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

Daily Morning Lesson: September 30, 2026

Part 1: Sitrin Convention, Sukkot 2003 - Lesson 9

Baal HaSulam. The Peace

Reader: Hello friends, we're continuing the series of lessons from Sukkot 2003 from Kfar Sitrin, Lesson Nine. 

M. Laitman: (00:26) We started from zero, naturally made many mistakes. It might be worth your time to look at the mistakes we've made and apply the conclusions to yourselves. In essence, if humanity didn't use this, it would not advance from generation to generation. You know that, for us, the most important thing is to work with the text. Even as the friend said here, and he's a recognized specialist in internet media, as of today, the internet is still for now mainly text. A lesson is good but it passes and however interesting it was, even if you can replay it on video, it's preferable to go over the text itself. Moreover, I would advise that you take it, print it, work on it with a pen as if editing it or copying out some parts of it for yourself but, still, to work with the words, with the text itself. So, in this case, each of us becomes not a reader but a writer or an editor. This helps a great deal to go deeper into the text. I'll tell you one thing: if I hadn't read the article of Baal HaSulam like 200 times, it's tantamount to not reading it at all. It's like I haven't read it. I'm serious, and you will see that as you go deeper into the text, only when it becomes completely familiar to you, like we see every comma, every period and it is clear to you. You've turned it every which way and, suddenly, you will see that you fall into its depth and begin to live there on a different level. This will happen many times. So, working with the text is simply essential for everyone. It's not just for teachers or some special people, it's for everyone. And besides working with the text, regarding how we publish books, how to edit them, everything connected with processing textual information, we will have a session on that also. Of course, I'm not forcing anyone. After this meeting with our lecturers, after the talk with the lecturers, after that we'll have a trip to the sea, I think, but it's going to be shorter. That's what's planned anyway but maybe we'll shift it. That's it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (03:56) Does the Rav see Kabbalah as the only path by which a person can advance towards the purpose of creation and so on?

M. Laitman: You see, look, there exists a theory, let's say, that there is a Creator. This is all theoretical. It says that He's the only one. Of course, it's all unproven. Anyone can say anything, right? But it says that He can be attained, that there is a purpose, that He has a providence, and so on. All this we accept on faith and then we begin to see in it a certain logic, even if it's illogical and opposite to our feelings, our qualities. We begin to see confirmation of it. Baal HaSulam has an interesting article, “A Scientific Examination of the Necessity of Working for the Creator.” I haven't read the article in quite some time, by the way, but I will on it after this seminar and we will also publish it as a booklet. All these articles are being prepared to be published as booklets. They're in a state of being prepared. Everything we're reading: “The Giving of the Torah,” “The Mutual Guarantee,” “One Commandment,” “The Peace,” and so on, they will all come out as booklets for a person who's just standing there, small, naked, like a child in the middle of the world, not knowing where to set out. He is bewildered, of course, for him, all these methods and pleas, all these movements and teachings, they are equal in value. Something attracts him more or less, depending on his inner structure. Either he's drawn more to a scientific explanation of the universe or more of the emotional one or something in between. Kabbalah says, right away and very clearly, as it's written in Baal HaSulam's poem, “All that you will see, you will see and no one else will see it.” Meaning, once you cross the Machsom, you will see. Before that, nothing. Of course, what Kabbalah predicts, you see it more or less in yourself but only the negative qualities and the stages in that passage. But even this isn't really seeing, these sensations, they're not clear, they're simply something we feel. But this vision that opens to a person, what we call the vision of the upper world, it's very vivid, attainable, measurable, repeatable, transmissible, reproducible. And it's a sensation that is so clear, so vivid compared to our present state which is called apparent, unreal, as it were, but absolutely non-existent. Meaning, what we’ve perceived today as if we exist in our "I," in some world around us that seems to exist, really exists, my body, the world around me with all these objects and changes and all this. In reality, when you cross the Machsom, all of this, this whole world, all these connections, everything that took shape in me as though it really exists, it actually dissolves. Of course, I don't lose connection with this world. I continue to exist in it, I move around among people but all the connections, all the qualities, the commands of nature and people's reactions to these instructions of the information field, the so-called thought of the Creator, when all of this is revealed, it is seen completely differently. 

M. Laitman: (09:07) And until a person arrives at the state, you can tell them about it, that the second he pictures something to himself but no more than that. So, proving anything to a person, you know, I had many notes already, like “Are there any other paths?” for example, that's the question. And when I get asked this question, I tell my students the same thing my Rav told me: “Go and check, we're not holding anyone.” A person must feel it inside himself and there will be many doubts, all the time, until he crosses the Machsom, greater and greater doubts. That's why Mount Sinai is called “mount” from the word “Hirurim,” meaning doubts, an enormous quantity of doubts, under which a person stands and he looks up at this mountain, unable to imagine how he can possibly overcome it. But otherwise, if he doesn't overcome these doubts in himself, he won't receive the upper light that will already begin to correct him. So, I am following my Rav's advice. I went to a lecture somewhere in Tel Aviv, even though I didn't need it - before that, I had already gone around to all these Israeli Kabbalists, I knew what it was, I had been everywhere, I was at the Berg's Kabbalah Center, there was also Baba Sali, who was actually a great Kabbalist - there were still people back then who were strong and really did live in the spiritual world and there were others as well, charlatans who had all sorts of different methods, all sorts of psychological methods that were supposedly selling us a path into spirituality. But a person has to look at all these things, to go through them and if he's drawn to them, it's better that he does so quickly and not remain in doubts. So, the answer to this question is very simple: “Go and check for yourselves. If there is still something there for you that's attractive, then stay there.” Because in the course of one's development, a person goes through thousands upon thousands of years and goes through all sorts of beliefs and systems and searches, pursuits, so it means that he still needs to go through them and continue. And there are people who come to us and then leave. They need to continue ripening on the side. They'll come back later, if not in this life, then in the next. So, there's no need to regret anything. We need to go through all these states in order. The ARI says that if a person who hasn't yet ripened, if he comes to a Kabbalistic group, if he's there mechanically, like a child, included in it, he understands that maybe he's not yet ready for it but understands that, look, these are big, great men that are here and he wants to be like them, then he develops himself quickly. And having a little person in a big and strong group, he can go through many, many Reshimot within himself and ripen much faster, go through these states much faster. But until his true Reshimo has emerged, he's still considered not yet really included in the group. That's why we still see people in our group who seem to be as if they're not really ready. You know, they sit there, they build something, they study, but they do it because they look at others and they're doing it. And they were told to do it, not out of inner awareness of this process that passes through them. They don't really enter, they don't clearly take it into themselves. This is determined not by their desire, big or small desire, but by the fact that the true Reshimot are still somewhere on the way. They haven't yet begun to manifest but they will manifest. 

