The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning), May 31, 2024.
Part 3: Baal HaSulam. Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah], Item 8.
Reader: We are in the writings of Baal HaSulam, the article, The Giving of the Torah. We are in item 8. You can find the study materials on our sites. Again, the writings of Baal HaSulam, The Giving of the Torah, item number 8.
Reading Item 8: (00:27)
8) This matter is like a rich man who took a man from the market and fed him and gave him gold and silver and every desirable thing each day. Each day, he showered him with more gifts than the day before. Finally, the rich man asked, “Tell me, have all your wishes been fulfilled?” And he replied, “Not all of my wishes have been fulfilled, for how good and how pleasant it would be if all those possessions and precious things came to me through my own work, as they have come to you, and I would not be receiving the charity of your hand.” Then the rich man told him, “In this case, there has never been born a person who could fulfill your wishes.”
It is a natural thing, since on one hand he experiences greater and greater pleasure, the more he showers presents upon him. But on the other hand, it is hard for him to tolerate the shame of the excessive goodness with which the rich showers him. This is because there is a natural law that a receiver feels shame and impatience upon receiving gifts from a giver out of compassion and pity.
From here extends a second law, that never will anyone be able to satisfy the needs of his friend to the fullest, because ultimately, he will not be able to give him the nature and form of self-possession, as only with it is the desired perfection attained.
But this relates only to the creatures, whereas regarding the Creator, it is completely impossible and unacceptable. This is the reason He has prepared for us the toil and the labor of Torah and Mitzvot, to produce our exaltedness by ourselves, because then the delight and pleasure that comes to us from Him, meaning everything that is included in the Dvekut with Him, will all be our own possession that has come to us through our own efforts. Then we will feel ourselves as the owners, without which there cannot be a sensation of wholeness.
M. Laitman: Questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:11) I do a lot of exertion, a lot of labor, to not touch this bread of shame. So even if it will be a gift from Him, without any context to how much I've labored, what makes this whole process take out of the equation that I'm acquiring it, and it's not going to be the bread of shame?
M. Laitman: Where did he tell you that you have to labor?
Student: Here. In the item we just read. In the item we read now. It's in the item we read.
M. Laitman: No.
Reader: He writes, and this is what He prepared to us through the labor and exertion, to exalt ourselves through the engagement of Torah and Mitzvot.
M. Laitman: So what's the question?
Student: And then he continues, that this is how we acquire the degree, and it's not going to be the bread of shame. So my question, I'm working for years, and I labor and exert greatly in the Ten and every place. If a miracle will happen, this miracle that the Creator will take me out of the place I'm in, that I'm laboring and exerting, it will nevertheless be due to His grace and His great mercy, as part of that it would be a gift beyond all the labor I've done. And nevertheless, He says to me, that if I acquired the mercy through His great mercy, I will feel it as the bread of shame. So now, what will happen in this equation? For me to acquire the degree, and it won't be this bread of shame? For it to be due to the mercy and grace that He gives.
M. Laitman: You don't have an answer?
Student: I have an answer if I do it to someone else who is precious to me. And then I demand equally to the way the Creator relates to him, I relate to the one who is dear to me. But for me, I have no answer.
M. Laitman: Anybody else have an answer?
Comment (Petah Tikva Center): (06:46) Look at it as the place to exert the labor of place.
M. Laitman: That was an answer?
Student: If I receive from the Creator additions, actually, this addition does not just come to fill, it comes to extend the path. It doesn't come on its own. There's a reason it comes. If it were just to come to complete things, then it's okay. But it doesn't come that way. It comes, it evokes new records, it awakens in us. It actually causes you to do more labor from the closest to Him. That's it.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Comment (Petah Tikva Center): (07:50) It seems like the answer is clear. He asks for his friend, he gets answered first. That's the state of the friend. If he labors for his friend and he gets answered, then besides being delighted by that, there's nothing else to do.
