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

Daily Lesson (Afternoon) April 5, 2024

Part 1: Rabash. Love of Friends - 1.3 (1984)

Reader: Shalom, hello everyone. We are in a very special lesson with the community of Kabbalah, the Russian speakers, and we will continue the series of articles about Passover, and we will read from the Rabash book, Part 1, Article Love of Friends 1. You can find the study materials online in the Arvut system and Sviva Tova. Anyone who asks a question in this study hall, please stand up hold your mic close to your mouth, and speak loud and clear. 

M. Laitman: (00:07) So, let's read for the first time like this.

Reading Article: (01:07) Love of Friends 1. 

“And a certain man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying, ‘What are you seeking?’ And he said, ‘I seek my brothers. Tell me, I pray you, where they are feeding the flock?’” (Genesis, 37). 

A man “wandering in the field” refers to a place from which the crop of the field to sustain the world should spring. And the works of the field are plowing, sowing, and reaping. It is said about that: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy,” and this is called “a field which the Lord has blessed.” 

Baal HaTurim explained that a person wandering in the field refers to one who strays from the path of reason, who does not know the real way, which leads to the place he should reach, as in “an ass wandering in the field.” And he comes to a state where he thinks that he will never achieve the goal he should achieve. 

“And the man asked him, saying, ‘What are you seeking?’” meaning, “How can I help you?” “And he said: ‘I seek my brethren.’” By being together with my brothers, that is, by being in a group where there is love of friends, I will be able to mount the trail that leads to the house of God. 

This trail is called “a path of bestowal,” and this way is against our nature. To be able to achieve it, there is no other way but love of friends, by which each one can help his friend. 

“And the man said: ‘They are departed hence.’” And RASHI interpreted that they had departed themselves from the brotherhood, meaning they do not want to bond with you. This, in the end, caused Israel’s exile in Egypt. And to be redeemed from Egypt, we must take it upon ourselves to enter a group that wants to be in love of friends, and by that we will be rewarded with exodus from Egypt and the reception of the Torah. 

M. Laitman: (04:25) Is there anyone that doesn't understand altogether? So, what is this talking about here? The writer is telling us. He sees that people are wandering in the field. The field is our life. A person sometimes doesn't know where to go, how to go, how to be accepted and received, and what to do with himself. And a man finds him, sees him wandering in the field. When you see him like that, kind of lost in the field, you have to help him so that he will know where he can come to, what he can reach, so he doesn't get out of the path that might be close to danger, or maybe even worse, rather that you should have before him kind of like a map, a road map, for him to know where he could go to.

And then it turns out that one who goes without the road map, without knowing where this path leads to, is in danger, he is in danger. Therefore, we try to go in a field where we think about our life, in a field of life, in our field of life, in a manner that we can feel safe in. Where do we get this feeling of security? By us following the path that the Kabbalists have already paved for us, have walked before us. And they say that on this path, it is possible to continue and come to the goal. And the secret of success is that whoever wants to reach this goal needs, along the way, to find how he connects to others.

Because only those who are connected together come to the right place, and then they feel between them a special force that accompanies them to the goal. That's why it's written this way, that if they're asked about these individuals along the way, and they don't know how to answer, and they don't know where they're going, whereas, if the people connect, and it's written like this, that they unite, even though at first they don't want to, but then they connect, and eventually they become from individuals into a group, and the group becomes a nation. 

And then they feel themselves in exile. In the exile of Egypt. Just as wandering in the field. And if they take upon themselves the law that we need to be connected, we need to connect between us, and that is the assurance that we can succeed and come to the exalted goal. This is actually the whole article.

M. Laitman: Who didn't understand? Well, don't be ashamed. So, why don't you read it again? 

Re-Reading Article: (11:04) Love of Friends 1.

“And a certain man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying, ‘What are you seeking?’ And he said, ‘I seek my brothers. Tell me, I pray you, where they are feeding the flock?’” (Genesis, 37).

M. Laitman: This is where you see a person walking alone in the field, and he probably lost his way. He doesn't know how to come closer, to where, and in what way he can go. He is seeking. And then when he's asked, he also doesn't know what he is seeking. 

Reading Continues: A man “wandering in the field” refers to a place from which the crop of the field to sustain the world should spring. And the works of the field are plowing, sowing, and reaping. It is said about that: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy…” 

M. Laitman: That means that it's not easy and simple to walk in the field. For there to be sustenance, water, and food, to sustain ourselves. For that, there's a need to begin to connect between them and to begin to work with the land. 

Reading Continues: …And this is called “a field which the Lord has blessed.”

