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

Daily Lesson (Morning) February 15, 2025. 

Part 2: Reaching Lishma through Envy.

Reader: We are reading selected excerpts from the kabbalists on “Reaching Lishma through Envy” towards the upcoming convention in five days. So, “Reaching Lishma through Envy”, selected excerpts from the sources. Excerpt number one from Baal HaSulam. 

1. Baal HaSulam, "From Lo Lishma to Lishma" Article No. 119

Reading: (00:30) There must always be a beginning; otherwise, it is impossible to achieve Lishma [for Her sake]. That is, one must believe that in all the corporeal lusts, meaning eating, drinking, and the rest of the lusts, as well as in pleasures found in learning external teachings, control, vengeance, and so forth, as it is written in general, “Envy, lust, and honor take a person out of the world,” in those pleasures there is nothing more than a thin light, as The Zohar says.

Conversely, great lights are deposited in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments], unlike corporeal pleasures, in which only sparks of the light of Kedusha fell.

Hence, Klipot [shells/peels] give one an awakening to enter Kedusha because they want to be rewarded with great lights. This is called Lo Lishma [not for Her sake]. Afterward, from this Lo Lishma, he can be rewarded with Lishma.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:05) What Rabash writes here is something that is already felt in one's guts but one cannot stop oneself from all this reception. How do you put the brakes on it and not receive all these lusts, all this corporeality? 

M. Laitman: You cannot depict that state?

Student: I can imagine it but I can't do it in practice,and in practice it overcomes me?

M. Laitman: In practice we need to start from the smallest things, so that through them you can manage, as he says here. And, accordingly, rise from small to great, to bigger things. 

Student: So, what you just said I did it and also succeeded in it, like you said, but when it comes to the big things, it's in control in a wild way. 

M. Laitman: Very nice. You see where you're capable and where you're not. 

Student: Yes. 

M. Laitman: Now you just need to go through that boundary. 

Student: So, how do I cross that boundary? 

M. Laitman: Not alone. Not alone. With a few other friends when you want to cross that boundary, then you can. 

Student: So, in our Ten recently, we feel like we're touching the boundary but we can't focus the action to really cut it, to push through it. 

M. Laitman: Continue. Also at the Congress think about that upon everything we've been learning. And see that you will advance. 

Student: And with this corporeality that controls you sometimes, just to ignore it? It will continue to control you? 

M. Laitman: It'll continue controlling you.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:34) We read that the Klipot give a person an awakening. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: How do the shells give the one an awakening? What does it mean, also? 

M. Laitman: It means that there are such desires when they awaken in you, so you awaken, everything awakens.

Student: With respect to what do I awaken? 

M. Laitman: In relation to those desires. 

Student: And what do I do? 

M. Laitman: You need to learn what to do. How you can overcome them, revisit them.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:34) Also in these desires of this world, there's a certain deterioration. Once it was to reach control, honor, knowledge, there was like this ascent in the quality of the desire. And now, it's like the opposite phenomena. Not only that, also we come to a state where we're enjoying it at the expense of the other. It kind of like comes to a state in which it kind of destroys itself. It's like the world is destroying itself completely. So, the question is how do we not see that the other force is the desirable result? How do we come to a point where that's what will help? Because we don't even distinguish that. Here, between us, we do understand that and we deal with this phenomena as we constantly try. But in this world, it's like there's no escape. It's like you come to a state of self-destruction.

M. Laitman: Yes, supposedly.

Student: But why doesn't the person have the ability to identify it? He comes to a state where, really, he's willing to kill someone else. 

M. Laitman: That's in order for him to check and scrutinize what are exactly the forces working within him.

Student: Without awakening for spirituality, is it impossible to identify it? A normal person can? 

M. Laitman: No. No, you see in the world what's happening, no.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:24) The Klipot, he's talking about here, are not Klipot of like food and a passion for eating or drinking or anything like that. That's why he writes that the Klipot give an awakening to enter Kedushah because he wants to awaken such great lights. Those great lights that he can receive, they're not small sparks. My question is - these shells, these Klipot, these desires, where do they awaken from in a person? 