M. Laitman: (13:45) One must wait and not be pressured. That's why there is no coercion, there cannot be coercion in the spiritual world. In the group, through these common efforts, it should encourage such people, and they will take part through these common efforts. And they would go through this group work artificially, they draw the Ohr Makif upon themselves and their Reshimot ripens faster and they act in this way. The most terrible thing in all this is that if a person hasn't ripened, isn't ripe, is not in it, yet somehow ends up in a Kabbalistic group, and something just stops him short, prevents him, and he remains in it. He doesn't move forward, doesn't advance. He busies himself, occupies himself with theories and models, and sometimes it's hard to remove him from the group. This state is called an unripe fruit. If we take the article, “The Last Generation,” here Baal HaSulam writes that the whole problem of all our mistakes, the source of all our mistakes, is that we eat unripe fruit, meaning we perform actions that we are not yet able to perform; we haven't grown to them yet. This comes from spirituality. We know that everything in our world, both good and bad, it doesn't exist in our world because it descends from the upper world and all the sources of all things, good and bad, are in the upper world and in our world they are already a consequence. So, the most important action that happened to our soul is its breaking, the so-called fall, the sin. Why did it happen? It happened on purpose, so that we would now have the opportunity to attain the Creator's level on our own, to learn from Him who He is, understand His whole height, after creating this entire enormous Partzuf that's fully equivalent to the Creator. But the cause of the breaking, the cause of the fall, it must be studied by us because it's also the cause of all of our descents, all of our mistakes. And it's just one, and this cause is called, exactly this, “unripe fruit.” As the Torah says, Adam ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If he had eaten it ripe, meaning if he had a screen for it, all the conditions, then when he ate it, meaning received all of this light into himself with the help of a screen with the correct calculation of his capacity against this light, then, of course, there would have been Gmar Tikkun. But this Gmar Tikkun would have been unconscious, without the full understanding of who he is and how he can become similar to the Creator. But the full light of Gmar Tikkun and the full Kli, they stood facing each other, these two enormous forces of pleasure and desire, and they touched and the desire broke meaning it lost its screen, its intention to bestow, precisely because it was not prepared for it. He writes it here, let's find this, we'll find a place where…

M. Laitman: (18:19) He writes about the society of the last generation but the society of the last generation and the group, it's one and the same because our group is gradually forming into the society and should become it. So, here he writes, there are no page numbers here. It's page four, three or four. One, two, three, page four. He writes here, On what conditions do we need to build the principles of bestowal in our society? On page five, he says that the society will not have a calm and secure life until disagreements between its members are resolved by the majority opinion. Next, readiness of the society, that the society must be ready for this. No, not here yet, sorry. Apologies, one more page, one more page. He uses the example of Russia here, that the same kind of breaking happened there similar to the breaking of the spiritual Kli, because these spiritual laws were imposed by force, or like in the Israeli Kibbutzes, or there are many other, many societies that were created here and there. If a society is inwardly unfit to accept these laws, it distorts and breaks them so much that, gradually, it destroys itself and causes total destruction. This is terrible. It's similar to the destruction of this common Kli of Adam. I can't seem to find this part. This can partly be visible in the example of Russia and other countries in which ideas of altruistic equality were imposed by force. The collapse of this idea that took place in Russia does not yet prove that the idea itself is untrue in its essence. That is, an unripe people try to accept the truths of the highest justice. The people were completely unable to act according to the idea of social equality. Hence, the conclusion: all the sufferings and failures come only from the insufficient development of the society. It's unfit to apply the idea of community and equality. 

That's why in the group, too, we must gradually, gradually create such… but on the next smallest step, the very smallest, and in accordance with it, to try to imitate it and try to carry out within such laws, thereby a small step forward. We tried at one point in Bnei Baruch to hand in Maaser without a signature, not knowing who it was, simply throw the money to the box, however much they could. That was long ago. Maybe someone will tell you about it here. It was a very interesting experiment that we conducted on ourselves. For a few months, we collected even more than we used to and then naturally everything started to decline. Egoism constantly grows and you don't see a return, a benefit from giving more and more, and so people began to throw less and less. Next, we tried to settle somewhere in a former Kibbutzim. Kibbutzim in Israel today have mostly died. We tried the desert, somewhere in especially dangerous territories. It didn't matter where, even Kibbutzim that were right at the border, all different kinds of uncomfortable conditions. We were ready for anything. We went there, took buses, gathered with our families, prepared for it. We created within many organizations, to organize how we would proceed, how we would act. We took classes in the movement of Kibbutz. We even passed their exams on the ability of our group to be part of the Kibbutz society.

M. Laitman: (23:47) In other words, a society where there's no personal property and everything is communal. In Kibbutzim, everything's common: the dining hall, common rooms, everything. The person has nothing of his own there. There were such Kibbutzim where even clothing went through the common laundry, common wardrobe, and a person would come, wash, receive a new underwear, get dressed, go into a common closet, common toilet, common bathroom, common dining hall. Everything was common. Children sleep together, separate from their parents. There are various kinds and there were various kinds of Kibbutzim. They tried a great deal of arrangements, kinds of communities. By the way, I wrote about this in Russian. One of the books where I dedicated examples to this, precisely in order to look and try to simply think. We have very little material about the society of the future, as an example, what kind of laws they would have? How can you look at these laws from aside, in general? Are they altruistic or are they egoistic and can altruistic rules be introduced by some external methods, forcing a person or restricting him from using egoism? Baal HaSulam, here, talks about this, that thing should not be done. Society needs to ripen and in the measure of its ripening, it will advance. But the ripening, means I'll sit and wait? If I sit and wait, then this steamroller of history will move upon me and crush me with its suffering and force me to cry for help. That doesn't mean I'm advancing by my own path, the good path, the path of Torah and light, but by a forced path, the path of suffering. But if I run too far ahead and not considering my nature and my present state, then I will likewise jump to another extreme, when I imagine that I'm already ready for Gmar Tikkun and will wonder why I'm not there yet. So in order to correctly, consistently become similar in our efforts, simply to the next small step, a step that's just a little bit above ourselves, that's why we need a correct method. The entire method is concentrated. It serves precisely so that we don't jump too much upwards and take upon ourselves unbearable decisions and corrections but to do exactly what we need to do now: determining our next state. And becoming similar to it will draw the correct Ohr Makif upon us, not some imaginary upper forces that will act upon us. If we begin to start living in this type of a society that is described in this article, “The Last Generation,” then it's quite possible that, for a few days, we will fall into such euphoria that it will seem to us that we are already in Gmar Tikkun. Why? Because we will really draw upon ourselves a very strong surrounding light. But it will not be ours, it will be from several degrees higher than ours. It won't correct us. The light that can correct us can only be in the AHP of the upper Partzuf. From there, descends upon us all of these properties, all of the laws, all of the light that pulls us there. We must take on the maximum form of the AHP of the upper. That is why an unripe fruit, when a person wants to jump over a step, that is the cause, the main cause of all of our problems. 

M. Laitman: (28:32) Therefore, correct guidance for a group, correct setting of the tasks for the group, non-coercive, well, coercive possibly, yes, because rising to the next degree is of course against their egos but it must be coercive and conscious. We must understand that in order to rise a little higher, we need to apply just such small efforts to our current qualities. And then we will be able to advance a small step forward, and then another small step forward, and another one. This isn't a shame. It's… a person always wants to leap forward but it won't work until we can work through all of these Reshimot gradually, one after another, and we won't get anywhere until we… That movement forward must be sequential. We can speed up this passage but not by jumping over the Reshimot, over this chain. Does he speak about anything else in regards to this? I don't remember. He talks a lot about an unripe fruit. We should pay separate attention to this. 

So, I started with this. Some people here asked me, “Is Kabbalah really the only method to enter the spiritual world? Maybe there are other worlds one can enter with other methods, or the same world but with other methods.” This can't be explained, cannot be proved. A person who has ripened for Kabbalah feels subconsciously that it is for him. That means he is already here as a ripened fruit in accordance with the method, with the examples, with the sciences that will develop him further. But if he's still an unripe fruit, then naturally it may seem to him that there are other methods. He may somehow still need to check them a little bit. And when I asked this of Rav, that's what he answered: “Go and check.” And carrying out this instruction, I went once to Holon. There was supposed Kabbalist there. What's interesting is that he spoke correct things. He correctly explained what altruism is. But when I came back to Rav, I recall I was no longer a young person. I had already gone through many books. I had read through a lot of literature. I wasn't yet in the sensation of the upper world but at least I read Pticha, the first and the second parts of Talmud Eser Sefirot, the Zohar, some separate articles here and there. I had already gone through all of this. I had read a lot of works of other Kabbalists and still doubts remain until you begin to feel. So, there, in Holon, I met one such Kabbalist who explained everything correctly. But when I  came back to my Rav, I told him everything, gave him this Kabbalist’s booklet. He had published a little booklet, a young guy, about thirty-five. I was also around thirty, thirty-two. And it turned out that he simply, out of the subtlety of his sensations, out of his small egoism, senses the correctness of what normal human relationships are and where the Creator is amongst them. That is instinctive. It's in the same way as the first generations on earth could easily sense the spiritual world but in its external manifestation, as if some sort of fluids, movements around us. This is not a Kabbalistic attainment of the upper world through egoism, through the development of egoism, through all of this egoism constantly growing and producing its additional interferences, Aviut, and you with the help of the correct intention pump the upper light into this Aviut. And in this way, these worlds exist inside of you, the Creator exists inside of you, the entire universe exists inside of you. No, that's not the method. 

