine it, to correct it, to change it, if it is exTended from the light that created it as the only creation, so that our whole reality, our perception, our life, our vitality are inside this will to receive and outside of it there is nothing. And we must not get far away from this perception of reality. This is our life, this is how we feel ourselves as existing, and it is all only inside the will to receive. It all happens there. So, what's wrong with it that we need to change it? And why this bad, this evil was created and has been prepared for us in such a way? What's in there for us to do? What is the exertion, the work that we have to do in changing the will to receive? And who is us that we are the ones who change it, that there is something that changes something else? So, here there is already a question that comes up, that at least the created being is divided into two parts.  It doesn't just live inside reality, inside the will to receive, but it also needs to get to know its coarseness, its evil, and be outside of that in order to determine it. And if it's to determine it outside of it, it means to determine good versus bad with respect to something else, meaning it's already not just two, but there need to be three things here. The one who's observing the two things and determining one versus the other, good versus bad, and later on for him to have forces and understanding and attainments, how to change things, what to do. So, there is development here. It's a very special task that the Creator has prepared, and the created being needs to make the change. 

Reading: (07:13) Item 13. 

The thing is that as corporeal objects are separated from one another by remoTeness of location, spiritual matters are separated from each other by the disparity of form between them. This can be found in our worlds too. For example, when two people share similar views, they like each other, and the remoTeness of location does not cause them to draw far from one another. 

Conversely, when they're far from each other in views, they are hateful of each other, and proximity of location will not bring them any closer. Thus, the disparity of form in their views removes them from each other, and the proximity of form in their views brings them closer to each other. If, for example, once nature is the complete opposite of the others, they are as far from one another as the East is from the West.

M. Laitman: Turns out from here that if we are speaking about the Creator and the created being, then the created being must be the opposite of the Creator. He must truly be different from Him. If He's different from Him, then different according to views, according to desires, according to discernments, according to what He loves and hates, everything that one is, the other one isn't. This is not about how much it is possible, or not possible, or how can something opposite was created, but rather we're talking about the created being. If the Creator is Good and does good, He's in eternity and state of eternity and wholeness, then what state does he need to be in if he exists outside of the Creator? Is it possible from the side of the Creator to build such a created being if He is entirely good and doing good? It turns out from all of this that the creation seemingly cannot emerge out of the Creator because any creation, it's the opposite, it's different from him. And this is something He cannot do because his principle is that He's good and doing good. This is a principle that is higher than everything. So, can He create some state in which there's no wholeness and eternity that govern?

Reading: (10:13)  ...similarly, all matters of nearness and remoteness, coupling and unity that unfold in spirituality, are but measures of disparity of form. They part from one another according to their measure of disparity of form and attach to one another according to their measure of equivalence of form. Yet, you should understand that although the will to receive is a manDa'atory law in the created being, as it is the essence of the created being and the proper vessel for the reception of the goal of the thought of creation, it nonetheless completely separates it from the emanator, as there is disparity of form to the point of opposiTeness between itself and the emanator.

This is because the emanator is complete bestowal without a shred of reception, God forbid, and the created being is complete reception without a shred of bestowal. Thus, there is no greater oppositeness of form than this. It therefore follows that this opposiTeness of form necessarily separates it from the emanator.

M. Laitman: This means that the substance of creation is the will to receive, and it needs to be as a copy, a projection of the light of the will to bestow, and it exists in such a way. It doesn't yet mean that it is bad, the substance itself, even though it has the opposite form. Is it called a created being that exists outside of the Creator? In what is it considered to be outside of Him? We will have to determine all of that yet, but the substance, certainly the will to receive with all of its qualities, is the opposite of the light.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:21) He defines the difference as sparks of bestowal and sparks of reception. Why is the difference immediately defined as oppositeness? 

