Afternoon Lesson August 16, 2023 Transcription

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio

Part 1: To Come to Feel Others – Selected Excerpts from the sources.

Rav intro: In all of our work this is the main thing, that we have to come to the feeling of the other and through this feeling of the other if we yearn for it we will come to the feeling of the Creator. So, please.

Reading Excerpt #3 (00:41) - Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 115, "Still, Vegetative, Animate, and Speaking". Twice

2. S. (04:41) I want to ask about this special quality that only people have to feel the other. Can you explain a bit about, what is that quality that each one has?

R. We are essentially animals, but in addition to this, we have other additions that we can use to develop. He writes here, the main thing is that we can develop because we have the feeling of our neighbor, a little bit. What does he say? That he acts against the desire of the host, the landlord, and we come to this for now and the upper force controls us. The second thing is that he is not confined to his contemporaries like the vegetative, meaning that he's independent of the environment. Maybe we don't depend on each other like the vegetative. The third thing is that he also feels others and can therefore care for them. Because he feels the society and regrets with them, he can rejoice and have pain for them. And he can receive from the past and the future while animals only feel the present and their own being. These are essentially the limitations that humans have in relation to spirituality. So, we'll see.

3 S. (06:45) How can an animal go against the desire of the host, meaning to work in bestowal?

R. If we want to elevate ourselves above the animal level in us, we rise from the level high in animal to the human level, and in this, we acquire new qualities. We deny in ourselves the quality of the animal qualities. This is how we grow.

4. S. (07:42) What do we need to add to the speaking level so that we can rise to the human level?

R. We can't add anything to the speaking level, we have to add to the animal level. When we're born we are animals. Then we start to grow, if we want to grow up to the human level. That's why it's called similar to the Creator, Adam. We have to take on new qualities apart from the ones we were born with. This is what he tells us here. The first thing is that he asked against the desire of the landlord. The second is he doesn't have, he's not confined to his contemporaries like the vegetative and the plants and he's independent from his environment. Third, he also feels for others and cares for others and can complement them. This is the way he grows, which means human just like an animal, if he grows if he develops to be human, then he rises above the animal level, and these degrees when he acts against the will of the host, the landlord, as it is written. The second is that he doesn't have anything in common with others and this is like plants. he becomes more independent. And he develops the feeling of the other in him. This is how he rises.

5. S. (10:18) It's also written here that we can also receive from the past, and the future as opposed to animals, how do we connect these two states, the past and the future?

R. We don't want to be like yesterday. We want to plan for ourselves something, to plan to be something else tomorrow, and will advance in this way.

6. S. (11:05) The animals have their own characteristics and they're not enslaved to their environment. How do we reach that state? How do we subjugate ourselves in that way?

R. I don't want to be on the animal level. I can only rise above the animal level if I get to the level of Adam, or human. I won't be similar to the others.

7. S. (11:58) What do we receive from the future, you partially answered it, but we would like to know to what extent it's important. To the extent that a person connects to the ten so that we can receive from the future. Meaning that if a few people can already connect and the rest are passive or is it more important for the right reception that there's a strong connection, specifically in the feeling of the other?

R. Powerful unity. Feeling of unity with the friends as much as possible.

8. S. (12:50) In the text it's written that thanks to feeling the public and regretting with them they can see the comfort of the public. How can we work with this correctly?

R. If a person tries to put all of their efforts into being with a friend, being as one with the friends, then everything that happens to him, he feels that he moves correctly.

9. S. (13:33) How can we for ourselves and each other, support the human characteristics and guard against our animalistic ones?

R. How we can do this if we always try to connect to the group? Always adhere, and stick to the group then we will be able to move fast and relatively easily.

S. Can I make a clarification here? What external actions do we need to do in the group relative to each other?

R. You want to help to rise above your animal nature.

10. S. (14:52) What is reading our sources help us in the transition from the animate to the speaking?

R. Because we read our sources and by this, we rise to the speaking level. It's very simple.

11. S. (15:29) Can we say that animals just feel themselves. How do they come to feel the other?

R. This is just the way it happens.

12. S. (15:59) What's the difference between a person who feels similarity and feels the others in a natural way that he develops in his life as opposed to the other, that you are talking about here?

R. We want to receive the feeling of the other in order to connect all of us together, in between us, and clarify to feel the Creator.

S. That's the same feeling that we're talking about. When I feel my children and the other people that I'm working with, I feel I’m developing a certain recognition of them.