M. Laitman: (33:47) The methods by which one can sense the upper worlds externally are methods built on negating egoism, not on using it, but on negating it. That is, move less, consume less, think less about all kinds of things, toss away all extraneous thoughts, don't adopt them, just separate yourself, go somewhere, isolate yourself from this world. And even ancient Kabbalists did this in their own time, and these ancient methods have remained as part of Eastern methods. We talked about this more than once. So, a person who hasn't ripened, in whom there's still a small amount of egoism... Small egoism - it can be big but it's still earthly - it's not spiritual, it's not from the upper. That is, people come, they can be big people, they can be some kind of leaders, politicians, or businessmen, or someone of big status. They have an enormous egoism according to our world, but in relation to the spiritual world, their egoism is almost zero and they don't understand the Kabbalistic method in its true form and apply it only in such a way as if we don't try, we don't use egoism, we negate it, we go only by our sensations, not by deepening, not by using it, not by drawing close to the science of Kabbalah but through simple pure sensations. You can meet many such teachers but, every time, we will check them and you will receive an explanation. In other words, an unripe fruit, each of us has a Reshimot that we must process precisely in accordance with our true state and by no means jumping ahead. Therefore, those who create groups who must gradually take an example from others and understand what stages they're at, what degrees they're at, to constantly consult whether they're doing the right thing or not, whether they're taking on the right examples and actions, or is this something that can break them in the end, as the whole country of Russia broke or the Israeli Kibbutzim. You must consult on all of these small steps that we must take, each group and each one of us. By this, you will save yourself from many, many blows and disturbances.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:09) You said that the light that descends upon us while studying Baal HaSulam's books is light from the degree of Gmar Tikkun. So it too is not for us. What does light from the AHP of the degree above mean?

M. Laitman: When I say that Baal HaSulam wrote his books from the level of Gmar Tikkun, it doesn't mean that we receive the light of his books from that level of Gmar Tikkun. If I write my articles, I write them from the level that I am on and I'm not on Baal HaSulam's level. You understand, right? There's nothing to hide. It is what it is. Therefore, first of all, I advise you to study original sources besides mine, to read his articles. But if I adapt them, I try to adapt them with the least distortion that I can. I still let it pass through me, because there's no one else, but that's enough to go forward, at least up into the state where I am at. The light of Baal HaSulam, the light of Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Eleazar, the light of ARI, the light of Rabash, it's that light. There's also Abraham, Moses, this whole succession, it's basically one and the same soul that descends into our world and constantly, constantly shown for us in it and gave out newer Kabbalistic methods. Of course, this is the light from the highest degree of Gmar Tikkun. Interestingly, Zohar speaks about the vision of Rabbi Hiya. He writes, he had this question, “How can it be that Rabbi Shimon was not in Gmar Tikkun, but how can it be that he attained Gmar Tikkun if all humanity has not yet attained it in action?” So, this Gmar Tikkun is private, only belonging to Rabbi Shimon or is it general, belonging to the degree of humanity? This question is analyzed there and, of course, it's not so relevant to us but this example shows us the structure of these degrees and what Gmar Tikkun is compared to us, and all of these intermediate steps that we must take. So, it doesn't matter that the light comes from the state of Gmar Tikkun. It's very important that it descends from there but passing through all of the degrees, it passes through the AHP of the upper one. In principle, the AHP of the upper one is myself. It's what I organize, what I focus on for you, that's what I do, what I prepare for you. Of course, you receive all of this, not from the higher degree but from just one step above yourselves. And whatever will seem to you, and in general everything that seems to you about the spiritual world, what it is, however you imagine it, the fact is you're picturing it in a very distorted way, some billionth part of only a tiny upper degree that's connected to you. 

Now, let's return to our topic. Regarding the unripe fruit, we remember that if you try to implement something in your groups, try to do something, I strongly recommend that you consult, take an example from the past of our group. We didn't hold anything back, I deliberately don't hold anything back because we went through absolutely everything. I can't even remember all that we did, all sorts of common activities and events and arrangements that we've done in our lives, how things we discussed and tried to implement, put into practice. You can say that the upper providence protected us, guarded us, it didn't let us enter such states and actions so that we wouldn't get completely entangled in them and be destroyed. Of course, a group has to lead everyone in this advancement but because we've already gone through all these states ourselves, you don't have to.

M. Laitman: (42:01) By connecting to us, you can make use of what's already prepared, just as I, I don't need to know how to make a shirt, how to make a table, how to build something, I use what humanity has made before me, what the society around me makes. And you, by connecting to Bnei Baruch, you can quickly go through a great deal inside yourselves, to work through all the states that we went through. Like a child in the arms of an adult you can immediately jump to his level, and then, when you're at a higher degree, you will work through it inside yourselves. This way you shorten the path. Today’s groups that are being created, as you know, you can go like in half a year, you can get to a point that took another group ten years to get there. It's not because they're so smart but because it's all already included in us. They have different Reshimot, they work through it themselves very quickly. They don't even notice it, of course, they don't understand what happens but they go through it very quickly. The further we advance, the more groups are included in us, the less we'll even have to pay attention to them. They'll be more ready, and we'll be more ready to include them in ourselves, to absorb them into ourselves. 

Item sixteen of the article, “The Giving of the Torah,” or the giving of Kabbalah. Now, we will understand why Kabbalah obligates us to fulfill the impossible. Remember, we talked about how a person's correction, him ascending to the Creator's level whether he wants to or not, he will be forced to do it by history anyway, he will be pressured. The development will press it, so that it will drive him towards happiness by the stick, so to speak and if he listens, he will begin to cultivate it in himself, convincing himself that it's good and necessary. So, he stands before the realization that it is impossible. And in order for it to become possible, the method of correction, Torah and Kabbalah, doesn't matter what you call it, it was handed not to one person, say, Abraham, who was the first to think about correction, but when around him arose the whole group, the so-called 600,000 men over the age of twenty. So, a theoretical condition is given to us. It's, of course, the people that came out of Egypt is not the people that must come to Gmar Tikkun. It's simply that in one Kabbalistic group at the zero level of the egoistic desire, there's a historical example that's shown of how it happens because the spiritual root must, necessarily, touch its earthly branch, the earthly consequence. And then, on the level of the earth and the inanimate matter, it's reproduced. This reproduction must happen because starting from the very highest degree from Gmar Tikkun, all this information must pass through this whole thickness of the ego, all the degrees of the world and then rise upward from the lowest degree. And then the ascent upward, it's already conscious, it's realized, actualized by each person. But the manifestation from above downward happens as met by the Creator's will, without conscious participation from the person. It happens because it has to happen, the higher degree, the root, it must clothe itself and the lower degree, the branch. This is what happened historically. As we know, that's what happened with these people, the descendants of Abraham.

M. Laitman: (46:40) That is why this method of correction was handed not to one person but when a nation arose. Meaning, an enormous number of people, when the nation suffered thoroughly from the Egyptian slavery, egoistic slavery came out of Egypt and when the people were asked if they were ready to take on the sublime work, meaning to satisfy the desires of the neighbor and not his own and then each one agreed to it with all his heart and soul and cried out, “We shall do and we will hear.” So these conditions, there are conditions according to which you can ascend to this degree called spiritual existence. It becomes possible. If these states, we go through them inside ourselves, if we work through them, then we will rise above the Machsom. That is, the 600,000 people, of course, it means a group. Why is it called 600,000? Because that is a whole structure. The exodus from Egypt, that is we all take upon ourselves with our qualities, our desires, our hopes, we decide to break away from the ego and each of us in a group agrees to this, to this result, and we agree to rise above our degree and enter the next degree on the basis of the rule, “we will do and we will hear.” Meaning, first we do the action and then we understand the result of the action. It cannot be any other way. Being on an egoistic level now, we cannot see in advance what the altruistic level is because we don't have a Kli to see it, hear it, understand it, receive it. For that, we would need to already have a screen which we do not have. That's why, first, we do the action, and then the light is received into it. First, the screen is acquired and then Ohr Pnimi is received into the screen. If we fulfill these conditions, the possibility appears to fulfill the requirement of “love for one's neighbor.” 