M. Laitman: If one receives and the other one must bestow, or to the opposite, otherwise there are no two. But these two, one receives and the other one gives, it still doesn't refer to something that separates between them in the awareness of the receiver and the awareness of the giver. For example, a mother and a baby. She entirely gives and he entirely receives, but it's not considered from the side of the mother that he receives. For her, it's her whole life that she has something like this that she's giving to. And on his part, it's not considered that he's receiving. He's built in such a way that his substance and the way that the substance determines this is what he does. He receives, he has no awareness of it, but rather he and his substance, it's one and the same. But whichever way you look at it, if you're saying about qualities, one versus the other, without the awareness, without any personality of the created being, so there is something here, but rather just its substance, then it is the opposite of the Creator. You could say, yes, but with respect to the created being, that substance that the Creator created, it is the opposite, but it doesn't mean some sort of flaw in the created being that it is despicable, because that's his substance, it is him. So certainly from the perspective of the Creator, it is the opposite.From the perspective of the Creator or the created being, this substance in itself is not defined as bad or separating. It's the contrary. It is actually linking them, the fact that a baby can receive and the mother has the possibility to give. So, there is a connection between them because of that. If, God forbid, the baby would have no possibility to receive from her, that would mean  disconnection. And what kind of connection could there be between one and the other if one will not receive from the other? How? Each one, one must receive and the other must give. Or the other receives and the first gives, it doesn't matter. But the connection is built only on the fact that something that is in one is passed on to the other. So it turns out that the will to receive and the will to bestow are two qualities that hold each other. They sustain each other. One cannot be without the other. There is no Creator without the created being also. When do we say that it is called Creator? When in the upper light some desire is formed, existence from absence, a will to receive. That because of this will to receive that was formed in the light, that light comes out of his self, and it starts to expand into this desire. 

Reading: (15:53) Item 14. To save the created beings from this titanic separation, the first restriction took place, separating phase four from the rest of the Partzufim of Kedusha, of holiness, so that the great measure of reception remained an empty space, devoid of any light, since all the Partzufim of holiness emerged with a screen erected in their vessel of malchut.

M. Laitman: Meaning, that part or that discernment where the created being feels himself as receiving from the giver, and that this is separating between them. and that this truly distances him from the giver, from the Creator, there he restricts himself and there he operates in all the other parts in him where he does not discover that he is the receiver, but rather this is just a substance that exists in such a way. He has, first of all, no possibility to do something about this matter, this substance, and he has no drive for it, and no obligation. It is not considered that he is separated. And therefore, in the development of the will to receive through root phase 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, well, we don't talk about the root because this is still the light with the will to receive but 1, 2, 3, 4, what we call 1, 2, 3, sorry, the first three discernments that precede the will to receive, there the will to receive is not revealed as the opposite, as the receiver that by itself draws and receives beyond what is built in through the light. It doesn't have an addition yet on his side that he extends, that he draws. Therefore, it's not considered that he is separated from the light. It's like the still, vegetative, and animate of this world. They exist under the complete control of the light, the control of the law of the Creator of nature. In Gematria, God means nature. So, they are under complete control. So, there is no good or bad but only the keeping of the law of nature. And there is no shame, and there is no correction. Whereas man, who has his own desire an addition to the desire that he received from above, this addition brings man a feeling of freedom, of free choice, that I exist, I operate, I do, I can do this way, I can do something else in the creation of the still, vegetative, animate, there is no such thought that I can do this here, I can do that there, but rather there the creature is attached to the moment that it is living and that's it. But it's not so with men. And because he feels that he exists, and he has his personal individual life, who am I, what am I, all of these questions that develop within men, so those in whom these questions develop more and more, that within phase four, the phases of one, two, three, and later on phase four, within phase four, then there a person begins to ask and he begins to feel himself that he is the opposite of the Creator. That oppositeness from the Creator is the point in the heart or the posterior, as we call it, of Kedushah. And from there a person can begin to operate. All of the things that are before that, even though they're inside phase four, but the one, two, and three within phase four, they still do not give a person the power, and the understanding, and the correct direction, the guidance for what to do with himself. And even though he feels himself that he exists in contradiction to nature, to the human society, he discovers the bad, but still that revelation of the bad is not sufficient, not in the understanding, not in the feeling, in order to correct something, but only phase four, within phase four, when he starts to discern that. And here, when he reaches this discernment, then he already has the three elements called Israel, the light, and the Creator, or myself, my nature, the Creator who created this nature, and the I, he already determines, or can determine, what will make this I with the nature in order to adhere, to get closer, to resemble the Creator. Before that, this third point of the I does not exist, what we call the point in the heart.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:04) We say that the first three discernments are under the dominion of nature, and the choice of the fourth discernment is to also place itself under the dominion of nature. If so, what's the difference between… 