R. What does this give you?

S. The feeling of the other, that I feel it?

R. Because you have this feeling, but this feeling is on the animal level the same way you feel yourself.

S. I feel myself toward the others?

R. Yes, and in relation to the friends you come out to feel, to connect with them and in this way come to the Creator. This is something else.

S. What is the difference here? Feeling the friend supposed to feeling for any other person on the street?

R. Because the friends you can't feel as just a friend, you want to feel him as a degree of attaining the Creator.

S. What is it, what am I searching for to feel in the friend?

R. You're searching for something higher than yourself in the friends.

S. But it's still me?

R. Yes of course it's still you you don't exit yourself, but the fact that you want to feel a friend, and then you rise with him.

S. What does it mean to feel something higher in the friend that's not in me?

R. How do I say? You want to feel the friend, to come to the feeling of the Creator so you try to bring yourself up to the level of the friends and you want to rise to the level of the Creator. So as it turns out, you don't have anything, you don't have a degree. This is the only thing you have to attain.

S. So, what am I searching to fill in the friend?

R. Through the friends you want to feel the Creator.

S. What does it mean? What do I search for there?

R. You want to find in the friend the image of the Creator.

S. What is the Creator's image? Is it through the friend?

R. That the Creator clothes in your friend and shines to you, and he compels you to connect with him. Try it, try it and you will find out, but for now, I don't know what.

13. S. (20:08) What should we do so that we can feel our friends during the day?

R. To annul before them. To try to feel them the way they are. That's it. We don't need anything else apart from this, for now.

14. S. (20:48) There's a transition from the desire to receive to the desire to bestow that we feel, but we cannot reach it yet. How can we make this transition, this change during the study?

R. This will happen only thanks to the Creator. It will only happen to us if the Creator wants us to experience this when we get from the desire to receive to the desire to give. In order to get there we need to adjust ourselves and make this our goal.

15. S. (21:52) It seems people learn to feel others really well and what the others are lacking. What is that feeling of the other that brings us to the feeling of godliness?

R. When you want to feel the other in order to sell something you have, then you want to feel his desire to receive. When you want to feel the other in order to go with him, through him or with him come to the feeling of the Creator, you get closer to the desire to give, his desire to give. Let's hope we'll be able to get there. To the desire to give to the other and to my desire to give, and then by uniting our desires will come to the feeling of the Creator.

16. S. (23:09) When we do something for others through efforts, as a result, this comes into a state of for oneself, but in new qualities. Can we say that through that we are formatting a new nature?

R. Yes, we will clarify this more.

17. S.(23:44) However I try I don't feel the friend. Can I turn to the Creator with a prayer for him to give me this sensitivity?

R. Of course you can. This is a very good request, the Creator will gladly listen to it.

18. S. (24:10) If through the friend comes such moments which push you away from the path, and behind that you see the benevolent hand of the Creator and through that push that he strengthens you on the path, is that a correct feeling?

R. Yes, yes. This kind of feeling has its place.

19. S. (24:51) It says that a person does not depend on the environment and we learn that we completely depend on our spiritual environment. How do we nonetheless aim this dependency and mutual Arvut on the feeling of the other?

R. You're not managing to do it at all?

S. Not so much, no.

R. Well explain, explain a bit more.

S. It's not clear, the transition. You also gave an example now of nullification trying to feel the other, trying to feel the image of the Creator, it's not clear in the transition. How to come specifically through the friends or to come through the Creator or is it specifically just the friends?

R. How many times did you try?

S. Well, in the ten we do this from time to time.

R. Let's try to do this for a week and then tell us.

20. S. (26:13) It turns out that through the feeling of the other in creation there are two forces get formed. This minus and this plus, the receiving and giving, and there's a contact with the Creator. Is that correct?

R. That's also correct. Continue.

21. S. (26:37) To feel the friend as the degree of the feeling of the Creator, how is that?

R. The friend is not me, this is something outside of me. If I get used to unity with him, that's a degree on the way to unity with the Creator.

S. The question was what's the difference between feeling the friend as opposed to just feeling another person? Do we need to look for something special in the friend some quality some desire?

R. Yes, this is a different feeling and desire, yearning. If I want to feel the friend, I want to feel him very close to me. At the same time, if I want to feel someone else or the Creator, these are different feelings. We need to strive to build a friend like myself, just as close as if he is in me, by this we prepare our vessel to feel the Creator in us.

S. Will we feel the Creator also inside ourselves like ourselves when we come to feel the sensation?

R. Yes, let's say so.

22. S. (28:40) What does it mean if we feel the friend when it means that besides myself, whatever I see in my friend that's my qualities?

