The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Morning Lesson: January 17, 2026
Part1: Reading of the Article in the Ten
Rabash. Article No. 1, 1984. Purpose of Society - 1.1-1 (1984)
RECORDED (05-15-2003)
Reader: Hello friends, today we'll continue in studying the article, “Purpose of Society Part 1:1.” You can find it in the writings of Rabash and in the second part of the study from the lesson from MAy 15, 2003. We're going to read the article in the Ten now, Tens who finish first can start a workshop about the main points of the article. Go ahead.
Reading: (00:38) We have gathered here to establish a society for all who wish to follow the path and method of Baal HaSulam, the way by which to climb the degrees of man and not remain as a beast, as our sages said (Yevamot, 61a) about the verse, “And you My sheep, the sheep of My pasture, are men.” And Rashbi said, “You are called ‘men,’ and idol worshipers are not called ‘men.’”
To understand man’s merit, we shall now bring a verse from our sages (Berachot, 6b) about the verse, “The end of the matter, all having been heard: fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole man” (Ecclesiastes, 12:13). And the Gemarah asks, “What is ‘for this is the whole man’”?
Rabbi Elazar said, “The Creator said, ‘The whole world was created only for that.’ This means that the whole world was created for the fear of God.”
Yet, we need to understand what the fear of God is, being the reason for which the world was created. From all the words of our sages, we learn that the reason for creation was to benefit His creations. This means that the Creator wished to delight the creatures so they would feel happy in the world. And here our sages said about the verse, “For this is the whole man,” that the reason for creation was the fear of God.
But according to what is explained in the essay, Matan Torah [“The Giving of the Torah”], the reason why the creatures are not receiving delight and pleasure, even though it was the reason for creation, is the disparity of form between the Creator and the creatures. The Creator is the giver and the creatures are the receivers. But there is a rule that the branches are similar to the root from which the branches were born.
And since there is no reception in our root, since the Creator is in no way deficient and needs nothing to satisfy His want, man feels unpleasantness when he needs to be a receiver. This is why every person is ashamed to eat the bread of shame.
To correct that, the world had to be created. Olam [world] means He’elem [concealment], so that delight and pleasure must be concealed. Why is it so? The answer is, for fear. In other words, it is so that man would fear using his vessels of reception, called “self-love.” This means that one should prevent oneself from receiving pleasures because one craves them, and should have the strength to prevail over the craving, the object of one’s desire.
Instead, one should receive pleasures that bring contentment to the Creator. This means that the creature will want to bestow upon the Creator and will have fear of the Creator, of receiving for oneself, since reception of pleasure—when one receives for one’s own benefit—removes him from cleaving to the Creator.
Therefore, when a person performs one of the Mitzvot [commandments] of the Creator, one should aim that this Mitzva will bring him pure thoughts that he will bestow upon the Creator by keeping the Creator’s Mitzvot. It is as our sages said, “Rabbi Hanania Ben Akashia says, ‘The Creator wanted to cleanse Israel; hence, He gave them plentiful Torah and Mitzvot.’”
And this is why we gather here—to establish a society where each of us follows the spirit of bestowing upon the Creator. And to achieve bestowal upon the Creator, we must begin with bestowal upon man, which is called “love of others.”
And love of others can only be through revoking of one’s self. Thus, on the one hand, each person should feel lowly, and on the other hand, be proud that the Creator has given us the chance to be in a society where each of us has but a single goal: for The Shechina [Divinity] to be among us.
And although we have not yet achieved this goal, we have the desire to achieve it. And this, too, should be appreciated by us, for even though we are at the beginning of the way, we do hope to achieve the exalted goal.
Question: (09:04) I have a question for my daughter, Targilim. Let's say she eats something, a chicken, so I say, put the chicken in your mouth. You put it in your mouth, so just put it in your mouth before that.
M. Laitman: Can you do that? Well, if you don't have any inner feeling, but you feel, it's tasty, I like chicken, so you like it, right? Give her a kiss. That's how you say, I hate him, I like him. How can you hate someone you don't like? You describe him for a reason, you can describe the reason as a result of what you do.
If now I don't know why, I don't know the history of the United States, but I know that everything that happened...
Student: I don't know, I don't know this president of the US, and I know that everything in my life depends on that president, so I hate him. There is emotion to that.
M. Laitman: No, you don't feel hatred towards the Creator. You can depict it to yourself, but you don't have hatred toward the Creator. Meaning you might have some already, because you're beginning to develop some connection with Him. But an ordinary person on the street, he only imagines it to himself, but it's really nonsense. He has no connection with the Creator, because the Creator is concealed. What do you mean? That's the whole matter of the concealment. Double concealment, or ordinary concealment. We cannot hate Him. He guards Himself.
Student: I'm asking in a simple way. If I know there's a friend that hates me, I need to try to love him anyway?