M. Laitman: No, phase four does not want to enter under the rule of nature, but the fact that the created being wants to adhere to the Creator, this adhesion does not cancel out the created being. The created being is not going to annul in such a way that the Creator will rule him, and this is how it will happen. He is not going to disappear from this whole picture of reality. To the contrary, he determines his form that needs to be similar to the Creator, because by that, he does not break the law of harmony, of the general order. By that, he sees that from all of the qualities, this is the highest state. He sees himself, we're talking about the created being, so he sees himself in a neutral point, where he becomes the Creator, the maker of the qualities of bestowal from the substance that he has, the substance at his disposal, the substance, the will to receive, he doesn't talk about it as himself. It's not that something now happens in my body, is that me? It's the body that is operating, and it does something, and I look at it just like at a machine, God is doing something and I let this, I give this machine certain influences in order to arrange it. This is how the created being looks at the will to receive. The will to receive was created by the Creator. I look at the will to receive on my side, the way he created it on his side. This is the matter, the substance that was given to me, and with this substance, I can do what I choose. I do not identify with this substance. To the contrary, I see myself as independent outside of the will to receive, and that with this will to receive I am sculpting it, shaping it into some shape that I choose. And before I make that free choice, it's true that I do receive forces, it's true that I ask, please help me, but this is like a little child pulling his mother to the place that he wants. It's true that here there is lack of forces, lack of discernment, but the created being, until he develops and determines this is what he wants, it will not happen. And the substance, the will to receive, certainly the created being doesn't see it as his substance. It's a substance of creation. And the meeting with the Creator is entirely not in this substance but in my knowledge, in my desire, what to do with this substance. By that, I become similar to Him. There is I who wants, I who decides, I who think, I who feel. And besides that, there is my expression of that in the substance. So, according to I who want and feel, by that I'm close to the Creator or far away from him as he relates to the substance of creation. This is how I relate to the substance of creation. This is something that is outside of us, both Him and I. When we work with the restriction, screen, and reflected light, the substance of creation is only something upon which we build a structure. The vessel is called the screen and reflected light, the filling is called screen and reflected light. So, it turns out that the will to receive is just something upon which we have a possibility to build. This is why everything starts from the screen and onwards above it. 

Reading: (27:24) Since all the Partzufim of holiness emerged with a screen erected in their vessel of malchut, so they would not receive light in this phase four, then when the upper light was extended and expanded to the emanated being, this screen rejected it. This is regarded as a striking between the upper light and the screen, which raises reflected light from below upwards, clothing the Ten Sefirot of the upper light.

M. Laitman: This means that the created being has the possibility to perform actions upon the will to receive, but it's like a machine with which you travel wherever you want. You give it fuel, and you travel. Which way do you go? This is determined by the screen and reflected light. This is considered that you turn it whichever way you want. So, all of the work is above the will to receive, not in it. This means that using it towards some purpose that you determine, therefore, before the created being receives the power to work with the will to receive in such a way above it, not to be immersed in it, he is also not called a created being. He exists inside the will to receive. He's not yet separated from it. He's not yet considered Adam then because he has no way to resemble the Creator, because he exists inside the desire, the will to receive. And this will to receive also, it's not the opposite of the Creator, it's not bad or good, it's just something that was created, that's it. Meaning, we don't yet take into consideration the Adam what we call Adam human. We don't yet consider him as existing, as having some personality, something that we can expect something out of him and ask him to do something before he reaches that state of development of phase four, within phase four. It is still just the will to receive, just like you don't relate to a drop of semen, that this is a human being, that it has some personality. Put it into the right place of development, and a human being will develop, otherwise it won't. But rather, from a certain boundary, let's say after 40 days of the creation of the newborn, then we say, oh, it's going to be a newborn, a fetus. Afterwards, there is something that will come. At what point do we start saying that the person exists, that he feels something and responds, he has a certain center of his nervous system where he feels pain, or he starts to understand, or he already has some personality of his own. When do we determine from where does it begin, this I? Or maybe it just pertains to the substance, to the drop of semen, because all the information already exists in it, everything is there. But do we say that this is separated from the source? No. So, in spirituality, we speak about 40 days of the creation of the newborn. What is this 40? Mem, the quality of Bina, when Malchut reaches the quality of Bina, and out of that, the quality of Bina begins to develop inside Malchut. Here, there is already personality. Why? Similarity to the Creator within the Will to Receive, Bina inside of Malchut. Before that, it's just substance, just the Will to Receive. If it's just the Will to Receive, there's no consideration towards it. It operates the way it needs to operate. You can talk about this pen, that it feels this way or that way, it decides, it knows. And only with children, writing children's stories, can such a thing be. That we begin to say, the book speaks, or the table speaks, or the pen speaks, but we understand that there has to be a certain development of the substance, from which point onwards we can talk about personality. Because children don't know there is such a personality being. I am disconnected from the substance deciding and thinking and deciding, me and the decision. Therefore, when we relate to children, we relate to them like animals. The pen speaks, the dog does this or that, according to their degree, where there is no personality yet. 

Reader: Yes, and let's continue to the next part of the lesson. The lesson is based on the new series of Zohar for All.