M. Laitman: That's sufficient.
Comment (Petah Tikva Center): (08:23) I think maybe after the labor, he doesn't disregard what he receives, and then he'll have a vessel to hold it and not lose it anymore. That would be the difference between receiving it in advance from the Creator, without laboring, and if he received later, and it became precious to him and important, I think that's the differentiation between both states.
M. Laitman: Okay. I hear you.
Comment (Petah Tikva Center): (09:06) A miracle comes in the form of the revelation of the greatness of the Creator. There are no limitations to that. You can receive pleasure from it, delight in it, endlessly.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Comment (Petah Tikva Center): (09:36) They say you have labored and you've found, believe. Meaning, if you've labored and found, believe. If you labored and didn't find, don't believe. You didn't labor and you found, don't believe.
M. Laitman: And?
Comment (Petah Tikva Center): (09:56) I think the answer is in the article we read a few days ago. The Malchut and the memories and the Shofars. Why? Because the more I barely receive in difficulty what I desire, I receive the burden of the Kingdom of Heaven in every action, and I remember that. I imprint it within me. I manage to preserve it and be able to announce it in the Shofar.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Comment (Petah Tikva Center): (10:35) I'm not certain if it's correct, but it's also the matter of incorporation that the Creator divides everything into endless pieces. Each gives his labor. In the end, all these labors are included into one. So, seemingly, the Creator did give endless labor and receives also what he acquired from that too.
M. Laitman: Interesting.
Comment (Petah Tikva Center): (11:10) In another place, I think, Baal HaSulam says that if a person calculates how much a person is rewarded within the end of correction, the whole eternal world and the complete filling compared to the little time that he's invested, even his whole corporeal life, he just invested 70 years and got such a reward. So, it's a commitment. Then you need to feel shame, but that's if you make the calculation in vessels of reception. In vessels of bestowal, the calculation is different. We learn that a person in the end feels 620 times, and it's not because there's more light all of a sudden, but because he feels that he's doing the greatness of the Creator. That's that multiplier. It seems like the multiplier exists in the work also, not just in the reward. If a person does that towards the Creator, this multiplier comes, and there's no longer the problem of the shame.
M. Laitman: Okay, interesting.
Comment (Petah Tikva Center): (12:16) As long as a person is in this desire to receive, feels the bread of shame in shame. But if he corrected himself and only wants to bestow to the Creator, then if he receives, he receives it for the Creator. And that's already, as if he's not doing it, he's doing it for the bestowal to the Creator.
M. Laitman: Yes, that's it.
Question (Turkiye 2): (12:50) How can a person develop greatness of the Creator in order to connect with all the pleasures that come from the Creator? The pleasure that comes from the Creator.
M. Laitman: Yes, well, if you were to do that?
Student: How to build the greatness that afterwards we can get the pleasures from Him?
M. Laitman: If we can incorporate in the action of the Creator in connection, then we can be incorporated also in the reception of the pleasure that comes from the Creator.
Question (Moscow 4): (14:16) If the rich man wanted to trick his friend or destroy him so he could have done it easily, to take him to a casino and get him addicted to drugs, he had all the means to bring a person against his will to some place. But the sages don't have a method that they can bring a person against his desire to the place he has to reach, that he himself will know how to get all the gifts. Even though the sages are supposed to be much wiser than the wicked, rich ones. Why is the world organized in this way?
M. Laitman: Very well.
Question (Women Turkiye 8): (15:18) Does my exertion develop to the extent that I go above reason?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So what should happen so I can say myself that I did it?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Holland): (15:41) Good morning, dear Rav.
M. Laitman: Morning.
Student: It says in the article about a second law that never will anyone be able to satisfy the needs of his friends. Because ultimately, he will not be able to give him the nature and form of self-possession. What does this mean, this nature and form of self-possession?
M. Laitman: For a person, it should be clear to a person that he merited it and not that he got it as a gift. That's the self-possession of it. That's very important. Therefore, there's what we call to give in an anonymously concealed manner in all those actions. Okay?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:13) Can I ask? A person's development in spirituality brings him to more of an awareness of the greatness of the Creator. That's the development until he reaches complete adhesion.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, that means None Else Besides Him, He does all deeds. He's the first, He's the last. I didn't do anything. It was all Him.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, why am I the owner of this?