Why is it necessary for this? He says it in the first point, because if 600,000 people stop engaging in satisfying their own needs and have no other goal in life except standing guard over the interest of their neighbors so that they lack nothing. Meaning, a limited group, ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred people, it doesn't matter the number, if they take upon themselves the law of such an attitude toward one another, then, undoubtedly, there is no need to worry about one's own existence. When we adapt this law to ourselves, we take it upon ourselves only in spiritual form. Otherwise, there would be an unripe fruit so by no means do we start adopting in the group the law of spiritual communal living. We're not prepared for it at all. It's not our degree. This is discussed in the article, “The Last Generation,” precisely by what gradual path we must grow into this in our earthly existence. Not in our intentions to be within one another, to support one another, but how in our corporeal actions, meaning helping each other, living communally, working, studying, family and so on, how, in all this, to apply the rule of spiritual communal living in action. By no means are we trying to do this now. This would be only after an enormous number of people have already been formed with this idea, already living in a spiritual degree, only then, as Baal HaSulam says, if a certain critical mass of such people is formed, we can begin to build a society of the last generation. That's not what we're talking about here. Here, it simply says that there must be a group of people and we must create among ourselves, within us, the conditions and this would be called, this is called a spiritual attitude toward one another.

M. Laitman: (51:39) Meaning, in our present conditions, this group is, how do I put this, it's a kind of like a new spiritual category, a spiritual object. It's not really tangible, not vividly tangible, not existing clearly in our life, in our families, between our families. No, a person who comes like an outsider, there is no way for him to see it. It is that community of interest and aspirations that exists spiritually between us, how to create such inner relationships, the relationships of a person to his group, because as soon as then people agree to this, they receive the method of correction for adhesion with the Creator because, now, they are capable of fulfilling it. But before they grew to the size of a whole nation, meaning before there is a critical mass in a group that's ready for such display of mutual bestowal toward one another, then they are not capable of being corrected, of fulfilling the condition of love for one's neighbor, since such a small number of people, it is impossible to fulfill the commandment between the person and his neighbor in the full scope of the commandment of love your neighbor as yourself. And therefore the method of correction was not handed to them. 

The same is true for us, we must reach a certain critical state and if this mass is truly sufficient in power and in number, we will receive this method. We are in the same state that this group of people who came out of Egypt was in, only they received it completely unconsciously. The program of creation was playing out in them at Aviut zero, meaning they had to go through it, they had to do it unconsciously, so they did. This is called the descent of the upper root down to the very lowest branch, down to the materialization in the matter of our world. That's why they were not called those who rose to the Creator on their own. It was manifested in an enormous number of people and this whole group, which in our mechanical understanding is called “Israel” may not be aspiring toward the Creator with their own desires, not out of their own ego, their own suffering, having gone through like three or four thousand years of processing all these Reshimot but because this method of correction had to descend into our world. It had to manifest in this corporeal group and this group had to pass this method on to us through the Kabbalists up to the state where in us, now, these Reshimot of the latest stages of Aviut were already presenting. So now today, starting from this Reshimot, we are already becoming similar in our inner aspirations to those conditions that were then manifesting from above downward, independently of the people, of their any aspiration on their part. And still from those states described in the Torah, we can understand the conditions, the states that we must be in. Only, now, with our own desires, not determined from above as it was back then when the forces of nature were combined in this way and acting on this group of people. In us, we must use our inner efforts to prepare for the same state, only from below upward. And as the Kabbalists write, this path began from the end of the twentieth century. From what's been said, we can understand why the whole nation of Israel is responsible for one another. At first glance, it's completely unjust that if someone has sinned, the Creator exacts it from you and then why am I responsible for the sins of a complete stranger, a person I don't even know? But Rabbi Elazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon, says that the world and the person are judged by the majority. One who has corrected even one desire tips himself and the whole world to the scale of merit. Rabbi Elazar says that the whole world is responsible for one another, not just one nation and one group. He always speaks from the point of Gmar Tikkun. This is the next degree above Rabbi Shimon. And each one adds merit or guilt to the whole world by his actions. This comes from the fact that each of the 613 requirements of correction relates to fulfilling only one condition, “love your neighbor as yourself.” And it itself is beyond what is achievable unless the whole nation entirely and each one in it is ready for it. So, here a very cautious question arises: is it possible for each of us and all of us together to prepare for such a state and truly be in a state that this light of the giving of the Torah would descend upon us from above, the revelation of the Creator? And he goes on to tell us about this in the next article called “Arvut” [mutual guarantee]. Any questions? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (58:05) Rav, why is it said that first we will do and then we will hear?

M. Laitman: First of all, I'm very happy that you have this Bilbul today, this confusion, that you're tired, that you're able to open one ear even a little bit and half open your eyes. This is very good, really, because the small efforts that you're making, now, they're not from like a self-excitement, from the preparation that you've done to come here and hear something together, but it's precisely now that you're working with what is being formed in you today. These are new sensations, new Kelim. They're very unclear. You don't feel what you have today but, later, it will begin to show. Generally speaking, when a person has a spiritual vision that begins to form, he rejoices more at such states because they are the most fruitful. It's here that the next degree is being formed in us. We feel it as empty, muddled. We're tired. We feel egoistic. We feel like we've lost interest. “Where's my former life, what about it?” This is all good. It really is very good. You can't imagine, you shouldn't be driving these thoughts away, actually. On the contrary, if you drive them away, then you're not going to use the Aviut that's manifesting in you now. Together with it, you need to try and advance. Try to adopt it in full agreement with yourselves. It's very easy to break away from this world and just float somewhere in the clouds. On the opposite, to break away from these clouds and come down to this world, it's what you must do. One must live in that, the Creator must clothe himself in this world, He must descend into this world. He must fill all of your states: at work, at home, with your mother-in-law or your wife, no matter where and how. You mustn't break yourself somewhere inside and play inside yourself, as if like now I'm engaged in the spiritual and later on I will be a part of this world. No, there's no such thing. It's one and the same reality. We simply can't bring the spiritual reality down into the material one so that we can see them as one. But in fact, that is how it must be. If we break away from this world, we will remain a point, we'll thereby stop our spiritual development. Spiritual development is built only on being able to contain spirituality, the sensation of the Creator, of the upper, in everything in our world, starting from our lowest states and ending with the highest states. Regardless of where you are, whatever you would be doing: business, love, some other engagements, advancements, squabbles, if you don't place the Creator into that, or at least don't make efforts to place Him in there, this is not spiritual work. Spiritual work, means that within our states we place the Creator. The fact that we are here now, it is in order for us to have these sensations and to gain these sensations, the best ones, and not to lose them, and to literally begin to place them into our life, to fill our life with the spiritual sensation to such an extent that we would begin to feel through them the Creator, this living force that enlivens everything and moves everything.