M. Laitman: You're already asking how do we implement that in a society. Who is it better to love? One who seems to be as far away from me, or one who seems close to me, right?
Student: The question is, where is the work? Because if I see that, if I go to one who loves me and I ignore those who hate me, then I'm not running away from the work?
M. Laitman: Is it more worthwhile to make a connection in a society with the one that I feel is far or close, according to how I see that it's more burning to him or less burning in him, this matter of spirituality? Right? Or what?
Student: Maybe in spirituality I see that this... But in terms of connecting with a person, I don't need it. It's inside me. It's the desire to connect with a person that I'm not willing to connect with.
Look, if I'm going to connect with a person who is comfortable and pleasant, then maybe I'll feel good about it. And then I'll be able to achieve my goal. I'll simply be close to him because I feel comfortable, good, secure, a friend,
M. Laitman: You know how it is, and it will blur the you know, work for me. Maybe with a person that I hate to begin with, according to his qualities, I can't really adhere to him. We're different. Maybe there I'll think more why I'm precisely with him and I have to act against my will. Or maybe I should start from the lighter to the heavier or in some other way. In truth, I would say there is a reason why it says in the multitude of people is the king's glory. What is the multitude of people? There are all kinds of relationships.
So I would say both. If I only relate to the good or only relate to the bad, I won't have enough discernment. So I need him and him together. And then from these as well as that and also from the collision between both of them inside of me with the good friend and also with the bad friend that will raise the greatness and the importance of the Creator that what matters to me is not this or that but rather the Creator. How through them I achieve the connection with Him. How I go to them only because of the importance of the Creator so that they will not blur it for me because towards the one that I hate I can also think what a hero I am, I'm doing it, and so forth.
So we need to accept the society the way it is organized. What does it mean the way it’s organized? We need to be concerned about raising the greatness of the goal in the society, but it's not that I'm going to change within it the qualities of the friends, and it's also impossible. I need to accept them, that they are given to me like that from above, and that here I need to grow. Only if the society answers a single lack that I have, to increase each time the greatness of the Creator and bestow it to everyone. This is considered that I receive from everyone their desires, in addition to my small desire.
Student: I'll ask like this, let's say a friend who's looking at me from above, you know, patronizing, and now, I don't know how to…you're telling me to analyze how many minutes is there with the Creator. How do I know if he's patronizing because it's his nature, or he needs greatness of the Creator, because he wants me to lower myself?
M. Laitman: I see the friend, according to his actions, that too, you cannot cancel the actions, nevertheless, he can just come in a way that he's always thinking, like our guy over there, about constantly thinking about godliness, and this is enough for him. He has to invest in a society, to truly invest.
Student: He puts his soul into it, it's not for the goal, maybe it's because he's getting some respect from it, or couldn't do things outside that he's doing here. How do I know that he's aiming for the goal? Maybe he invested because of other things he's getting.
M. Laitman: You're asking me how can you, with your own eyes, see that when you look at the society…You're looking now at 100 people. Where do I see the people who are investing, and the goal matter is important for them, or maybe not, where are these, where are those?
You can't see that. You can see them according to your response, meaning in a dynamic way, not the state that each one is in, but in the differential. How can I say differential? In the difference, the gap between how they are entered, and they are operated, and they're impressed by this idea that we need to increase the greatness of the Creator in the society. The difference between how you come, and someone else, and then someone else, and they themselves. How they're willing to invest themselves in the society, according to this message of increasing spirituality, increasing the greatness of the Creator in the society, how much they respond to it.
Student: Between one to another?
M. Laitman: Between one to the other, yes. And then you will see, maybe you'll see a friend who's constantly thinking all the time only how to make a few more movies, and that's it, so he found for himself a form of expression, and he feels good and comfortable. We don't cancel, we don't ignore such friends also, but they are important for us only with respect to their actions, not with respect to spirituality. If you're asking about spirituality, you need to see how much is he investing in the society in order to receive from it what he is lacking, and that we have to measure very carefully. We collect from others, it's not with our desire. Our desire, the point in the heart is only so that we will start to add to this desire, other desires. I have one desire, and there are 599,999 other desires that I need to add to this desire. My desire is called the heart of stone, I don't correct that. I correct all the other desires, because these are desires to receive that I connected through the force of Bina, through the force of bestowal. So all of the other desires are fit for it, so that in them I can receive the revelation of godliness, of spirituality, but in my desire I'm not qualified.
Seemingly there's no reflected light over it, there is reflected light in acquiring the other desires that I connected to myself. So they become my true vessel. This vessel is based on my point, but my point is below this vessel, it does not receive in itself. This is why, love your friend as yourself, this love that I want to give to others, right- It is the great rule in the Torah, it becomes the vessel where I feel the light. It's not myself, my vessel, my point. Love of others is the vessel in which the Creator is revealed.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:22) When I each time going to choose, where is the greatness of the environment? I lose it. I already have a criticism, how do I keep the greatness of the environment at that point?