M. Laitman: If we worked correctly in the field, then this is a field that brings forth a blessing. And then that would be the crop that comes out of the field. 

Reading Continues: Baal HaTurim explained that a person wandering in the field refers to one who strays from the path of reason, who does not know the real way, which leads to the place he should reach, as in “an ass wandering in the field.” And he comes to a state where he thinks that he will never achieve the goal he should achieve.

M. Laitman: He needs something in his hand, a compass, a map, something, someone that can help him point in a certain direction that he needs to go. 

Reading Continues: “And the man asked him, saying, ‘What are you seeking?’” meaning, “How can I help you?” “And he said: ‘I seek my brethren.’” By being together with my brothers, that is, by being in a group where there is love of friends, I will be able to mount the trail that leads to the house of God. 

M. Laitman: Meaning this is what we want, to come to a place where the Creator awaits us and it's possible only if we're in a group and together all of us make it through all the path in the right way and that's how we get there. 

Reading Continues: This trail is called a “path of bestowal,” and this way is against our nature. To be able to achieve it, there is no other way but love of friends, by which each one can help his friend. 

“And the man said: ‘They are departed hence.’” And RASHI interpreted that they had departed themselves from the brotherhood, meaning they do not want to bond with you. This, in the end, caused Israel’s exile in Egypt. And to be redeemed from Egypt, we must take it upon ourselves to enter a group that wants to be in love of friends, and by that we will be rewarded with exodus from Egypt and the reception of the Torah. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (16:52) It's a crop that grows in the field is that our connection between us? 

M. Laitman: Yes, that's the connection between us. 

Question: (W Petah Tikva Center): (17:16) What are the forms of connection that we can bring the food for the world to humanity?

M. Laitman: When we connect together, as one man and one heart, in such a case we completely connect to the Creator, and we can receive from Him all that we need to. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (18:06) Joseph was higher in spiritual level than his brothers. How did he know that they don't want to connect with him, and how can I know that my friends in my group do want to connect and to be in love? 

M. Laitman: These are spiritual conditions, very harsh conditions that our connection must be truly in one heart, which is very difficult, very, very difficult, and you can see here people that are already twenty, thirty, and forty years on the path, and although they are attaining, they are achieving already something, but they also know how difficult this path is. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:25) What makes us come to love of friends? What is the cause? 

M. Laitman: The reason we need to come to love of friends is, without that, we won't reach love of the Creator, and then we won't be able to receive from him the force to rise upwards from our attainment, and we won't be able to feel the Creator. 

Student: So first we need to understand the importance of the Creator and to reach the Creator first? 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes. Not that these are stages but to come to the Creator we come specifically in the end, but actually to begin with also, it compels us, this goal, to connect between us. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (20:45) How not to be like the donkey in the field?

M. Laitman: Hold on to your friends and ask the Creator. It sounds like it's all simple, yes? Implementation is very difficult. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (21:27) We are here, and we are united and it's okay. but we have a feeling that our nation is again entering into the exile of Egypt. What should we do? How can we help the nation to get out of this exile? 

M. Laitman: That's what you are doing, and you are giving a good example to all the people who see you, hear you, and maybe, later you will also join the dissemination efforts. So, that is actually a great help that you can do. For the time being, think about how you come to a connection between you and then to a connection with the Creator 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:34) How through love of friends we can feel the love of the Creator and from the love of the Creator back to us? How can I feel it? How can we feel it? And how can we feel it right here and right now? 

M. Laitman: We can't feel the love of the Creator so quickly as to begin being in some states that are closer or further away from Him. It's all attained gradually. Just like in our world when we meet people, until we get to know one another, until we start to get along with one another, only after that we start to have such states that are closer or further awakened and so on, such that we first need to learn from the wisdom of Kabbalah those texts that talk about the connection between us and the group, and then the connection between the group and the Creator. 

These are two steps that are truly necessary and needed along the way both for men and women, as without this, we won't begin to feel the upper world which is above us managing us. We don't feel it. In order to feel it, to feel the Creator who manages it through us, we need to be in a good connection between us. That's our main mission. 

Student: We came we make an exertion, and we have a desire to fulfill some spiritual deficiency and then we have… How can we feel this fulfillment in this way?

M. Laitman:  We don't feel the feeling immediately, indirectly. It requires time and a lot of time, but gradually, more and more, we will be able to understand with what forces we are working, or with what forces we are dealing with, what is the form of a connection, etc. Then, as a result of that, we will begin to feel this form of connection between us. This will bring us to the Creator and to the friends and all of it together will connect. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (26:10) What is this desire, my brothers I am seeking, and what does it mean in the work in the group? 