R. This is wrong, this is wrong. Try to feel the friends.

23. S. (29:01) What does it mean to feel in a concrete way the desire to receive that's in the society?

R. What did she say?

S. What does it mean to feel in a concrete way the desire to receive that's in the friend?

R. I don't know how to say, how to tell you. This is just the desire to give that's in the friend, which I want to feel, and more than this I don't strive to feel anything apart from this.

S. Are we talking about the point in the heart? Or about the state of the whole heart?

R. What is she asking? We're talking about our heart inside of which we want to feel the heart of the friend.

S. I understand. Maybe you can give us an exercise on how to more correctly feel the friends?

R. Try to just feel her, what she's feeling. The way you have to feel her if you are in her.

S. What she thinks and feels, all of that, yes?

R. Yes, and later we'll talk.

24. S. (31:37) Do we feel this work just in the work? Do we need to feel the friend's corporeality or just the work between us?

R. No, just the work between us, just the work between us.

25. S. (32:08) If we feel deeply the suffering of the world, the people of the world, and we pray for good for them, is this still on the animal, beastly level?

R. Yes, this is still the animate degree. This is still nonetheless the animate degree.

S. Can we raise that higher or can we only do it through…?

R. In the meantime, that's how it is.

26. S. (32:57) You said that in order to feel the friend we can do this only by self-annulment, if so how does this process happen? The annulment, when I open up my heart to the friends to feel them?

R. When I want to be together with them and one feeling, in one heart, and that nothing will stir between us, but truly between us there is zero space, really zero, that's what I want to feel, a heart within the heart.

27. S. (34:08) Is it a difference of a degree and the state to feel the other, and feel yourself within the Creator?

R. The main thing is self-nullification. That's what a person needs to do, but he cancels himself, and then to the extent that he cancels himself, then he can start to feel the other.

S. Does advancing mean being attracted to others and forgetting ourselves to get to be in the world of the Creator?

R. Yes.

28. S. (35:38) First of all, the understanding that we have to feel the quality of bestowal in the friends, how to find it? Suddenly, after so many years it's felt as something new and this realization of this fear, that the friends are a degree for attaining the Creator. It's very easy to start to climb this ladder if I am also in some kind of degree for someone and someone else can follow. What do I do in order to be a degree for the friends in order that they can attain the Creator?

R. Be a good example of how to rise toward the Creator, everyone together.

29. S. (37:07) In the explanation you said that I have to be in one desire, in one heart. When I'm listening to a friend I get all kinds of feelings and thoughts. Do I have to cancel this? Do I have to be in a neutral place in order to feel them?

R. You need to try to hear her like you hear only her. So try to make such exercises that you hear only her.

30. S. (38:06) The boundary when we try to stay on the animal level, when do we transition from this?

R. There's a great difference between the animate and the speaking. Like he says, the animate only feels itself, as opposed to the speaking also feels the other. Therefore, it's a great leap to reach the speaking above the animate degree. We'll still talk about it, but in the meantime, read this several times, excerpt number 3. Then we'll see how to advance. Inside you have all the preparations for it.

31. S. (39:26) Please tell us why should we feel the friends in the ten. How do we build the intention correctly?

R. For everyone to feel the friends in the ten? In order to reach a state in which we can feel the Creator, without feeling the friends in the ten we're incapable of reaching a state where we can feel the Creator.

S. What do I want to give them? Or what I want the Creator to give them?

R. What they want. We want for them to feel the Creator, we must first feel what they want and then we must try to be it's a medium point to give them what they want. Is that clear?

S. So, be a guide?

R. Yes.

32. S. (40:50) Is feeling the friends and getting closer to the desire to receive does that means to get closer to their efforts? Our common efforts to unite and give to each other?

R. Yes, of course, of course.

33. S. (41:18) What is this coming down from the society and feeling the possible future?

R. It's different situations.

S. So, analyzing what's happening and so on?

R. Yes, when it comes you will know.

34. S. (41:51) When you start to feel the friends, is this mutual or individual?

R. It could be an individual, just a feeling of your own. Okay? Well friends, let's move on.

Reading Excerpt #4. (42:36) Baal HaSulam, "The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose"

35. S. (45:12) The feeling of the common heart of the ten, is this an individual feeling, can that be a clarification of this question in the ten?

R. Yes, that could be.

S. The feeling of the general heart of the ten is different for each friend by ourselves. Can this be different and can it confuse you?