M. Laitman: Again? Again?
Student: With regards to the notion of self-annulment, I throw myself into the environment that will influence me and give me greatness of the Creator to take me to the goal, yes No. Each time I need to have a new response, the best response. How in that moment that I'm trying to look for the best environment, how do I maintain the self-annulment?
M. Laitman: That is, how within me the matter of choosing the society and also criticizing it, measuring it, is it better than the previous one. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, self-annulment towards them.
Reader: Sorry, we lost audio again.....
M. Laitman: So, it's only your critical mind then after you checked, you saw the society you saw that it is a great society, their ideal is greater than yours. It’s more important and greater than the previous society, then you start annulling yourself towards it. Otherwise, what does it mean to annul? You annul yourself towards their ideal, you saw that it is greater. It's like the example I gave with Weight Watchers. I tried and I saw that this society that I tried doesn't work on me, I need to try another society. I came, I saw, you know, there's always this initial meeting where they present themselves to everyone. Go ahead, see who you are, you come in, you check, you see, determine, yeah, it seems to me that they are stronger, so you go and try it, but go and try it means that I bow down, I acquire from them their mind, and I see how it influences me, and this is how it is each and every time. Meaning, I annul myself to their ideal. After I see that it's not influencing me anymore, I need to replace my society to one in which the ideal is greater, and then greater and greater. What do we do in practice? I don't have such ready-made societies, such that every kiosk on the street will have its own society. I can't run after each one of them. What can I do in practice? I need to change the society where I am.
Through my work that I'm in it and I want to acquire from the members their idea, I need to change it. In Weight Watchers, I come and pay money for every meeting in order to get from them their message, their power. In our society, instead of money, I bring my exertion, my upliftment, my awakening, my attitude towards the goal, and through that, I buy power from them. So therefore, I increase them, and to that extent, I'm bestowing to all of the friends, right? And they, in return, bestow to me. So it turns out that it is a system that has an internal power supply, like a perpetual mobile, infinite movement. So that within ourselves, only from our connection, we generate additional forces. We don't even need to constantly increase the society, simply by each one receiving from the others he grows. Once he grew he can impart his power back to the society, and again, as a result, everyone grows out of that. So he receives a greater power. This is how it is, to no end. It's enough to have a society with a few people who can work in such a way. It's like a generator working each time, how do you say it in Hebrew, so that it works more and more each time, you see. So the power grows. The energy grows.
Student: How is it possible to activate this mechanism, this pyramid you spoke about now?
M. Laitman: What I described now, I imagined to myself this pyramid, how, first of all it needs to be built. And once it is built, it also grows relatively between all the elements within it. But now we talked about the individual work of the person, not the entire pyramid, not the entire structure. But the whole structure is also the same, there's no difference here between the individual and the collective.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:58) Like with the Weight Watchers example, with what message do I need to get to my fridge, with a negative message or a positive message, meaning it's great to be thin or it's bad to be fat?
M. Laitman: To the Weight Watchers Society, I come with two messages, right? It's not good to be fat, and it is good to be thin. I need both of these things in order to truly want. Because if it's not so bad to be fat, then okay, it's good to be thin, but being fat, it's also not too bad. So I need to have both of them. And indeed, I saw it also on myself, in terms of the level of sugar that they told me to decrease. It's a wonder how it's closed nicely. So in us, it is expressed through the pulling force and the pushing force, right? I need the greatness of the Creator to pull me forward, and I have to feel my own lowliness in order to want to run away from it, so it will reject me, it will push me from behind. So being fat, it's disgusting, that pushes me from behind. And being thin, it's healthy and good-looking, so it pulls me forward.
Student: With what message to begin?
M. Laitman: With what message to begin? The one that's more active, more effective. The one that draws you more, the one that harms you more, it depends. But you need to magnify it, you need to magnify it. I was told, look, you have a problem of sugar, but you could reach a state where, it's really a wonder, you can reach a state where you won't have to take any pills if you lose weight. Do a diet and all kinds of such things. I tried a few times, this way, that way, I failed, right? Then I started going to some kind, one kind of counseling and another kind, and I paid money and I went to all kinds of different places where they speak about sugar. I bought a book and I read it before I went to sleep, not an article by Baal HaSulam, but an article about how it's not good to have a lot of sweet stuff in your body, right? Here it started to influence me, such that today I can resist sweet things, and also a habit becomes second nature, among other things here on the path, so that today I can resist such temptations even when I'm hungry. Or there are sweet things that are in particular, tasty in particular, and I can describe it to myself from the negative side and from the positive side, from both of these points, and play with them inside of myself, and I can already resist it. Maybe it's up to a certain boundary, I didn't check myself in all possible situations, but I can see that it's possible to build such a thing, and I see how everybody does that. It's the recognition of evil, first of all, and how important the goal is.