M. Laitman: (01:02:47) Therefore, our current states, they are a model of what will happen to us later. We will come back home, we will find ourselves in our old life, and how will we feel? Bad? No, we won't feel bad. We must, as we do now in our present state, when we are perhaps a little bit tired, no longer in a state of euphoria, now begin to fit into this state of yours, begin to combine it with the very best state that you had. It doesn't mean that you return to the past. It means that you're looking at your best state and enclose it in the lowest state. And later you'll be given lower and lower states with greater Aviut, but try to make them spiritual. Today, you're given an example. It's like a laboratory. So, do such actions in this laboratory of yours, such actions. And then, when you come back home, do this with your entire life. You don't need to break away from this world for a couple of hours a week and run away to Kabbalah. No. You should dedicate time to Kabbalah for two hours a day so that you can, with your remaining 22 hours, combine them with what you received. Then it will be considered that your life is being realized correctly. What counts is not the two hours that you spent studying Kabbalah or some other hour you spent on dissemination. That is not what counts. What counts is how you precisely, what you received in these two hours, how you fit it, how you push it into those other 22 hours of your life. That's why our life is built in such a way that we're obliged to work eight to ten hours, a day and the Kabbalists oblige a person to work to take part in all of life's happenings and with the surrounding society, not to withdraw, not to break away from the surrounding world that supposedly frightens and confuses him. “It would be so nice if we would just isolate ourselves from it and exist peacefully by creating an official workforce for ourselves.” By no means, the Creator didn't do anything in vain. Wives, children, your bosses, managers, mothers-in-law, whatever. Within it, we must breathe the spirituality, and vice versa. A method that's built on negating egoism doesn't let us advance. That is why all of these methods, all they do is talk about to break away from the egoism. The rest, Kabbalah doesn't talk about it. Kabbalah talks about including the Creator into all of your interferences, disturbances. He's inside of them. You will find Him in there. He can only be revealed upon your egoism, within it. He can, and not right away, but He will be revealed to you at the zero level. Not at the first stage, but on the second, third, and fourth degrees. At the zero stage and the first stages, He will be felt to you as something distant, something surrounding you. That is, it makes me happy to see you in such a tired state. And this is a great state, because in this state, you can begin to work. And if a person awaits for some inspiration to come back, maybe some group will start singing, dancing, that's to cheer me up. That's wrong. To exit into the spiritual world is to exit from the most desperate state, from the most desperate state. There's no greater darkness than before exiting into the upper world, when a person truly understands that he has no other possibilities aside from crying to the Creator. This is not yet our true state. We can still somehow try to find the Creator in our world. We can, in our inner state, we can somehow, somewhere combine Him with ourselves. When we can't do this at all despite all of our attempts, then we will cry for Him to be revealed. So, begin to work, you know, with a little smile.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:07:40) Rav, can you explain again what spiritual communal living is, which today is an unripe fruit for the group? On the other hand, you said that the group's task today is to pull the "I" out of oneself and dissolve it in the members of the group.

M. Laitman: Yes, a person must pull his "I" out of himself, dissolve himself, to pull himself out of his "I," to dissolve himself in the group, throw himself outside of his "I" and into the group. That is, the group is a kind of a circle into which I throw myself, leaving my "I" outside of the circle. We do this only through our inner efforts and by no means applying this in our lives. We don't start a common fund like in the Kibbutzim, no common communal living. We don't try to create one common family, some sort of a common community. All of this belongs to the last generation. God willing, we will get to that someday as well. We are simply building a Kabbalistic group. Not a Kabbalistic society, a Kabbalistic group that engages only in inner efforts, each one within himself, and then connecting all these inner efforts of everyone together, we can reach a critical mass and bring about the revelation of the Creator. And this revelation of the Creator will immediately elevate us to the next degree. And on this next degree, when we reach the critical desire and prepare ourselves with these efforts of ours for this common Kli, then the Creator will immediately be revealed to us again, at this next stage. And again, He will correct us and again, in this way, we will be filled with Him on the next degree. And so on, and so forth. The entire method is the same on each degree. So, we are not engaged at the current moment in correcting our lives. Each one of us remains living in their family, in their job, maybe the wives don't agree, maybe some husbands don't agree. We are not creating a common property or common institutions of some kind, we are doing none of that. We are just creating a spiritual community, invisible, spiritual. Our common desires and aspirations to the Creator add up, thereby we draw with that surrounding light upon us. This is the only thing that we are doing. And if necessary, we do some collective actions. They don't relate to our common problems, these actions, but it's things that we do together, like creating the Sukkah, dissemination, creating our common center, only that which relates to spiritual, the external manifestation of those spiritual actions. That we can do, yes, but nothing more. So, we don't climb onto the tree of an unripe fruit, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We can't climb it yet. From this time onwards, you will see how fast you will develop, how much faster your states will replace one another, and what previously seemed to you like something that would take months and years, and in general it's very difficult, and it keeps slipping from you, you will see how fast it moves forward.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:11:52) I heard you say yesterday that there should be some connection that will help us feel the Creator between us. What is it?

M. Laitman: I said yesterday that we must try to feel the Creator between us. What does it mean to feel the Creator between us? The Creator is revealed between us to the extent that we try to feel Him. Trying to feel the Creator, means trying to feel the quality of bestowal. If we somehow try to model in our state and the relations between us, and come to this quality together egoistically for oneself, each one and all of us together, we talked about this, from the state of Lo Lishma, then the Ohr Makif begins to be revealed to us, pulling us upwards to such a correction, where the Creator Himself will be revealed in this way. We talked about this yesterday.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:12:57) Rav, you say that one must not run ahead of the events. Did we not look for Kibbutzim?

M. Laitman: Yes, we ran ahead of events. We looked at Kibbutzim, we tried to jump many degrees beyond ourselves, but at the same time, first of all, we were not allowed from above to do this. And second, you could ask, well, in general, when some ideas come up in the group, and let's do this or let's do that, how do we usually answer? “Do it.” Yes, that's right. I say, “Try.” Because we are the first, we must try everything. Maybe not everything, not doing any kinds of utopian actions, but if we can improve something in our group, perhaps a greater community will appear, greater cohesion. If a group will become more tight-knit because of those actions, then I'm always for them. I always say, yes, act. So, if anyone has some ideas about this, I never hold them back. Of course, we need to look at what types of ideas there are, but as a rule, it can be good if we try things. We've tried thousands of different ideas already, and what you see today is their result. In fact, it is a result of ten years of labor. You understand that we live this life. We don't meet once or twice a week or meet somewhere in a movie theater. I'm sorry for putting it this way, but we live this. We constantly stew in this and put all of our strength into it and try to create such conditions for ourselves where we truly work and study together and do everything as close to one another as possible. Still, whatever happens, whatever possibilities arise for joint actions, I always welcome it. I never forbid anything like that. And it doesn't matter if it falls away by itself. Musha Sanilevich will talk about it today, about certain attempts that we went through to break into groups, into the fives, into the Tens, holding all kinds of competitions amongst us. I took 15 people at some point, and I said, only this is the group and everyone else, as far as I'm concerned, let them disappear. I don't need them. About 100 people were left overboard, as it were. I tried different kinds of things. We tried many, many things. It would be interesting to hear all those things. I'm not sure how much of it will be understood if you didn't go through it, but perhaps you won't have to go through all of this if you hear about it. All you'll get is an understanding of what we went through as if you went through it yourselves.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:16:40) Is it only by trial and error?

M. Laitman: In general, the way forward is through trial and error. As it is said, “There is no righteous man who has not sinned before.” A righteous one is called a corrected state, and a sinner is called the uncorrected state. When he immerses himself in his own egoism and understands that he is a sinner and acts for himself, and the righteous one acts for the sake of the Creator, and only in this aspiration of intention does the righteous one differ from the sinner. So, there is no such state in a person in which he would not have to fall, understand that he is mistaking, that he is acting wrongly, that he is in egoism, in a state opposite to the Creator, and begins to correct himself. But you can go through these states, if you are included into the main group, to skip through them, to skip through them even subconsciously, you can work through all of these Reshimot in moments, whereas on your own, it would take you months and years. That is why inclusion into the main group brings astonishing results for newcomers. And we see that people come, they are already completely different in their development, in readiness, they grasp everything faster, they enter our common field, and everything becomes obvious to them. Well, they say, “What you've been doing there for all these years? Everything is clear to us anyway.” And that's good. We can immediately put them together with us.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:18:32) You've said that half of Congress has passed. What still remains to be done?