M. Laitman: To seek my brothers is the beginning of the work in the group, when a person tries to connect with his friends, what we call his Ten because without this there is nowhere to advance. First of all, it's the work in the group. We learn together mutual help, a certain kind of each entering, penetrating the others. In a Ten, it’s like that. We’re not really built to be able to feel more than ten, and also less than ten we don’t need. Ten is an optimal sum, but it could be eight, ten. More than ten it's already, it becomes much. 

Each of us needs to understand well what Ten he is in, what he needs to do with this Ten, what it needs to do with him, how they incorporate into one another and to understand, that according to this mutual incorporation between a person and the Ten, he begins to attain the Creator. There is nothing else, just to reveal the Creator. We attain; we feel everything. That's why the incorporation and the connection and the feeling of the common existence in this way, is very important; it's very important. Many times, people somehow distance themselves from this. They kind of reject it and think that it's not so important, so I would advise you to listen well to these words. It appears in every place in the wisdom of Kabbalah. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:16) The work in dissemination. I feel it's a great force and it gives a lot of strength, but with that I can feel in the Ten that I lose my importance. It feels like there is a meeting or if I do something in dissemination, and in a few minutes, I will step in, but I feel that there is this balance, it's a bit scary. 

M. Laitman: Very, very dangerous. There are people who have a very difficult time connecting with their friends in the Ten, and there is no remedy or no medicine against that. Nothing can be helped with that other than to enter the Ten, to come closer to the friends, and together with them to do all that they do.

Student: What is the first priority in dissemination or in the Ten? 

M. Laitman: The Ten. 

Student: To be in the Ten and then I'm free?

M. Laitman: The Ten is a necessary thing without this the whole of the wisdom of Kabbalah will not give you a thing because Kabbalah is practical study.

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (31:30) After what we read, I wanted to ask to understand this part. Without love and bestowal, there is no crop, corporeal things, and the land also needs to give and to bestow and there will be no spiritual attainment because the work of the land is what unites everyone. Can we understand it this way? 

M. Laitman: Of course, we can understand it that way as well, but it's sufficient if we simply understand that without a gradual coming closer between us, to the big group, the groups that are first working upon themselves and organizing themselves within themselves, and then these Tens connect to the bigger group and bigger group and so on. Without that coming closer, we will not attain our exalted spiritual goals. It’s simply a law, a law of the spiritual world.

Student: Just like you said now, the practical work is very important. Is it right to do an exercise in our Ten that each week a different friend will tell us about her deficiency, what she thinks is missing for our progression, and the whole Ten will do and fulfill her desire? Is that right? 

M. Laitman: I don't think so, meaning for each time one woman in the group will dictate to the Ten what they need to do. 

Student: So, what is correct? 

M. Laitman: it's correct to read our source materials and to take from there the correct direction. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:03) We are here, students from Moldova, Israel, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Serbia, and Germany, and we meet a few times a day. In this article, it talked about love. We always scrutinize these excerpts, and we scrutinize the lessons that we watch together. There are some friends who watch recorded lessons, and some friends are live in a virtual way, but we don't meet much just like now, and it makes it a bit hard on our connection. Now we are together, just like one heart. The ones that listen to us in Germany, in Ukraine, can't connect this way. So, we pray; we ask for them that we will be together, that these lessons will be just like a prayer, morning, noon, and evening we read psalms. The question is: How after all is the best, correct way, to connect in a virtual way to ask from the friends to arrive at the lessons or is it enough that we meet as we do?

M. Laitman: The best thing is the lessons. You need to connect in the lesson. You need to connect between you before the lesson, to connect to the friends, to kind of awaken them somewhat. Let's say there is nighttime, but together to be present in the lesson, and you can here and there talk between you about what you understood, and how you understood, and give each other questions and answers. That's how you need to be exactly in the lesson and according to the topic of the lesson.

Student: So, our meetings during the week, there is not an effect just like the morning lesson? 

M. Laitman: Correct. 

Student: It is difficult for us. We have one pension guy who is listening to the lesson, but the other students cannot listen to the lesson. It's problematic. 

M. Laitman: I understand that it's problematic, but with time, and not every day, once, twice a week at least. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (37:23) Also our Ten is all over the world. Is it correct to say about the plowing, sowing, and reaping. Is it correct to look at the friends in the eyes of the Creator?

M. Laitman: Is that something you know how to do? 

Student: it's something we can try. 

M. Laitman: Not even to try. There is nothing to even try. You'll simply confuse yourselves and the Creator not, but to look at the friend, to try and see the friend like a mother who looks at her child not as he is small and she is great, but as a mother, the love of a mother and it's good to know to forgive in the Ten. The most important thing is to forgive and to begin a new relationship right away. New ones. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (38:44) How to correctly love the friends, that the friends will understand that my heart is open, and I don't have different intentions? 