Suddenly, I started to discover that I won't be able to do in my life everything that I still want to do. Nevertheless, here it's about self-persuasion. A friend says that he is thinking about the Creator 24 hours a day. I don't know, maybe it's just good to be with this thought, you know, like someone who is flying through the air, 24 hours you can think about it in a very dramatic way, so it will awaken within you many urges, many drives. I started to add to this thought about how it's not good to have too much sugar, that it's a weakness, I won't be able to hear or see as a result of diabetes. I read about all kinds of terrible phenomena, I scared myself, you know, like you scare children. I convinced myself in such a way that I already have that so why should I reach it? I already imagined to myself that I'm like that already compared to, so that's seemingly a recognition of evil, and besides how good it is to be thin or not have sugar. I depicted to myself how many things I still need to do, and I won't be able to do them in my life. I still have a goal, I have other things I need to reach, and if I'll be in that state, how will I reach it. Meaning I was also, I also received an attraction forward, besides reading about all the horrors you can get from that, so from that I received enough forces from both sides.
This is what we lack in our society, this is why I'm saying that we need to truly play with each other- meaning show each other, as if we have love of others, as if we want the Creator, as if spirituality is the most important. From that we will all be inspired in a true way, I started from zero, I didn't want to hear about it in the beginning, whatever I tried. And then truly in a methodical way, I started to hear about it, and to think about it. The friend says he thinks about the Creator 24 hours a day. I was thinking for a long time about what it could do to me, what negative things, simply with everything in life, how do we achieve something in life, if not through importance. Meaning either through the Torah or through suffering. When we go and try to convince the world in the truthfulness of our method, don't we tell them the same? If you want to reach it through good, then you reach it through the bad. Why do you want to feel bad, so I'm giving you a good way, choose it. I gave you life right as it says, today I gave you life and death, choose life. So we need to choose, and we choose through importance.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (33:46) If I want to bestow to the friend, how do I know if he has a deficiency for the Creator, and to what extent, my goal is to advance and not get stuck on the path?
M. Laitman: You are saying beautiful words, you want to advance, you have a society, and you think about the Creator 24 hours a day, and about the society. What are you doing about it? What do you mean as much as I can? Teach me, what do you do, give me an example for me so that I can also do it. I'm not doing anything, I just sit and think. Do we need to do anything else besides that, or not, maybe it's enough, or maybe I truly need to do something else.
Maybe this thought pacifies me, and it's so good that it's not that I don't need to think of something else, I also don't want to think about anything else. It really gives me this inner calmness, it's beautiful. No?
Student: No. That's it. That's why I come, I try to open things up, and I don't just sit at home and I'm happy with life and just happily thinking about the Creator. But the work with the group, that's what I want to work on, specifically the bad things that I feel. That's why I come here. So that's why I'm asking. I want to bestow to the friend. How do I know that this, that he has greatness of the goal and he has a deficiency and what kind? I see that he doesn't feel good. I help him. How do I know that I'm helping him, not just for no reason, but because he doesn't have a deficiency for the Creator?
M. Laitman: So, if you don't know who are the friends to whom you can bestow then you should take this article- The Purpose of Society, and say to everyone, guys, let's read it. We have gathered here to lay a foundation for the building of a society. Now we're beginning. Until today, I don't know, did we have a society? Maybe we didn't have the society. What does it mean? What kind of society? For all those who are interested in following the path and method of Baal HaSulam. That's, first of all. We don't know what it is, we just attach ourselves to this name and go with that. See how he writes, which is the way. What is this method? How to climb on the degrees of men and not remain as a beast. If you say this slogan on the street, everyone will surely say, sure. Everyone will agree. As our sages said, he says, and you are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture. You are men, you are called men, and idol worshipers are not called men. So there is some state here where not all those who are walking on the street are called men. So there are some people, some groups, which are called the sheep of my pasture, that they truly belong to the Creator. And who said that? This is something that Rashbi said.
M. Laitman (Source Text/Commentary): (37:09) In order to understand the merit of man, what is it to be a man? You are called man, we will bring the words of our sages about the verse, in the end of the matter all is heard, fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of men.
M. Laitman: Meaning the whole of men is after he fears God and keeps his commandments. Meaning he feels some fear towards the Creator, and out of that he carries out certain actions.
M. Laitman (Source Text/Commentary): (37:38) So the Gemarah asks, what is, for this is the whole of man. So there is an answer by Rabbi Eleazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon, he always speaks with respect to the end of correction, it's a very high degree with him. The Creator said the whole world was created only for that. This means that everyone will reach that, no one will escape it. Which means that the whole world was created only for the fear of God. The fear of God is the vessel. Each one must reach this vessel, and the whole world in general, and then they'll receive the filling called the revelation of the Creator, let's say. We need to understand what is the fear of God, if this is the most important, if this is the Adam- man. Which means that this was the reason for which the whole world was created. The Creator wanted to create someone who will be compatible with Him, similar to Him, equal to Him. In order to reach being equal with Him, we need to have the fear of God. So in order for this created being to acquire the fear of God, he needs to be in a certain environment called Olam, world, for this world was created in order to acquire the fear of God.