M. Laitman: No, because you managed to develop a vessel to receive the gift.
Student: But He helped me. He did it.
M. Laitman: No.
Student: Eventually, a person sees that all of his exertion, it was all the Creator doing.
M. Laitman: The Creator was behind it, but the Creator arranging everything doesn't mean that he does. A person is the main one who does what is upon him to do.
Student: So, what does it mean that he did, he will do, all the deeds, everything?
M. Laitman: The Creator does everything besides one thing, where a person feels that it comes due to his labor.
Student: That's what he leaves for a person. That he leaves it for the person?
M. Laitman: He leaves it to a person, because otherwise, where will the greatness of the Creator come from?
Student: So, that's the point that gives you independence and adhesion, but it doesn't really exist because there's None Else Besides Him? It's a whole process?
M. Laitman: That's what there is.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (18:56) I think this is also what the friend was asking, which is a great question.
M. Laitman: What?
Student: The connection between the exertion and the reward. How does the exertion become a vessel for a reward? A person only has to reach the right plea. Our exertion is to reach that plea.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And the plea, a person feels that it's his own. He doesn't lie to himself anymore.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It's clear that all the actions happen by the light, the friends, that's clear. But he made the efforts to reach that right exertion, the plea, and that doesn't disappear. The plea remains.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And the rest you can ascribe to the Creator. So, if he feels that he's the one asking, that's the privilege, to ask for the right thing.
M. Laitman: Yes. Yes, yes.
Reader: Number nine. Item 9.
Reading Item 9: (20:16)
9) Indeed, we need to examine the heart and the source of this natural law, and who it was that fathered the flaw of shame and impatience that we feel upon receiving charity from another. It is understood from a law that is known to scientists, that each branch bears the same nature as its root, 1) and that the branch also desires, seeks, and craves, and benefits from all the conducts of the root. 2) Conversely, all the conducts that are not in the root, its branch removes itself from them, cannot tolerate them, and is harmed by them. This law exists between each root and its branch and cannot be breached.
This opens before us a door to understand the source of all the pleasures and pains in our world. Since the Creator is the root of His creations, we feel all that exists in Him, and which extends to us directly from Him, as pleasant and delightful, for our nature is close to our root. And everything that is not in Him and does not extend to us directly from Him, but contradicts creation itself, will be against our nature and difficult for us to tolerate. Thus, we love to rest and hate to move so much that we do not make a single movement if not for the attainment of rest. This is so because our root is not in motion but at rest, and no motion exists in Him whatsoever. Therefore, it is against our nature and loathsome to us, as well.
By the same token, we love wisdom, strength, and wealth, etc., because all those exist in Him Who is our Root. And hence, we hate their opposites, such as foolishness, weakness, and poverty, since they do not exist in our Root at all. This makes us feel hateful and loathsome, and pains us immeasurably.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:15) On the one hand, we love qualities that are in the root. On the other hand, we also love what is convenient for our ego. So, what is the difference between one and another?
M. Laitman: This comes from the root and this comes from the root of nature.
Student: But it's the same qualities.
M. Laitman: Why?
Student: We like wealth. We like good things. What's convenient for the ego. On the other hand, it's all in the root. It's the same qualities.
M. Laitman: Yes. Well?
Student: I don't know. Can we take some summary from this? This is the way it is and that's it.
M. Laitman: That which comes from our root, we love because we come from that source. What else are you asking?
Student: How does it turn out that it's the same qualities? What is in the root and what's convenient to the ego, it's the same qualities.
M. Laitman: Yes. That's how I'm built. I also emerge from that root.
Student: I see.
M. Laitman: More? Anyone else want to ask?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:57) In the same cases a person recognizes that in the past he had an opportunity to bestow and he missed out on it. Should he feel sorry about it or relate it to None Else Besides Him?