M. Laitman: The first half of the Congress has passed. Now we have the second half, maybe even less, and less intensive one. So, what should we do now? We need to work through action, precisely starting today. I thought this would happen yesterday, but let's say starting from today, despite the fact that it's hard for us, that we're confused, that we're tired. What does it mean the word tired and confused? There's no such concept as tiredness, as exhaustion. There's no such concept as confusion. All of these negative states, those that are absent of pure perfection, pure rest, pure clarity, these states are caused by the addition of the egoism. That's why we feel heaviness and want to sleep. We are muddled, we are confused, our brains don't work. All this is already starting to be something that's difficult for us to hear. But there's no concept of being tired. Baal HaSulam writes about this in “Pri Hacham” and his articles in the book of “Pri Hacham.” He writes in “Segulat Zechira” an article, all of these things are not from exhaustion. There's no such thing in the body as that. Egoism is either fulfilled, or corrected, or it becomes empty. And there's no light that shines in it. We are now in a state where the ego is added, while there is not yet Ohr Makif facing it, and we must now artificially draw this Ohr Makif upon it. And gradually it will form, it will begin to shine from the outside of the ego inward, and then we'll begin to feel a new day, an illumination. Everything will become a little clearer to us, the exhaustion will pass, an inspiration will appear, like an aspiration forward, a hope. What does this hope mean? That the Ohr Makif is shining, and it will become Ohr Pnimi, and so on. But all this depends on our effort. If we act passively, we may change these states once a year, once every two years, maybe even once in a generation. But if we act with our own efforts, that means that we ourselves already go not by a path of suffering but by a path of light, a path of Torah. That's what we must do today. So, everything that we lived through in the first two or three days, when we lived on what we had created in our preparation, everything that we've invested into this event, in these days we received for those efforts. That's why Ohr Makif shone on us then. But now, the consequence of this is the next state, when the next Aviut has been added to us, and now we must begin to act with this Aviut. This is the beginning of the next day. But it begins with the evening, “And there was evening, and there was morning - one day,” and so on. So, what should we do now? Now, we must combine our present Aviut by no means renouncing it or running away from it. Now, on its basis, we apply effort to reach the same state as before in its power. What does it mean to combine the Aviut with the elevated state that we had? It means that on your present Aviut, on your present supposed exhaustion, again, I repeat, there is no exhaustion, no forgetfulness, or detachment, or anger, none of that. These are simply changes in the ego. They are just the changes in the thickness of the ego, and accordingly, the intensity of the light. 

M. Laitman: (01:23:31) There is nothing aside from these two parameters. It's either in the form of the Reshimot, or in the form of the clear parameters of Aviut and light. There is nothing else in nature that exists. Therefore, a person must understand that if today he's in a state of like where he's half-dead, that means that Aviut has been added to him against which there is no light. If he waits for this light, he can wait for decades. But if he exerts the efforts, and it's truly our effort, then the light can be considered earned by us, and we must draw it upon ourselves. If you have such Aviut now, and if you have the desire to chuck it all away, and to run away, to just run out of the Sukkah, and away from everything that we're doing here, then what are all these people doing here? What are we doing? We're playing a game? It's so unreal. Let's just go home, right? I could tell you, if I say this, I know that people actually might leave. I know why, because I experienced all of this inside me. I can see some of these guys are about to leave. But these are the best states, of course, only if they're conscious. So, when we have these states of exhaustion, detachment, worthlessness, like none of this is real, like, oh, what is this? What's real is your job, your children, your friends, your family, a bottle of beer that you share with friends, that's normal. But here, what we're doing is not normal, not real. Of course, if not for the Creator's help, right, that this whole life seems as bad, as terrible as it is, with agony prospects, it's all hopeless, we would not have gathered here. So thank God that for that, together with the Aviut, He adds to this rejection of Ohr Makif. Once, when the Jews were coming out of Egypt, at the zero level, there was a merging of our world and the spiritual world. It was all very simple. Everyone understood that, yes, this exists, the Creator is here among us. It's a rational force that governs us. Everything was very clear to, you know, the simple people, essentially, that existed, lived at a very small level of ego. What did they need? They didn't need long, they didn't strive for anything, they just needed to get by. Give me a glass of Manna a day, that's enough. We're talking about heavenly Manna. But now, the universe is beginning to spread in both these directions. The Ohr Makif moves away from the zero level upward, and then the Aviut grows from the zero level downward. And humanity is beginning to feel greater and greater pain, greater and greater hopelessness, despair, darkness, and it doesn't know what to do. And since the ego breaks away from the zero level, from the light, it begins to invent for itself all sorts of theories how to get by, how to invent some props for itself, like what's worth existing for, some cultural development, technological development, and so forth, as if in this we will find some fulfillment. And it reaches to the very last extreme, the kind of darkness where there's nothing left. And this is already beginning to manifest in our time. It's like no matter how much you study, your education is not enough. You get married, and the next day you realize that you made a mistake. And this isn't an accident. This is the development of the ego. And it will continue to be so in all levels of life, and it will only get worse. The only thing that will be left is drugs. That's it. You just switch yourself off. This was going to be humanity's biggest problem. Because nothing else will remain except for this. How humanity will get through it, we'll talk about it sometime. It's clear how.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:28:05) If desire for money has come to me, what should I do with it based on what we talked about?

M. Laitman: If now that I have been sitting here accumulating great spiritual energy in myself, a yearning for the Creator, the sensation of the friends, if the ego begins to be added to me, and I'm starting to remember work, money, family, everything that I have in life outside the bounds of the group. Right now we're inside the group; outside the bounds of the group, what should I do? I should try in all of my states in this life to be on the greatest spiritual level. This means that I have joined this Aviut that has been added to me to the yearning for the Creator. If I try to do this, I thereby draw the surrounding light upon myself. It begins to shine for me. How do I try to do this? I gave you the example of my Rav. He would lock himself in a room and start dancing. And he was in a horrific state. We're talking about a great Kabbalist who was in the world of Atzilut and while at the same time being in our world. And he was going through these states too. Every person who hasn't yet fully corrected his Kli, hasn't yet reached the full Gmar Tikkun, goes through these states. So, he would literally lock himself in his room, and he would jump around, like, tra-la-la-la-la-la, hop around like this. Imagine, an 85-year-old man. And in this way, he would bring himself out on all of these levels: physical, mental, spiritual. He would bring himself out of these states, evoke in himself such states that would resemble on all the levels the next spiritual state. We have no other way, no other solution. Each time, before the Machsom and after the Machsom, you will have the same problems. But they're not problems. This is given to you because you've already been on a good degree, you already felt what it means, what it means to draw closer to the upper one, and now you're given practically this next state to carry out. And if you dig in your heels now, you wait until it comes, it will come in the end, because each of us will somehow return to this familiar spiritual work. And then we'll study again, we'll disseminate again, we'll give lectures, read something. After some time, we'll return and begin to participate in all this, but it won't be by our own efforts, or by ours but not with all the intensity with which we should do it. That's why he says, I am glad that it's happening today. Now you ask, what does it mean that it's the second half of our event here? That now, in the second half of our event, despite of this, we must come to the same state that we had yesterday, but with today's Aviut. That's the next degree. By no means should our state today be lower than yesterday's, than the very highest of all that we experience these days, all these days. And so, every day, a person must do this. I go to work, I study, I'm with my wife, my children, anything, any disturbances that you can name, inside them, you're obligated to live in full constant contact with the Creator. It's written here that there is a wife of a Kabbalist who was always scolding him, Klafte in Hebrew. How do you say it? Like a shrew, a shrew, yes. You don't have to cut this word from the transcript. So, he says, what are you talking about? It's because of her, thanks to her that I have attained everything. 