It is known from all the words of our sages that the reason for creation was to do good to His creations. This is the filling for the fear. Meaning that the Creator wanted to delight the created beings so that they'll feel themselves happy in a world. But here, our sages said about the verse, for this is the whole of man, that the reason for creation is the fear of God. So, what is the connection between the fear of God and the filling, that He wants to delight His creations? But according to what is explained in the book, Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah, it says that the reason why the created beings do not receive the good and pleasure, even though this is the reason for creation, is because of the disparity of form. That they cannot receive the good and pleasure because there is a disparity of form between the Creator and the created beings, because the Creator is the giver and the created beings receive. He created them, to begin with, in the opposite nature. And since there is a rule that the branches resemble their root from which the branches were born, the branch is the opposite of the root. And since matters of reception do not apply to our root, in the Creator, and He created that in the opposite way. Meaning the Creator is not, God forbid, deficient. So that He will have to receive something in order to fulfill His deficiency. Since when man has to be a receiver, he feels unpleasantness, this is why every person is ashamed to eat bread of shame. Meaning, if we feel ourselves as standing opposite the Creator and opposite to Him, we will feel shame.
M. Laitman (Source Text/Commentary): (40:58) To correct that the world had to be created, what does it mean? Those who already feel the shame, the oppositeness of form to the Creator, that, my friend, is already some stature. So the means then to reach the equivalence of form, for that the world had to be created. Meaning for that, I need the whole world to serve me. And then I say that the world was created for me. What does it mean? The world is a means so that through the feeling of the oppositeness from the Creator, when I feel shame, you know, I can reach equivalence with the Creator. Olam, world, means He'elem, concealment, that the good and pleasure must be concealed. What for? The answer is for fear. Meaning that man will have to use his vessel of reception called self-love. It means that a man will prevent himself from receiving pleasure because he craves them, and he will have the power to overcome the craving, what he craves. This means that it's not just a feeling that I have that I'm the opposite of the Creator, I need to feel how much I am the opposite of Him, meaning how much I'm in the will to receive, in self-love, in craving, compared to how much He is, in giving, in a desire to bestow, in bestowal. Meaning I need to have within me truly a feeling all the way down to the abyss, compared to the feeling of who he is, bestowing outside of Himself, all the way to Ein Sof.
Then according to how I compare his stature and my stature, then I have shame, and I have fear of using my opposite desires, right? I see on Him, God forbid, in Him, that does not exist, God forbid, He's not like that. Then I'm already afraid of being not suitable for Him, being not like him. But, when a person receives pleasures that will bring contentment to the Creator. What does it mean, bring contentment to the Creator? I want, in the same way that He has, I want to have it also, but what way does the Creator have it? The way that He gives me. So in what way do I need to have it? In a way that I give to Him, which means that the created being wants to bestow to the Creator, and that he'll have fear of the Creator, meaning fear of receiving to himself. Because that reception of pleasure, when a person receives for himself, distances him from adhering to the Creator, he no longer resembles Him.
Therefore, when a person makes any commandment of the Creator's commandments, meaning some action that is in accord with the Creator, this is called Mitzvah. So he has to aim for that Mitzvah, to bring him pure thoughts, that he'll want to bestow to the Creator. That in carrying out the commandments of the Creator, like our sages said, Rav Hanania ben Akashia says, the Creator wanted to cleanse Israel, bring them to a cleansing, a purification. Therefore, He multiplied their Torah and Mitzvot, gave them the means to achieve that. Therefore, we gather here to establish a society where each of us will go in this spirit of bestowing to the Creator. And in order to achieve bestowing upon the Creator, we first have to start bestowing upon man. And this is called love of others. Until now, we haven't spoken about the others, right? Now, he says, we have a lab.
M. Laitman: (45:06) We have a place where we can create the conditions, and from these conditions called love of others, we'll come to love of the Creator. In truth, love of the Creator is the goal, and that's the state that we should always be looking towards. Throughout all actions, all our life, to only look at that, and then our whole presence and actions in life, my reality, that will be as if for that, to reach love of the Creator. So certainly, all of the social activities and the studies and whatever we do, there has to be love of the Creator in them as the goal that obligates everything. And love of others cannot happen if not through self-annulment. Meaning that will to receive that he has, that interest, my interest, they have to be nullified so as to acquire love of others, so as to acquire love of the Creator. For each and every one needs to be in lowliness on one hand, meaning to surrender, submit myself to the society, and on the other hand, to be prideful.