R. This could confuse you also, we're not going to continue with that. You clarified.

36. S. (46:07) What kind of people from the town or nation, what does this mean, what's written in the excerpt?

R. This is not connected to what we're clarifying now. We're clarifying now just what exists in our group.

S. Does this not talk about our group? We thought that's what it talks about.

R. No. No.

37. S. (46:43) Can a person suppress animal instincts of self-preservation and are the instincts for the friends?

R. No. One must not. Not in any way, is that clear?

38. S. (47:09) What does it mean to raise a friend to the level of the Creator?

R. For her to be as important to you as the Creator.

39. S. (47:37) When a friend receives blows I feel his pain, I imagine this as if it happened to me. Can we feel a friend in this way or another way?

R. Another way.

40. S. (48:07) Is it necessary to go from the speaker level to Adam... that moves the… of the Creator?

R. That's not a question.

41. S. (48:36) It seems like this feeling that we are searching for is an unusual one. So it seems like it needs to be proceeded by a prayer, Is that correct?

R. Could be. It could be.

42. S. (49:17) When I see the friends as bestowing, do I see the Creator's image in this?

R. No, that's still not the image of the Creator.

43. S. (49:42) A person can receive from the past, and feel the past and the future, unlike an animal that can only feel itself and that in the present. Do we only perform this clarification in the group, the way we feel it, and what about the future?

R. Yes, also just in the group to clarify these things.

44. S. (50:32) Can we take some kind of scale, or ruler to find out how far the friends are from me and try to bring them closer?

R. Yes, try, try.

S. In the feeling, the Creators is very, very far, very, very high.

R. You come closer to the friends and by that, you will feel him closer.

S. Do we have to raise the friends or bring them closer to us?

R. The friends to the Creator.

45. S. (51:28) I've been listening to the excerpt: What kind of ego is worse, the one that is animal or the one that is spiritual, ego?

R. The animal one. This is the most complex, the most difficult, and the worst one.

46. S. (52:10) When you say that the way that we have to feel the friends, the unity of the hearts, there are many beautiful words you've been using in the last months and I understand that I've never felt the unity this way. I feel the result, the friends greater for me, I feel our common, something common between us, but not more than that. What kind of effort can I make to make these feelings more accurate, more clear, more felt? Or should I not strive for this?

R. We need nonetheless to try to open our hearts a bit. Do all sorts of exercises in connection with the friends. Gradually, gradually you'll be able to expand your heart such that you'll be closer to the Creator.

47. S. (53:24) You said that we have to come to a feeling of the friend as ourselves, can we come to an egotistical feeling of the friend, not just understand, but feel them? But we feel the friends through us?

R. I don't understand your question.

S. According to what you said about feeling the friend as ourselves, can we come to an identical feeling of what the friend feels, not just enter their heart, but enter their feeling?

R. You feel your feelings, and sensations and the friend will feel his own sensations.

S. How to feel them without your own ego and pass it on to the friends?

R. Don't worry about the Creator to the extent of your desire, of your aspiration to pass to the friend, the Creator will feel everything quite sufficiently.

48. S. (54:42) Feeling the other is a desire when I seek and want to reveal the Creator and the friend has the same desire, so I have to adhere to this search and strengthen this search in my friend.

R. Yes, yes.

49. S. (55:11) When during a workshop you focus on one friend and you try to feel him, the feeling of all is very short, it throws you out. What to do to make this constant?

R. Just exercises.

S. Entering and exiting?

R. Yes.

50. S. (55:44) How can we feel the vessel for work in sorrow and shame?

R. First of all we need to feel the shame, and afterward to check how through the shame I can come closer or my distance from the Creator, the friends, and through all these variations and all these changes that I feel, this way that way, etc. Then how can I work with the shame, try. Next time tell us and we'll talk about it.

51. S (56:46) You said that feeling the corporeal desires of others is at the animal level, does the world have spiritual suffering?

R. Again.

S. Can we feel the spiritual pain of the world?

R. No no. We just feel everyone's spiritual sufferings or the spiritual suffering of those with whom we are connected. For the Creator's suffering which is called the suffering of the Shechina, but not more than that.

S. What should be the difference so that we don't feel the animal qualities of the friends, but spiritual ones?

R. Well it's not simple. It's still too early for us. But we will move towards that. Soon, soon we will fill it.

52. S. (58:11) When a person gets a bigger desire to receive or a desire to give, but his name is disconnected to his intention to feel the friend, the kind of feeling I get in him.

R. Yes, It depends on its role. We will go over these things. I quickly need to switch to Asia.

53. S. (59:06) How can I want to give to the Creator without wanting to receive for myself, is this only possible through above reason?

R. Of course, only through above reason. Try and the friends will help you. Until tomorrow, I wish you all the best.