M. Laitman: From within the person. They exist, these desires are in a person's heart, let's say. In the center of his desires. And from there they awaken.

Student: According to what he writes here, these Klipot are like the gate to enter Lishma. Because the shells, the Klipot, they push him to Lo Lishma, and from there he can reach Lishma.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: How can we awaken these shells, these Klipot in us? 

M. Laitman: They are awakened, you're just not paying attention. You have to meticulously follow your development and see how, what awakens, what doesn't awaken. And from the ones that do awaken, you can choose where you can limit them and what not, and that's the work. 

Student: I really want to identify these correct Klipot that come, to invest? How do you identify those in a person? 

M. Laitman: The whole will to receive is a Klipa, a shell. 

Student: But I don't want to engage in the sparks. I want those desires that can bring big lights.

M. Laitman: The bigger lights? If you could cope with them, so you would receive them. 

Student: So what now at my state can I do?

M. Laitman: Do what you need to do in your Ten. And keep going. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:46) I understand that the correction is to move from exploiting others to bestowing to others.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: By that, a person becomes similar to the upper light. What form was a person given, and even increased each time, the personal passions and lusts? To fill his personal, corporeal lusts, what does that exist for?

 

M. Laitman: That also from that he can learn how to overcome. 

Student: How does he overcome this? 

M. Laitman: How does he overcome this? By rejecting them, and preferring, every time desires that are more exalted. He prefers more bestowal upon reception, more and more bestowal, and so on, every time, through the degrees.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:56) But it's still in his desire to receive? 

M. Laitman: No, no, no, no. It's in the will to receive, that's what he seems. But actually, he already comes to the will to bestow in that way. And then advance to the will to bestow, until he starts connecting to those degrees in the present. That's how it works. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:53) From the excerpt I understood, that the desire towards the great lights in the Torah, what drives us to that, is actually the Klipa, to want those great lights. That's what I understood from it. So, what is the form of work, the moment the desire towards the lights, these great lights, disappears? When you don't have any positive or negative drive, simply some kind of emptiness. 

M. Laitman: It's not emptiness. It is made in order for a person to start scrutinizing the lights. Small light, greater light, even greater than that light. This way he can build within himself the ladder that he can already climb.

Student: In what here is the foundation for the work? 

M. Laitman: Same thing as we were talking about before. The foundation of the work is understanding, what is he doing all this for. And how he scrutinizes. How should I say it? The greater lights upon the smaller lights. The bigger desires upon the smaller desires. And this is how he rises. 

Student: In this process, is there something besides this service? 

M. Laitman: No, nothing. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:32) It is said here - to limit oneself in sleeping, eating, drinking and other desires. There is a certain grading of things. You talked about desires opening up. We don't see our desires to the extent that a person can limit himself. That's how he advances. Is there a certain grading? We're talking about sleep, eating, and drinking. In a manner that we can limit ourselves for the sake of bestowal. Do I come closer this way, maximally? Or is it dependent on each of our desires? 

M. Laitman: Each one and his desires. It's not known in what desires a person will bump into and fall. 

Student: The reason I'm asking is, I'm talking about myself. Let's say, we once did meals according to Rabash, and it was really difficult to limit myself towards food, maybe towards coffee, yes, but it's hard to scrutinize here. I don't know how to even say it this way correctly. 

M. Laitman: That's not important. Everything will settle in its right place. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:58) If all the desires would be spread before me from the smallest to the greatest lights, like it's written in this excerpt, and I also know that prior to that, if I were to approach those desires, those Klipot, I would approach them not with the ability to limit myself. So, the question is, now that I want to open these desires to reach a true, real connection with the Ten, what should I focus on when I enact these desires in a special way between us? 

M. Laitman: Focus on which states you can overcome in order to be connected. 

Student: Overcome alone, by myself? 