You see that corresponds to coarseness and purity and clothing, in that the Creator gave us an opportunity to enter a society where each of us has but a single goal that the Shechina will dwell among us. This is very lofty. What does it mean between us? Not within us, but between us. In those connections of love that we arrange between us, there is revelation of the Creator. That's where the Shechina dwells, not in each and every one, but between us. They're very precise about it. They're not thinking about precision. They just speak by nature, and that's how it comes out. We need all kinds of intellects and smart things to understand what they mean. For them, it just comes that way, and that's it, and it comes out precise.
M. Laitman (Source Text/Commentary): (47:30) So even when we think they're writing in some handwriting mistakes or something like that, if that comes out of their spiritual nature, it's sacred. And even though we haven't reached the goal yet, meaning the love of the Creator, we have a desire to reach the goal, and that should be important to us, even though we are still at the beginning of the path. But we hope. What does it mean, hoe? We aim for that, and that's our aim, our direction. That we will reach the exalted goal.
M. Laitman: (48:12) That is the fundamental matter. I remember when I asked Rabash what I tell the new people that I brought. I don't know how to start, and what to talk about. Because several times I went to a gathering of friends, which happened before I brought the guys from Tel Aviv. I went with all the relatives and other Hassidic people that would then come to gather to be with Rabash. So, they studied some articles or letters, and that's it. We raised a Le’chaim, and that was the end of it all. So when I came to Rabash and I heard there's such a thing, suddenly I see in the evening when I come to study, usually they just sit around and philosophize about something, talk about some businesses, I don't know what. And all of a sudden, one evening, many, many people come, even from Jerusalem, from Tiberias, other places, all come to that synagogue, and everyone just disappears into it at once. So, every evening there's five people, ten people, and all of a sudden 50, and they disappear. And I came to study in the evening, so I asked what's going on, and they said, we have a gathering of friends, something special. So, I thought something is being kept from me. So I came to Rabash, it was after I drove him a few places, I would serve him, and I told him, I don't know about, how do I not know, do I not deserve to know, and he really didn't want me to go. And that, you know, made it even worse. So I really pressured him. He said, okay, go. And I saw that really, I went there, it was such a hypocritical kind of hypocrisy, just gross, really, it was a stench, and I just, he went once, and that's it, because I also saw those people in the synagogue their behavior, and what each one is thinking about with their business, and money, and what they always think about all the time. And I went away, went to escape those people, and they were all immersed in that. And then all of a sudden, it's like love of friends, and what they read, and what they talk, that was just… it was just horrible.
M. Laitman: (51:21) So I used to give lectures in Tel Aviv, there were a few small synagogues, maybe they still exist. Next to the city hall, there are some small places there, small synagogues, where I gave some lectures, and in the Berg's Center, I gave lectures to his teachers in the morning; not in the evening where everyone comes, in the morning only to the teachers. It was six, seven people.
So I attracted them to come to us, because they saw that they're not learning anything there. I started teaching them The Preface, and they saw that it can be understood. Before, they just read it as a remedy. Like Baal HaSulam writes, when he comes to Jerusalem, he meets the Kabbalists there, and he asks them, “What do you study?” They said, “The ARI.” I said, “Okay, let's start together.” And he started asking them, and they said, “Well, what are you asking? It's holy, we just read it, and that's it.” And what about The ARI? How did he know it? He knew it from the Holy Spirit, and he didn't of course, he also didn't understand any of that. He was just told from above and wrote it.
So they were thinking in the same style, that this is how it works. When I started explaining, well, as much as I knew The Preface then, well, you know, for myself, I only maybe finished it once, maybe, well, I can't remember. It was after two years of studying. But they understood, they understood, they did not know the sources. And then I read to them that letter from page 64, that if you don't aim exactly towards the King's palace, you don't know how to approach it, so every step is worse. It's better to sit idle and do nothing. When they heard that, I broke them, because what direction, what step to take, what, oh boy, what are we doing every day? And then they just escaped and came even with their students. It's like, you know, if the students leave to somewhere to study another place, the students know about it. And even though I didn't know anything about them and who they were , and all of a sudden, 40 people came or so. And I didn't know what to say, so I asked Rabash in the drive, “Today we'll do a gathering of friends.” What gathering of friends, what to do? I know we'll do. So I'm supposed to say something, yeah, what to say? So he wrote that to me, just... And that's how he started writing all the articles. First it was about love of friends. In a week I asked him,”What will I say now, and what will I say now?” and then I stopped asking, and he kept writing and then we had all of the rungs of the ladder, all those articles came out of that.
Every week he wrote an article. Even when we went to Tiberia for two days, he had to finish the article; we were stressed. Sometimes we would speak about the article before, and then he would type it. I wanted to give him a computer, but, well, what kind of computers we had then, but it was already too difficult for him. But with a modern typewriter, yes, he got used to that, and he had good control of it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (55:23) How can I use society so it will help me to find my waste? Besides the fact that I can't do it, how can I detect those things that are waste within me? Things that I try to do, and I see that I can't. If I try and I see that I can't, like you're saying, you see that you can't, you stop trying. But really, the details, how can the society help me find what's stopping me, what's harming me?