M. Laitman: if you learn the same materials and you listen to the same teachers, then it's natural that you'll be similar to one another and receive the material in a similar way. There can't be anything else here. Simply continue in an active manner, continue in the Ten, between you make such connections that will bind you together to one strong connection.

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (39:59) We can read the map in the Ten, in our field that we build together, but sometimes I personally feel that to complete my path to the Creator I need to be present in Bnei Baruch events, and sometimes I feel that I can't if I don't read the Zohar. Is it okay that I feel a deficiency, and it's not enough for me to be only in the Ten, and sometimes there are times that I really need to read the Zohar and I feel that if I don't, I don't feel myself progressing, is that okay? 

M. Laitman: Yes, it's okay, but not at the expense of the meetings with the Ten. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (41:13) We feel the hearts are open because we are together and we feel like we found the map, we found the compass. The question is how to keep this map and how to keep the compass. 

M. Laitman: That's through the connection between you. 

Student: How to strengthen it? 

M. Laitman: This is through the connection between you and in the Ten. You, more and more are aimed and directed to the goal.

Student: How can we pray with an open heart? 

M. Laitman: I can't open your heart, but by you talking in the Ten, it turns out that your heart will open. It takes time. Just know that all these things take time. They are clarified gradually. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (42:57) How did you and Rabash build a prayer every day?

M. Laitman: All of that exists in your books, also in the Russian language. 

Student: Can you tell us a little bit about how it was for you? 

M. Laitman: No. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:29) Rabash starts the article with certain questions. What are you seeking? What are you asking? Do I need to start my day with these questions? 

M. Laitman: Maybe you’ve been thinking about this question for a long time already. You don't need to purposely begin with that question. In essence, it is talking about the fact that a person who asks himself a question about life, where am I going, so he needs to ask, where am I going? What is my goal? What’s my purpose, etc.

Student: And the result of this work is expressed by the Hissaron, That deficiency of my brothers? I am looking for my brothers and I don't need anything else, only my brothers and I am seeking that deficiency of my brothers. I seek and I don't need anything, and my work is to desire that? 

M. Laitman: This is really not simple, but eventually to all your questions about spirituality, you need to receive one answer which will be clear to you, that you need to connect with your Ten, to nullify before them, and in such a way together with them you will reach the goal. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (45:17) The article starts with the name Love of Friends, and as we learn, love is the force of bestowal and a friend is from the word connection and, as we learn, behind every friend the Creator stands. The question: Is the friend the desire to bestow? Who is the friend?

M. Laitman: The friend is the one that can help you, and you will help him or her to reach the purpose of life. 

Student: This is the friend's desire?

M. Laitman: That's the friend. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (46:12) Where does the Creator reveal? Does he reveal in the man, in the Ten, in the connection between us?

M. Laitman: Between us. 

Student: Do we feel it? How do we feel it? 

M. Laitman: We feel it by the Creator helping us connect, distancing between us, bringing us closer and further, and constantly does these exercises to us. Through such exercises that he performs with us, He comes closer and further Himself, and by that, we come closer and get further away. So, by this, we come to a state in which we do already understand where we are, where the group is, and where the Creator is, but in actuality, He is revealed between us. 

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (47:54) You said that we need to check ourselves when we read the sources, and if we understand them correctly and in there everything is written correctly. I can understand that everything is written correctly, but everyone understands it differently, and we can see it a lot of times when we work in the Ten. How can we come to one understanding, a mutual understanding, that we don't have in our study program, that we don't have many scrutinies? 

M. Laitman: You don't need to discuss that. If you have disputes about how you are reading and each understands it directly, then nothing will come out of your discussions. Then you need a teacher that will read, that you will listen to. You will hear him and understand. 

Student: But you are the teacher. We don't have any other teachers. 

M. Laitman: When do you gather, and how do you study? 

Student: We have Ten meetings three times a day, 

M. Laitman: That's the Ten meetings, and you don't have like a manager? 

Student: We listen to your lessons in the morning and the afternoon. 

M. Laitman: That’s probably not enough.

Student: What if a misunderstanding awakens in you from the text, so that we don't understand, that everyone is pulling it just like a blanket to his direction and justifying his understanding with all the excerpts from the text? 