M. Laitman: We're talking about you. 

Student: Yes, but there's some, the difference between before and now is that I feel that I need the Creator's help to go… 

M. Laitman: Great, so pray to Him.

Student: But is it correct to ask this way? Kind of like alone in order to be with the Creator in order to enter a connection with the Ten? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And where here do I care for them, for the friends? 

M. Laitman: So, you already were concerned about them, that's how you came to this state. Now you're asking, what do I need to be concerned of now? What do you mean now? After you're already concerned about them, and you've preferred your connection with the friends upon your connection with your will to receive. So, that's it. 

Student: How to awaken the entire Ten into a common contact with the Creator from that point? 

M. Laitman: Try and talk to them. 

Student: And what, for them to also open their desires, their deficiencies? 

M. Laitman: That'll be a mess.

Student: So, what should we do? Because, otherwise, I feel disconnected from them because I'm opening up to a big deficiency, and if I can't awaken them with me, I distance myself from them, actually. 

M. Laitman: You need to know that, all in all, you coming closer to them depends on your subjugation. 

Student: Subjugation before what? 

M. Laitman: To this opportunity, to accept that opportunity.

Student: What does it mean to surrender before this opportunity? 

M. Laitman: That you don't surrender, you didn't surrender towards them. 

Student: And with that I bestow to them, that's how I actually help them? 

M. Laitman: No, you're not helping, but you can ask the Creator. 

Student: It sounds completely opposite.

M. Laitman: I don't know what you're asking then.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:52) Here and now, at this given moment, what is the pressure point that we need to apply? Because there is a certain inner search, which we don't know, to hold on to the Creator, to hold on to all the friends and pray for them, or simply dissolve between everyone, to simply nullify and dissolve in everyone. 

M. Laitman: That's the best thing. 

Student: From here on, from today on, throughout the Convention?

M. Laitman: That should be the first condition - I want to be incorporated in everyone, simply be a zero towards everyone. That's the first condition. Second condition, in which coarseness can I work, in order to be a bit before the others in order to pull them after me. Only for that. To have some degree that is more important than zero, after that, I can pull everybody. And in this way, more, and more, and more. 

Question (Woman Heb 1): (23:25) It's written that pleasures in knowledge, in external wisdoms, in lust and honor, at least according to my feeling, these are the most difficult ones to overcome. How do we correct those pleasures in order to bestow? 

M. Laitman: She should read articles about it and see.

Question (Revadim): (23:54) There's a sensation that we're before a wall that doesn't allow us to open our hearts and ask for greater lights. What do you recommend that we invest our efforts now?

M. Laitman: Only to break the wall. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:28) He mentions the word “deposit”, that the lights come as a deposit for a person. And it's a certain relation here. The example I can see, if you could add that a child is born in a family, on one hand they see him as theirs, on the other hand it's a certain deposit to raise him. How do we look at this word “deposit”, those lights that are in this power that comes, our relation towards that deposit? 

M. Laitman: It's not written here in this article. 

Student: It's written that the lights come as a deposit. 

M. Laitman: So what? It is given for you right now, so keep it. 

Reading: (25:34) 2. RABASH, Article No. 4 (1990), "What It Means that the Generations of the Righteous are Good Deeds, in the Work

“Envy,” “lust,” and “honor,” bring man out of the world (Avot, Chapter 4:28). He says there that through the envy and respect, it is possible to change the inclinations to lust into the degree of vegetative, where he begins to work for the sake of others for the purpose of Lo Lishma [not for Her sake]. Likewise, through envy, he can shift to the level of knowledge, as our sages said, “Authors’ envy increases knowledge.” And likewise, through Lo Lishma they can also shift from the animate level to the speaking.

Yet, how does the Lo Lishma help if one does not have the real inclination to the degree to which he enters? Our sages said about this, with respect to the Torah, “The light in it reforms him.” It turns out that through Lo Lishma, we come to Lishma [for Her sake]. This is why they said, “One should always learn Lo Lishma, as from Lo Lishma we come to Lishma.”