M. Laitman: You're opening such a question that there's a thousand details, ask shortly.
Student: How can the society help me make a more precise scrutiny?
M. Laitman: How can the society help me for the scrutiny to be more precise? The society is an actual lab that you control. What you put into it is what you get out. Do you understand that these are friends that are longing for the same goal generally. Of course, they all long for it. If there are people here who are just sitting and laughing at the idea, then we need to throw them out of here. I hope that we barely have anyone like that, barely, but almost not. But let's say we don't, and everyone is somehow wanting, aiming for that. So, you need to relate to them as your field of work. How do you have to work on society? By infusing them with your message.
Student: And then I get a resolution about my desire, which is impeding me from connecting with them.
M. Laitman: You will then immediately start seeing how it works with you and within them, and you'll get a much greater, several times greater coarseness and upliftment.
Student: But this scrutiny, it becomes more focused or…
M. Laitman: The scrutiny comes as a result of the clash between coarseness and refinement, or coarseness and clothing. The scrutiny is the result of two opposite things meeting together. When they clash into each other and crack each other, there's a clash in between. So, with your force- your analysis force is weak, small. When you enter the society, these forces grow immediately, and the scrutiny becomes sharper.
Student: I want to be more precise. Do the friends just help me to scrutinize the intention for myself, or do they truly help me to scrutinize the self-intention upon each and every desire? Is it something general? I'm asking. I don't know how to work with intention towards myself.
M. Laitman: Turns out that the society simply gives us all of the data that we are lacking, because before we enter the society, we don't have the letters of the work. We don't go through any clashes, Bitushim, how to put it, between two opposite things. The society is the force that's opposite to me, meaning love, bestowal, yes? It begins to be practically opposite to me, then this is how I begin to go through these clashes and sparks, meaning the results of the collisions, the clash, that becomes a vessel. You're not going to get an explanation unless you start working on it practically. Words will not help.
Student: Fine, but this resistance, it seems to me now, it's stopping me from advancing towards the goal. So, how will I know if this is correct or not? Can you give me some yardstick so that I can measure what should I do- what I shouldn't?
M. Laitman: Everything will become clear only from practice. And before that, it's called the faith in the Rav, the faith of the sages, or suffering, choose. So, start working for the faith in the Rav; you don't need more. I'm telling you, you should start speaking, blah, blah, blah, artificially about the importance of society. Start, start speaking like that. How many things in your life are you able to do that are completely nonsensical things? So, start doing that as well. How many social conventions or norms you follow, which are just stupid, and things that are lower than the human level? So, try this, give it a shot.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:00:58) Let's say a friend will come and start giving you the greatness of the Creator to the society. You really think that this society is somehow able to receive from someone like him the way it looks at him?
M. Laitman: You don't need to think about the society, how it will receive.
Student: But if the society treats you badly, you don't want to give them. If with everything you tell them, they say, okay, okay, so they look at you as nobody, you don't want to give them, because that's all you have to give, that's how it works.
M. Laitman: What to do if the society doesn't respond?
Student: No, they don't respond. Everything you tell them, they say, ah, okay.
M. Laitman: If the society doesn't respond, it means you don't have enough persuasion power or look for another society, I don't know. But one of the two. If life for you is the main thing, listen, listen to me. Either look for a different society and realize yourself there, or do something here. But if not this or that, you're already dead. It's done, it's a waste of time. Go bury yourself, come here once again, and find a different society. Maybe there will be a different world. Why live then? What, just to make the ground dirtier? For what? Either you do it, or you don't. You have two options.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:02:31) And what exactly should we be in lowliness, and where should we be prideful in relation to the society?
M. Laitman: So he says here, Rabash says, about what we need to be in lowliness and in pride. He says in 133, love of others cannot be if not through self-annulment. Each and everyone needs to be in lowliness on the one hand. On the other hand, we need to be prideful that the Creator gave us an opportunity. Okay, so to be prideful of the vocation, the role we have towards others, and that we can also raise others towards the Creator, and that I can also raise myself towards the Creator. And He gave me such an opportunity. That's pride.
Student: Whose pride?
M. Laitman: My pride.
Student: But He did it.
M. Laitman: But I am proud that I am His weapon to correct the world. What do you mean?
Student: But He did it all.
M. Laitman: It doesn't matter. I have a feeling that He is doing it through me. I'm a plier, I'm a key, I'm a wrench. It doesn't matter. But it's me and not you.
Student: That already takes you down.
M. Laitman: Why take me down?
Student: Because I want to reach equivalence with Him.
M. Laitman: Equivalence with Him is that I agree with everything He does.
Student: I agree, okay, but I'm proud of myself.
M. Laitman: I'm proud of Him doing these actions through me. But from that, I come to equivalence of form with Him, because what I see that He does in me, I want Him. And I agree with Him to do that.