M. Laitman: (01:33:02) This was an example of such a good example in Kabbalah. They bring it out as a model example. It's like my Rav said when he was brought to study at an elementary school called Heder, from the word “room.” He was brought there for the first time, and there was a teacher there, and Rav says, I was the kind of kid, you couldn't tell me to do anything, order me to do anything. I was very independent. So, he said to me, look, this letter, tell me which letter. I said, I don't want to. Again, I don't want to. So, the teacher had a ruler, and he struck him, he just struck him with a ruler. Now you say it? No. He is struck again. Oh, okay, what can we do? I said it. And then he says, and then he holds out his hand to me and says, kiss the hand that holds the ruler, the stick. And that's what education was like. We are shown by example that we must be thankful for our blows. When a person actually comes to this, that he's glad that his Aviut is increasing, that the blows he receives, they're not blows, they are his inner flesh, his ego in which he can feel the Creator. How can I ascend if I don't step on this Aviut that has now been added to me? It's the only possibility for me to ascend. But I must rise on it, not annulling it, not forgetting it, not leveling it, not running away. I must take everything that I accumulated in the two morning hours of study, right, and throughout the day, the whole day. After all, why are we all communicating with each other, writing text messages to each other, and so on? So that through the whole day I would constantly, every second, introduce all this into everything, into the whole world. That's what it means that the whole world was created for me. And then you discover that everything in the world is filled by the Creator, by His force. You see Him everywhere, everywhere, in your lowest possible states. You don't forget about Him. In the lowest states, you may be with a woman, here or at work, it doesn't matter where, or what, or how, absolutely not important. If you try not to break away from the thought, from being similar to the Creator in all these states, wherever you are, you will find Him in those very lowest states. It's written, as it is written: in the biggest Aviuts. That's why the addition of Aviut to us, it's a blessing. It really is a blessing to keep, just to keep a space in your head and remember that despite the fact that I feel bad, and scared, everything is awful, I'm tired and fed up, if at the same time you remember to fight it, to fill it, to correct the state. For this, you need a group, because Aviut is added to a person and in this new Aviut, there is no point in the heart. There is no point in the heart there. The point of the heart is given to you only once. The new Aviut isn't added along with, let's say, ten kilos of your own desires that were added to you, all sorts of corporeal load, desires. No, the spiritual stimulation isn't added along with it in two parts, Malchut and Bina. They don't come to you at the same time. Only Malchut comes. So now, what you must do, like how, where do you get the spiritual inspiration? How will you remember it? You may remember it only a week later. Like where am I? Who am I? That's there is spiritual and something needs to be done with it. That's why you must create a group that would constantly remind you of this. If for a second we were in a bad state, detached, worn out state, it means that the group isn't acting on us. We haven't invested enough effort so that it would hold us in constant readiness, like in full combat readiness, always. 

M. Laitman: (01:38:05) This depends only on the group. Here a person can't do anything by himself. When the ego is added, that's it, you're already dead. You can't get away. Only if you invested in the group in advance, like in a bank, like an insurance fund, right? You, you prepay for it. How do you say it? Insurance. No, you, you prepaid for them to serve you, to look after you. It's, it's not that they're serving you, no, you're just getting back your own deposit. You do it precisely for this. There's an article by Rav Baruch. This comes from the spiritual principle. Such a state, Rabash has articles about a person who invests in a group and then the group gives him, bestows to him in that measure. We already have gone through this whole method, and I can remind you of it a thousand times, but it won't help if a person doesn't prepare for such states together with the group, and the group isn't ready to give each one precisely this reminder, to compel, to remind, to keep shaking each one up, with which thought toward the Creator you are in, then it isn't a group. It's the most important thing that the group must do for each of us, and that is why we send each other all these text messages and phone calls, to be in contact with one another, and reminders, and morning sessions, and evening lessons, and working together. Everything we do is only for this. If a person falls even a little bit... Baal HaSulam had this one case, you know, there are such stories, ARI told the students: if now, this Friday we make a leap towards Jerusalem, then we will bring about Gmar Tikkun for the entire world. Well, they went home to gather their things, whatever they had, for Jerusalem, and in the end, no one came to him. And he sits there and waits for them. It's a story, it's a historical story. Each one either sent a message or came himself and said, “I can't, I have such and such circumstances at their home.” Gmar Tikkun, what circumstances? Uh, one, his wife won't let him go. Excuses from ARI’s students, you understand? How can be there such foolishness? When egoism falls upon a person with its huge mass, he doesn't understand, he can no longer make any other calculation, he's unable to make these calculations. Same happened with Baal HaSulam. Once he told the students, we can bring about Gmar Tikkun, but we must, I don't remember when exactly this was, but at a certain time we must be in a state of utmost spiritual tension towards the state. And they were advancing towards it successfully, observing within themselves all the conditions of this mutual support and everything, and then suddenly one of them sighed. And Baal HaSulam said, that's it, with that everything vanished. One small lapse. Why am I saying this? Group's work upon each one of its members must be such that he feels that he's under constant supervision, constant compulsion of this group. He's compelled to hold himself correctly. He should be ashamed to look his friends in the eyes because he might let them down. It's called drilling a hole in the common boat in which everyone will drown if he will drill it. And that's why it often helps when the group reminds each of its members and each one reminds others how they are dependent upon one another. If I'm sitting now in such a dejected state and it's hard for me, I am disappointed, detached, I'm tired, I must understand that by this I am simply cutting off oxygen to the rest of my friends, and that's what I should be ashamed for before them.

M. Laitman: (01:43:14) You must simply cultivate this within yourself, this feeling. And now we're given this. So I consider today's state, today's state a very good one. Let's try to do this together, and you will see how simple it is. It's just a simple psychological foolishness within us, no more. And you'll see that tiredness does not exist. What does it mean, what does Gmar Tikkun mean? A person doesn't sleep, doesn't eat, doesn't drink, what, is in constant euphoria, a constant state of flight? What happens then? Does he, does he get tired or not? Does he need to rest from the spirituality somehow? What is that, constant Gmar Tikkun, nothing changes? Doesn't seem like a great state. Maybe a hype, well, how can you call it, a hyperactive state, in the state of, whatever, overexcitement or something? What to do in this case? It is such a blessed state of rest, of inner peace, of inner balance between yourself and the Creator. That's how rest, peace is achieved, through this balance between you and the Creator. And on each state, egoism grows again, and then correction correspondingly grows, and as soon as they coincide, then you feel at peace, and then again, and so on and so forth. So, we must reach such a state when this state of peace will be constant. It will be felt by us as absolute peace. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:45:27) Do screens differ in their properties in different people? 

M. Laitman: Of course, they differ, each person has its own individual set of egoistic properties. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): How should one respond to many changing states, sleepiness, joy, indifference, which keep recurring and replacing one another? Is there concrete action for each one of them? In what way does each one act as a trailblazer?

M. Laitman: All the states that replace one another in us come completely arbitrarily independent of us. There's no need to control them. You just need to control one thing: our intention towards each state, and whatever state we're in, whatever states we might be thrown into, the next state doesn't matter to me at all. We always are concerned, how should I not feel worse than before? If it won't get worse for me in any state, I can restore the connection with the Creator. I shouldn't think about what will be worse. I should take care of only one thing: the connection with the Creator. And if I break away from Him, it will be bad. And for a second, it will seem to me that it's good in my egoistic state, but then it will become bad again. There's no need to worry about the future. The future is today. Today I invest enough effort in myself and in the group so that in any of my next states I can immediately restore the direction towards the Creator. It means that I will always be in good state. And it doesn't matter what comes to me. Naturally, any subsequent states will be greater in our Aviut, and I won't be able to escape that. Each next Reshimo will, of course, be greater than the previous one, and, of course, worse and more distant from the Creator. But if each time I prepare myself for it better and better, then in this way I instantly compensate for this thickness of the Reshimo with my increased intention. That's all. There can be no bad state. If it's a bad state, the left line must instantly be perceived not as bad but, on the contrary, effective. Or not as a non-advancement. It gives you more Aviut. That is part of advancement. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:47:51) About the critical mass. How should I connect to the critical mass, to the world Kli? Is that a quantitative or qualitative characteristic? 