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:18) I have a question about that wall. You said we need to break it. It's felt, after all we can't take a hammer and break the wall. What's that inner hammer with which we break the wall? But with what do we break it? 

M. Laitman: With your persistence.

Student: But do you just persistently knock on one spot there?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: (28:03) You said about the second condition. The first condition is to dissolve with everyone, become a zero. And the second one is to scrutinize with which coarseness I can work in order to draw them to me. How to use my coarseness and how to scrutinize what I can use now?

M. Laitman: We can speak about that only after you're able to annul yourself. Then you'll be able to raise your coarseness and work with it. 

Student: I want to ask something else, because I came to the convention with a very clear desire to completely nullify. And here you're telling me that I have to add a little bit of coarseness. 

M. Laitman: The ascent only happens by adding coarseness. Along with that, we can lower the coarseness till zero, meaning not to use it for myself.

Student: We just read about envy, lust. Can I add that a little, but not for myself, but for everyone? 

M. Laitman: Yes, you can. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:45) It's never clear what envy is. Now the question came up. Envy depends on how great the Creator is. How do I take that feeling of envy? Just from the greatness of the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:30) Can you explain these two conditions that you set towards the convention. One - I want to incorporate towards everyone, annul before everyone becomes a zero. That's clear, at least what the trend is. And the other is - what coarseness I can operate towards the friends with in order to attract them a little bit behind me. What is that work in coarseness? 

M. Laitman: I need to annul before society.

Student: Yes, that's the first condition. 

M. Laitman: First condition, If I annul with which will to receive do I work after that? 

Student: What does that mean? What's the work with coarseness? Is it a result of annulment that coarseness awakens? 

M. Laitman: The result can’t be from the annulment. Because if it was annuled I'd remain as a zero. 

Student: So, where does the coarseness come from? 

M. Laitman: Coarseness comes from me still studying and continuing to be in society. 

Student: It's not clear how you're in annulment and in coarseness.

M. Laitman: Towards two things. What am I annulling towards?

Student: Towards the friends? Me towards the friends.

M. Laitman: Yes. And what else? 

Student: Coarseness.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Towards who? 

M. Laitman: Which coarseness? 

Student: I don't know all the kinds, which I heard from you, that there are two conditions of the convention. One - I am null before the friends, I'm zero towards them, and two - I operate in coarseness to draw them behind me.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It's the second condition that's not clear to me. What is to work in coarseness towards the friends and draw them with me? What am I doing? What am I awakening? What's this work in coarseness? 

M. Laitman: That's what's written. That's what's written? 

Student: That's what I heard from you saying earlier. 

M. Laitman: No, what you heard, I don't know. So, what is written? 

Student: So, we have to search where it's written.

M. Laitman: Search.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (33:34) We said, the first action is to make a zero of myself before everyone. To make a zero of myself towards everyone. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: The second action is I also have to try to somewhat raise everyone up a little bit.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How does that transition take place between the first stage of making myself a zero before everyone and the second stage where I'm seeking in what I can raise everyone up? 

M. Laitman: How can I raise them? 

Student: Is that what I need to ask myself? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: The zero raises them up? Zero is a zero.

M. Laitman: By what can I raise them? I'll give you an example. You've annulled yourself before some group. Now, how can you lift them a bit more? What do you need to do? 

Student: I can give a good example of bestowal on my behalf to the society.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: That's in the externality of the action. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: In my internality, I can pray for them. What else do I have to give them? 

M. Laitman: Well, let's see, and see as much as it helps. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:47) By me annulling myself, what did I annul? I annulled my egoistic desire before. I made room? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: What enters in that place, that I made room? 

M. Laitman: There was ego there, right? 

Student: Yes. That I annulled. 

M. Laitman: You annulled it. So there's greatness of the Creator now. 

Student: Which I receive only from Him.