M. Laitman: Yes, with every document, with every text. Especially in the Torah, that's correct. So, what to do with you? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (50:15) Maybe we need to prepare a question for this text and to scrutinize it together 

M. Laitman: Yes, and every five minutes will be different questions. We need to constantly have a teacher who will scrutinize all your problems and not let you enter between you into this personal scrutiny because that's how you will simply confuse one another. We need to talk about it. Who should they turn to about this topic? I didn't hear. I didn't understand.

Student: The social department.

M. Laitman: If they are reading an article, and after the article, it could be that each one has their own opinion, and this is how they remain with that. How it could be that they will have someone who will explain to them how they need to see the article to read it, to receive it to swallow it? 

Moderator: There are teachers, there is a teacher that is helping and explaining the meetings. There are opportunities to come to the morning lesson, to the afternoon lesson. There is someone to turn to who will answer all the questions. We also have the archive with Kabbalah Media. Maybe this article is like fifty or one hundred times that we got answers from the Rav, and there is always someone that will answer these questions.

Question (W Petah Tikva Center): (52:29) Is there is room to nullify when there is a misunderstanding?

M. Laitman: No, this is something that needs to be scrutinized. I need to scrutinize. It is not a place where I can nullify myself and it will be for the benefit of advancement, but the benefit of advancement will be the scrutiny, but a scrutiny that is done in an organized manner. A Kabbalist or the managers or whoever is there that is acceptable about it. 

Question (Turkiye 2): (53:27) How can I rise above reason in this field; how to rise above reason?

M. Laitman: No, that is something that one needs to arrange for himself, such an ascent. We will talk about this, but not now. It needs to be an article or several articles together. 

Question (Tbilisi): (54:05) You know I have been with you for more than 10 years and only now there is this feeling that everything that I thought that I was doing, I came to the study of Kabbalah, I am a good boy. There is a feeling of everything the Creator is doing, and it gives such strength to nullify in front of the Creator. In front of you. In front of the friends in the feeling. I always knew that, but now there is a feeling all thanks to you and the friends. 

M. Laitman: Congratulations. I bless you.

Question (Women Turkiye 7): (55:07) What I feel while doing the study is what the Creator is not. I am faced with the consequence of receiving things for myself. My question is: How can I realize the qualities of the Creator in all those things?

M. Laitman:  The real qualities of the Creator are our corrected desires by which we come to adhesion to one another.

Question (Women MAK 26): (55:56) Joseph was wandering in the field and he had this internal feeling that his brothers were not there. I can understand that it is a lack of correction in the heart, but why did the Creator not answer him? He was looking; he was seeking. Why at the end of the day, from the story we can see that the Creator did not give him what he was seeking.

M. Laitman: Why do you think that for every request a person makes, the Creator answers? 

Student: I had similar conditions, similar states, and the Creator gave me when I was sitting, but I know that there are friends that share that they had a desire, but the Creator did not answer them. So, I am trying to understand what it depends on. 

M. Laitman: That depends on a person whether He needs to answer or not. It could be that you were in such a state that he answered you, and to someone else, he wouldn't answer. That's why in such states as yours, it all depends on who a person is and how to guide him. 

Student: Why did he not give an answer to Joseph? 

M. Laitman: Joseph had to lead his brothers to Egypt. That's why the Creator didn't give it to him. 

Question (Women MAK): (58:00) How to correctly plant the seeds in the ground, in the Ten? 

M. Laitman: Of course, I am not very strong in home economics, I don't understand there. There in agriculture, I don't understand a thing, but we need to relate to the earth as the partner that will help you to grow this crop, to rise in the degrees, etc. It all depends only on how we place ourselves before the Creator, our inner prayer, and what we want. 

Student: If the Ten connect correctly and this state is better than the old state, how can we appreciate it? How can we measure it? What are the criteria that the direction of the Ten will be correct towards all the different states? 

M. Laitman: The states can be higher up, but positive or negative. It depends on the specific person, what degree he needs to be in, and how he is supposed to feel that degree.

Question (Women Turkiye 10): (1:00:02) Lately I have been feeling like an exile, not among friends but in the corporeal life. When I remember friends, I feel a sense of relief in my heart. Does this feeling also belong to spirituality, even in corporeality?

M. Laitman: No in spirituality you feel only when you connect to the Ten. 

Question (Women MAK 25): (1:00:25) Thank you for this beautiful lesson. There is a very special feeling and spiritual fear with everyone that comes together with you. The question is: When we walk together on this path, what is the map that we need to walk together so that we won't go sideways?

M. Laitman:  The road map for us is the warmer relations between us towards the friend and the warmer relation between us and them to the Creator. Even simply to open the heart and warm it up from within you more and more and to get used to existing in it to live in it. 

Announcements: (1:01:57)

Song: (1:02:48)