M. Laitman: That depends on the state he's in today, right now.
Student: When he remembers the past, is it good to feel sorry about previous states?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So to relate it to None Else Besides Him and keep going?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:32) So, if so, it's interesting what he writes here. Number two, anything that isn't in the root, the branch removes itself from them, cannot tolerate them, and is harmed by them. He says he hates foolishness and poverty because they're not in the root. So, where does it come from? So, why is all this suffering in the world? Why do we see problems and trouble and everything that's going on around if it's not from the root? Because it says None Else Besides Him. So, where does this trouble come from if it's not from my root? What causes it?
M. Laitman: Well, well?
Student: That's the question. If he says that we're opposite of our natural roots, so why am I even getting all this in my life, all this trouble, all this mess around? A lot are asking if None Else Besides Him, so, why is trouble around us? It's not connected to my root, this trouble.
M. Laitman: What should we answer him?
Comment (Petah Tikva Center): (27:57) Every degree is attained through the posterior. We don't see the face. We start from behind, from the opposite. From the oppositeness, we reach the source, our root, the Good That Does Good.
Student: So, I'll keep asking the question then. He says, number one, that because he is the root of everything that was created, everything will feel pleasant because our nature is close to our root. So, what's, if we're close to our root, and we say that everything comes from Him, if He's the only Good That Does Good, so I'm asking myself, why should I see everything around in such a way? I'm not getting an answer. What's the answer? Let's say I had some trouble, just horrible things, and today you see what's going on. So, why? What's the reason?
M. Laitman: It's the will of the Creator.
Student: It's just like that, His will?
M. Laitman: There's nothing in the world besides the will of the Creator.
Student: But why in such a way? That's what I'm asking. When you see all this darkness.
M. Laitman: That's what we want to learn from our study.
Student: What does that mean?
M. Laitman: That as a result of the study, I want to know what's happening with us. Why we're in such a state? What state do we need to reach in order to feel better?
Student: So, I understand that you are already one step ahead. So, why are we in this state?
M. Laitman: In order to search for the answer.
Student: What?
M. Laitman: In order to seek the answer of why we feel so bad.
Student: We learn it's all about the connection between us. I don't understand why, if we're connected to the root? So, he does all this on purpose to us?
M. Laitman: Of course.
Student: Why?
M. Laitman: So that we will reach the correct and good state.
Student: So, we have to invert ourselves. With what help? How do we invert? That's the eternal question.
M. Laitman: We invert by the Reforming Light.
Student: Only that, no other way.
M. Laitman: No, what other way if you have the means? The problem is that with that means, you have to hold on to several conditions. To that which you are. To that which you want to be. And, where are you going to receive the force to flip, to invert?
Student: Do you think we're successful in doing it lately or not? Because I see everything is still darkness.
M. Laitman: Darkness does not imply anything.
Student: So?
M. Laitman: We'll get to the light.
Student: How?
M. Laitman: By the Reforming Light.
Student: So that's the only way?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:44) What does it mean that our root is at rest?
M. Laitman: It has no lack. And therefore it's in rest, in complete rest.
Student: And we need to reach that.
M. Laitman: We need to get there. But he sees us already, in that state already.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (32:15) So, on behalf of pleasure, we're close to the root. We feel the light. And on behalf of the vessels, we're opposite. We want to receive and He bestows. And the light that reforms needs to help us to invert our vessels. And the gap we see between the pleasures of the light to the oppositeness of the vessel. And that the friends are helping to draw that light to adhere to that one vessel. Because only He can invert us, our vessels, and build the right vessels towards creation. Is that right? Is that the direction that it is?
M. Laitman: Yes.
M. Laitman: Okay. What else? Number 10? I don't know. When are we studying until?
Reader: 5:30?
M. Laitman: Yes?
Reader: We can end now if you want, whatever you feel.
M. Laitman: Let's conclude.
Reader: We are going to have a lesson summary in the Tens. Summarize what we just heard in the lesson.
Workshop Question: Come on, friends, in a workshop. What are the main points we heard in the lesson? In all three parts.
Reader: (41:46) Announcements.
Song: (42:22)