Student: If he were acting through somebody else, I wouldn't be proud.
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So it's a sign that it's not true. It's fake.
M. Laitman: Why?
Student: If I'm proud of Him, then let Him act through somebody else. If it's through me, or what does it matter?
M. Laitman: Because, no, if you say the Creator does it through me or through anyone else, I don't care. I am delighted in mercy. That's what you're saying. That's true bestowal. I'm telling you there's an even higher degree. But I am proud that He's doing it through me, because I have an active part, besides just being passive. I'm not just a plier, say, I'm a plier with an engine in it.
Student: It's like being proud in order to bestow.
M. Laitman: Not to be proud in order to bestow. To want Him to make actions and have that desire for Him to make these actions before Him. He hemmed me in behind and before. Remember that? That we need to reach His thought. Becoming like Him in that I also acquired the mind. I'm not just a plier. I'm also His hand, His head. I'm the one who drives the plier, who uses the tool.
Student: But what should I be proud about?
M. Laitman: Well, you see, if we take a word from our world, it has such a character that... See, he writes to be prideful that He gave us the opportunity. If He gave someone else an opportunity... He gave you an opportunity to bestow to Him and not to someone else. So, it's as if, how do I take pride? Someone else is miserable.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:06:26) What's my carrier in life? Him or I? What do I aspire to?
M. Laitman: This is a very correct question. Meaning, is this pride going into my account or His account? Of course, it's His account. But we need to have it as well. Now, even in Lo Lishma, we should have pride. You've chosen us, and so forth. These are things that, without them, you cannot advance.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:07:00) And what about the lowliness?
M. Laitman: That's with respect to both pride and lowliness. With respect to the Creator, it's one thing, but it mostly needs to be with respect to the society. Pride is when I do bestow upon society my ideal, my goal, the greatness of the Creator, and to receive the lowliness in return, to receive this message in return. And I receive it several times more, greater. So, it truly convinces me to do the work. If I don't increase the greatness of the Creator through the society, I cannot turn to Him. That's why it's called love of others, as a springboard to love of the Creator. I have to increase my small force of bestowal, and there's no other device that can do that. The society is the amplifier.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:08:14) There seems to be a contradiction between what we want to reach and what we actually have. Seemingly, one can destroy the other. The pride can destroy…
M. Laitman: You're saying that we advance as if in two opposite desires, opposite tendencies. That's correct. But they actually hold each other, because the difference between them measures the degree, the record of clothing, and coarseness, and screen, and coarseness, and light, and Kli. And how can you not have that? To advance, you need to have the Creator as the measurer, and you as the measured object. There's no motion if there's no clash between these two opposite things. All of life is from one entering the range of the other, clashes with it, moves from it, and enters it. And from these transitions, one to the other, like breathing constriction, expansions. That’s how we have light from. There’s no form in life or forces in which you won’t have anything but these two conditions. Each of them-the inanimate is only the clash between them and the transition of forces and knowledge. These influences from one another is what birthed life. And what’s the difference between inanimate and vegetative and animal and speaking in the extent of clashing in the measure of bestowal between contradicting parts, and each and every one on every level.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:10:17) Can this be a criteria for choosing the society when we choose a society? Or individuals within the society toward whom we can feel lowliness or pride? Not toward the Creator but toward society. Can this be the right yardstick to choosing the right environment, society?
M. Laitman: The correct scale or measure for the correct society is simple. Whether there is a willingness to go potentially in the same direction, meaning they're holding on to the books of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, and are ready to go with these books, with this method, towards adhesion with the Creator. That's how they say. They don't understand, but they're willing. Now we will check, we will see. There's many words, but there are many societies that keep Baal HaSulam books. Yes? Yes, they have Baal HaSulam books, and it's if they're going on that path. Yes? So I don't know what the difference between them is. I need to enter into this society and to see. Can I bestow in it? Are they willing to take this? Are they willing to accept this idea that Rabash writes here in the purpose of society? Are they ready to help me implement this or not? If yes, that's a society for me. If not, maybe it's not a society for me. So, here I need to work.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:11:56) Based on that, is there any way to check pride or lowliness? Clearly, this is the basis of the society. Can we use this pride and lowliness as a personal yardstick that a person can check with himself?
M. Laitman: Pride and lowliness are measured towards the Creator. And through this, later I turn to the Creator, to the society. I am proud that this idea rules me in the measure that this idea controls me, and it's towards the Creator. To that extent, I turn to the society, and I put it into the society. And to that extent, I also have to bow, to lower myself. Yes, to lower myself before the society in order to receive in return. If I'm just working in one direction and not in the other direction, it's not worth it. So, we need to build two... Well... Good. All right.
Reader: (01:13:10) We'll move to a summary workshop. What have we taken from the lesson to be realized in the ten?
Reader: We're going to move to the next part of the lesson, but first let's sing a song.
Song: (01:18:37)