M. Laitman: Yes, but you want to fill Him. So, you turn to the Creator and ask that He will be revealed. 

Student: So, that's actually what I'm passing along. If I really manage to annul that place, my egoistic place, and that's where the greatness of the Creator enters, that's what passes to my Ten. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:13) There is a phenomenon which is very clear, you can really feel it, about uplifting the society where friends who come from thousands of miles away and are here, they uplift us in a very sharp way, the whole society. Why is it that way? What's so special about it? 

M. Laitman: Because whoever is here subdues us towards those few miles that each one went through in order to get here. He shows everyone his payment, what he's willing to give in order to be here.

Student: And friends who came from afar, these thousands of miles, do they have a special role? I am now a friend who came from far away. Do I need to feel that I have a certain role right now, because it's really, I'm awakening the society. 

M. Laitman: You must think about it. 

Student: What do I need to think that my role is? 

M. Laitman: How you uplift society by being in between them today.

Student: The very thought, will that uplift the society?

M. Laitman: The thought too, but even more, if you make an awakening on their degree.

Student: I feel like you too are awakened by the fact that friends came from afar, is that right? 

M. Laitman: Of course. I'm very envious of them. As much as part of them made these efforts, money, preparation, yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (39:34) And with the friends who came from overseas, from the World Kli, you can't help yourself from being impressed. It's even natural. The question is how supernatural I could be impressed by those friends who are with me every day, every moment. My friends in the Ten, which is kind of like in the family, you don't see them, you just feel that they're there. How to renew each time this envy? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. You have something to say?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:46) Yes. I will be impressed by my Ten. They're making so much effort, and they arrive here with all their forces, even if they live close, but it's also work. It's hard work. I'm impressed by that. 

M. Laitman: Okay.

Student: Specifically, Rav, if I could add, we talked about continuing friend's questions. When a person starts to nullify, is it correct that a person starts to care more for others? 

M. Laitman: Could be. Yes. Usually, yes, but it could be that his work is such that he doesn't discover that. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (42:13) In the Convention now, during this period, what will make you happy?

M. Laitman: A general advancement of all the organization, that it depends on how each and every one advances. That's it. What else can we do? The rest you get from the Creator. 

Student: How do we need to connect one to another so that you will feel it was worthwhile for me to put my whole life into them, and have content from them. What form do we need to acquire that will bring you content?

M. Laitman: Really, you can say that from this convention and on, I'm expecting an actual advancement of the center of Bnei Baruch. Those who are in understanding and attainment in their studies, in all kinds of actions. Yes, I'm moving forward with them. That's it. 

Student: What is true advancement? 

M. Laitman: A true advancement is the opening of the Heavens.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (44:30) If possible to summarize, it works out that when we raise the greatness of the Creator and the greatness of the friends, then we have an additional ego, is that correct? 

M. Laitman: Could be yes, could be no. 

Student: If you could expand on that. 

M. Laitman: I can't answer more than this.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (45:14) To understand about our inner work, this necessary addition of Aviut that we need for moving forward, how does it relate to the state of Katnut when I do not want big lights, but want to serve in small actions, simply to serve?

M. Laitman: When we rise, and we want to restrict the degree towards the next degree coming, so the light that works in the next degree is what restricts us. So, there's no contradiction between our ascent towards the greater light and the restriction that comes from that light. 

Student: It's not my actions or my decisions, but the bestowal of the light on my readiness? 

M. Laitman: Yes, you just decide whether yes or no.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (46:51) If I depict to myself that I'm dissolving between everyone and feel myself as a zero more and more. And the group, I see, is higher and higher. Is that the addition of coarseness? 

M. Laitman: No. Everything's okay. That's how it's supposed to be. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (47:37) The envy, that's written about here in these excerpts, from what I understand, from what we spoke about, is that of entering to annulment in the Ten, and the next stage of annulment is already activating the coarseness. We need to be more active. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: The motivation that enables me to do this to begin with, what is that motivation? What drives us? 