M. Laitman: Connecting to the world Kli means the following: creating such a spiritual community among us when we care for one another. When I understand that any group in the world, however near or far from me it exists, it determines my next state. That without it, I won't be able to rise spiritually, and therefore, I simply depend on them. I, like someone who is gravely ill, I am in their hands. I depend on them. So, if we have such an attitude towards one another, such care for one another will appear, that it will be enough for this common Kli to exist, and I will be included in it. In fact, that is how it is. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:48:55) How can I receive light from a Rav by including myself in him, or him in me? After all, I must receive from my AHP, from the AHP of my upper degree. 

M. Laitman: If you listen to my virtual lessons, I practically give everything there. I wouldn't say that it's necessary to listen to Zohar, to be present at the lesson. Honestly, it is very… I give it for a different type of an audience, by the way, for an Israeli audience, more suited to their mentality. If you like it, then go ahead and attend. It's not forbidden. If you like attending our morning lessons from 3 to 6 a.m., then please, you can go ahead and attend that. That's your business too. What I wish to give to the whole world group, I give in my three virtual lessons. They may change. There will probably be two lessons, one on Pticha and one lesson on some general discussion. We'll need to arrange a conference amongst ourselves weekly or once a month. We'll see according to the intensity of our work and our connection with one another. Those who don't have these phones, these video phones, maybe we need to buy and hand these phones over to everyone, hand them out to everyone. How many do we order, three or four? So, each group will receive such a video phone from us as a gift. And then this way, we'll have an opportunity to see and hear each other in real time. So, we will be able to hold constant meetings, gatherings, Yeshivat Chaverim. So, how to be included in me, how to connect to me? I'll tell you. In the same way that you connect to the Creator, that's how you can interconnect with one another, on the same principle of similarity. If a person wishes to be included in another person, he must take his desires, take his thoughts, thoughts and desires, and begin to work in them, work for them. That means being included in the group, in Rav, and the Creator. A mechanical connection is completely unnecessary. A person could live somewhere far away and be in contact with me rarely, but at the same time be truly close to me. And this doesn't depend on gender, on anything else. There are women who work together with me. I hear about them rarely, but I know how hard they work, how they strive to be closer to me. And in doing so, I truly feel them very close.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:52:18) Is restoring the connection with the Creator the realization, the working through of a Reshimo?

M. Laitman: Well, that is exactly called the realization of a Reshimo. All of our Reshimot come from our having been connected together with Him. At first, we were connected together with Him in one Kli called Adam. We fell from this level because we were all in a state where we were one Kli, and inside there was light, or the Creator. This is a state that was there from the beginning. Then, the state fell to a degree where we're at now, onto the Machsom, and from that state, as we fell, these Reshimot were formed. Reshimot. And now, they are in reverse order, are aroused within us from the lowest to the highest, and we must work through them. By working through the Reshimot, we return to our former state. What does a Reshimo mean? It's a recorded state that we went through as we fell up to the very last Reshimo or the very highest, by realizing which we find ourselves in the original perfect state. But we find ourselves there having earned it. We have to rise to it. And, of course, all these Reshimot are the restoration, the realization is the restoration of the connection with the Creator. It's quite simple. There’re simply two or three parameters. There's the Creator, there's the Kli, there's light. It's either explicit as a Kli and light, or it's not explicit because the screen broke. And then, there are just Reshimot. The Kli exists in the form of Reshimot, the light exists in the form of Ohr Makif.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:54:20) What is this creation we are hearing about here, the Bnei Baruch world group?

M. Laitman: Well, management will tell you what kind of an animal this is.

Student: And how will the group know who will need a lift? Who should I know, who should I be showing signs of attention, patting them on the back?

M. Laitman: No need to even think about it. If such inner pressure constantly exists in the group, any of its members will be nourished by it. He will just feel it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:55:10) What should one do if now with this added egoism we have to go home? 

M. Laitman: They came here so inspired, here we are, and now I'm leaving with some heavy suitcase. What do I do? Well, let's help this person. In reality, we really must, we should leave them, it won’t help. Just a second inside the group is enough to make this connection, and then be connected with it for the rest of your life. Try to overcome. This is just a purely psychological barrier, psychological, the fact that we get this additional egoism that's now falling on us and starting to wear us down. What does the Pharaoh say? Who is the Creator? Does He exist? Why should I obey Him? Why should I take on some method to do anything? All of our interferences, all of these thoughts against, tiredness, detachment, all of this is called “Pharaoh.” Look, start from the opposite, from the reverse. Watch how he works inside of you. It's very interesting. And in accordance to that, look for methods. How can you work against him? What does recognition of evil mean? Recognizing that he pushes you away from moving forward. Try to resist him. Or instead of the Pharaoh, imagine the Creator, that this is the Creator doing this to you. In fact, inside this Pharaoh, this evil angel, or this Aviut of yours, this egoism, there sits the Creator. He adds all of this to you on purpose so that based upon this egoism, you would learn to become similar to Him, to His thoughts, His actions. How else will you learn? Only in this way. He's obliged to add this to you. Remember when we studied Baal HaSulam's letter, how the king wished to elevate his slave, how he created such special conditions as if someone were attacking him, attacking the king, and the slave must defend him. And the king was supposedly completely under the threat of being killed and dying. And this slave, everything depended on the slave. Or the next time when the king made it look like as if villains and thieves were robbing his treasury, and this slave had to defend this treasury, and the slave could have done anything he wanted. He could have let the king be killed and become king in his place. He could have stolen the entire treasury himself and become the richest and most powerful man. But he didn't do it. He did it all for the sake of the king. And then he truly became equal to the king. First beside him. All of these interferences of ours that the Creator sends us, He sends them to us in such a form so that we would learn to be completely similar to Him. That is why we need to love them, we need to study them. All of these interferences are the reverse side, Achoraim of the image of the true Creator. He cannot manifest Himself otherwise. If He manifested Himself with Panim through the face from His side, we would simply find ourselves in the power of this light, this pleasure, we would simply go blind working for Him, doing anything not out of darkness, not against egoism, but we would do everything automatically as a consequence of our egoism. So, we wouldn't be able to grow. There would be no other way. Therefore, the understanding that these burdens are falling upon us, detachment, tiredness, all of these interferences against the spiritual are the reverse side of the next degree.

M. Laitman: There is no other form. It isn't simply bigger egoism. All these tricky questions that arise within you, unwillingness, in their structure, they represent the reverse side, like an imprint of a die, as a seal and an imprint. They are completely imprinted as the reverse image of the Creator. That is why everything is contained in this egoism of ours, only in reverse. And from above, we just need light, the force. Light is a nameless force. It has no properties of its own, only bestowal, empty bestowal. What does it mean, empty? Formless. And all the form is given by these properties of ours, having this detachment, not understanding and willingness in them. On the contrary, if we turn them inside out, appears the face of the Creator, our next degree. Let's finish this today.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:00:56) Is it possible to continue the practice of daily mottos during the Congress?

M. Laitman: Yes, in our central Bnei Baruch group, you probably know this, there is a motto for each day, a symbol, a slogan, the task of the day, the so-called Messima in Hebrew. That is, we set ourselves, we give ourselves a concrete task for the day. Say, today we are thinking about how we need to interact with one another so that during study, we would feel the friend's elbow and by no means immerse ourselves in study for the sake of study, but so that study is a means of spiritual ascent. That's just kind of a confusing phrase, but we set such a slogan, a motto before ourselves, and during the day, we try to think about it as much as we can. It doesn't matter because through this, we work through some thoughts, certain spiritual behavior. We can continue this. We have specialists in this field. I don't invent these mottos, these slogans, myself. I let whoever usually does this among us, write on the board what our slogan of the day is, and I think it's something that works against the Aviut that has grown within us and what we must do with it. Yes, that is a slogan from today's topic.