M. Laitman: To annul? 

Student: To do annulment, and for that to later, the coarseness, to be activated. 

M. Laitman: Enter contact with the upper force. 

Student: And when that's the motivation, then in this, there's this continuity. Because from annulment to activate coarseness, it's like, what enables it? 

M. Laitman: I've annulled myself to receive, and now I want to work with the intention to bestow. 

Student: So it's, I want to desire it now, or to begin with, that was the desire? 

M. Laitman: No, now. Until I've annulled my will to receive, I couldn't think about the intention to bestow.

Student: And now as I think about the intention to bestow, what in this is called envy which awakens everything? 

M. Laitman: Envy is when I work with my coarseness now, that I've corrected it, and it is entirely this coarseness, in order to bestow. 

Student: And then I identify, the envy is what I identify in the Ten, as they're more advancing, more adhered to the Creator. What exactly? 

M. Laitman: Yes, of course. 

Student: And prior to that, I couldn't see it. 

M. Laitman: No.

Student: And what in this identification now of the greatness of the friends, enables me to be even more wanting to connect with them. Why is that envy the correct envy, that author's envy, as he says?

M. Laitman: Because I've received it from the connection. 

Student: Meaning there's a mechanism that's working? 

M. Laitman: The connection with them is what gives me the feeling of their greatness. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (50:32) Yesterday the Karmiel Ten, was in a meeting in the Ginosar kibbutz, we have a friend there, which we didn't hug for a long time, we didn't see him. From that connection, I came here today. How can we give the power, from that effort that we've done, to the whole Kli? And all together, there's many gatherings right now, many Tens. How do we concentrate this force to help everyone? 

M. Laitman: Yes, there are many gatherings now, a lot of an awakening, and we're thinking a lot about Passover, how we can in one step come out of the will to receive, into the will to bestow. Because Passover, Pesach is to pass over it. So, let's hope we do it with the Creator's help. So, we're going to work on it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (51:54) What to do with the feeling of shame upon the gap between the efforts I make and the efforts that the World Kli friends are doing? They received the possibility to bestow from the Creator and they're using that possibility and the Creator is not giving me that possibility yet, no matter how much I ask. 

M. Laitman: It's not better or worse. What He gives, that's what He gives. So, there's no reason to look at the others. We have to try and rise.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (52:56) If we're to refine it, the zero, the annulment is only towards myself. Towards the friends I want to see them greater, more bestowing, impressed, right? It's only in relation to me. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Now at that point, envy awakens. What's the next action from here? I need to annul myself even more? Or do I need to do an active action now towards them in order to add to this connection? In order to add to them? 

M. Laitman: As for the annulment I made, to begin with, now I have to add more coerceness to that annulment, right?

Student: If I add more annulment now, I annul, now I see them as greater, more bestowing, and I don't want to lower them, I want them to grow even more. But against that also envy awakens towards them, against that desire to bestow. What's the next action from this point that I need to do? 

M. Laitman: Now you have a problem to be a bestower towards them. How will you do that? 

Student: Yes, that's the question.

M. Laitman: Okay, we'll think. We'll think. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (54:55) It's a really simple question. But I'll start with gratitude for being able to be here, because this is where it really all happens. My intent is to raise the envy in the World Kli. And I wanted to ask you, would you speak to those, briefly, that are on the fence, do I come, do I stay, do I buy the ticket? And also, what would be the best way for me to do this? 

M. Laitman: To do what? What do you want to attain? 

Student: I want nothing out of it. I want to enliven the hearts of the friends that can't decide whether or not they want to come. On one hand, they want to, they want to feel what we feel in this classroom. On the other hand, they don't know if they can spend the money. They don't know if they can get the time off for work. I remember asking you this, what, 15, 17 years ago. And you told me, put out all the actions in your mind and in your heart to be there, and the Creator will make the way. Can you speak to them? 

M. Laitman: I think that we'll hear you from week to week, and then we'll see how you develop. This time, it'll be a true development.