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

Afternoon Lesson. July 1, 2024.

Part 2. Rabash. Record 259. Building the Temple.

We're reading from Rabash volume 3, article number 259, Building the Temple. 

Reading Article: (00:16) Building the Temple

“Rabbi Shimon Ben Elazar says, ‘If children tell you ‘Build!’ and elders tell you ‘Break!’ heed the elders and do not heed the children, for children’s building is breaking, and elder’s breaking is building, and the sign of the matter is Rehoboam, son of Solomon’” (Nedarim 40a).

RASHI interprets that if youths tell you, “Build the Temple,” and elders tell you, “Break and do not build,” the sign of the matter is Rehoboam… and the Temple was ruined over that advice. But the Torah did not interpret about the Temple, and there is a Braita that interprets “Temple” differently, and see MAHARSHA.

We should interpret that the elders say that we must break all the building of Kedusha [holiness] that a person built in his youth, for otherwise it is impossible to build the Temple. The reason is that one must revoke everything that he has done since he was born so he can walk in the ways of Kedusha [holiness].

M. Laitman: (01:52) These are very deep matters, and we don't really understand it, but we'll do it in a simple way.

M. Laitman: (02:07) Rav Shimon Ben Elazar says, if children tell you, build, and elders tell you, break, heed the elders and do not heed the children, for children's building is breaking. When they build, even though they're building, it's as if they are breaking. And the elders' breaking is building. 

And the elders, when they deviate, when they cancel something they're building, know that that's actually building. And the sign of these matters is Rehoboam, son of Solomon.’”

RASHI interprets that if youths tell you, “Build the Temple,” and elders tell you, “Break and do not build,” the sign of these matters is Rehoboam… and the Temple was ruined over that advice. But the Torah did not interpret about the Temple, and there is a Braita that interprets “Temple” differently, and see MAHARSHA.

We should interpret that the elders say that we must break all the buildings of Kedusha [holiness] that a person built in his youth, when he was young, otherwise it is impossible to build the Temple that only Braita was before. The reason is that one must revoke everything that he has done since he was born so he can walk in the ways of Kedusha. Meaning that if a person does not break what he built when he was a youth, a child, he cannot build something serious for the future. 

Question (Women in Ukraine 2): (04:27) What are youths in the spiritual work, where a person needs to break it? When does that happen? 

M. Laitman: This happens, let's say, after ten years of serious study. 

Question (Women MAK 70): (05:15) These two breakings that work together, is that the foundation for spiritual work? 

M. Laitman: In essence, I don't know such a thing where there will be clashes and that they will work together. These are special states. 

Question (Women Eng 1): (05:39) When we start walking in the Ten, we often think we are building the Ten, and it's like, after five or six years, we recognize it was all our ego. Is that the building of the youth that we have to break in order to start building like the elder? 

M. Laitman: We need to be in connection by the elders, to hear what they say, and then we won't have to come to that clash, to that ruin. That's how it is. 

Question (Women MAK 97): (06:46) Is it correct to say that here it's talking about for us to build the next degree, we have to go through the ruin? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Not necessarily a big ruin, but a few small breakings for each and everyone to have. 

Question (Hadera 1): (07:19) All that a person built in Kedusha, within reason, is that what he has to clash and then break and then build everything above reason in Kedusha? 

M. Laitman: It can be. 

Question (Kyiv): (07:42) What do I need to break before I build the building of Kedusha? 

M. Laitman: Everything that you, from the first day that you started studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, you built in your heart, in your mind. Then you come to the fact that all that you have done is not real, is not true. And you break it and rebuild it.

Student: I built the connection with the friends in the Ten, a framework, time. What do I need to break, actually? 

M. Laitman: Nothing. It happens on its own. You simply understand that it's all not the same foundations upon which the spiritual building of your soul is built. 

Student: What advice do the Kabbalists give of what we nevertheless need to build in order to make less mistakes? 

M. Laitman: Specifically, these short articles here and there like we're reading, are the ones that help you. You'll see that you need to aim yourself a little differently.

Question (Women Turkiye 2): (09:40) When a person reaches a certain level of faith, what's the next step she should do? Should the next step be a prayer of gratitude? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Yes. 

Question (Women ITA): (10:00) The elderly must destroy to build something new. How can we overcome the experience peacefully? 

M. Laitman: We cannot. We constantly break and build, break and build, and this is how it is until the end of correction.

Question (Women PT 5): (10:52) Do we want to build the Temple? And that's why we are constantly breaking and building, breaking and building, with the intention to unite it all from above? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How do we know what state we're in, if we're elder or children? 

M. Laitman: You don't know yet. We need to yearn to know. 

Question (Woman MAK 56): (11:28) The Temple is the relations that are correctly built between us?

M. Laitman: It's the correct soul that we discover between us; our general soul. 

Student: What's the foundation of our common soul? 

M. Laitman: Usually it's broken because the foundation is not stable, also in our case. 

Student: What's the foundation? 

M. Laitman: The foundation is our ego, which we adhere, hold onto in our connection between us, because each of us annuls himself before the other. Self-annulment, if possible. 

Student: Is self-annulment faith in the other? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Women MAK 70): (12:45) True bestowal only comes after complete despair from his own forces, and then the request for help comes? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Women MAK 30): (13:02) In the break, the meaning is that we're discovering our mistakes in order to rise up and annul ourselves, find ourselves in the right way? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Women MAK 88): (13:28) What is to ruin or break what we built? How do we do this? It's very difficult.

M. Laitman: It will break on its own. Continue building. You don't need to stop now.

Question (Women MAK 104): (13:56) Can we call Bnei Baruch elders? How can we quickly become elders? 

M. Laitman: Bnei Baruch are not the elders or the youths. It's simply a collection of people that want to find for themselves a connection with the Creator. 

Question (Women MAK 25): (14:23) Can we discern what we need to search to break and build or will the Creator do that? 

M. Laitman: Both this way and that way.

Question (Women PT 33): (14:48) Is that state of the clash a state where a person puts a critique over his intention or as we learned about the left line, and he adds in the left line and not in the right line? 

M. Laitman: We'll learn more and then we'll understand. 

Student: So that's not the direction? 

M. Laitman: If we understand, we understand the whole picture. All of it. 

Question (Women MAK 97): (15:38) If there's fear before this breaking of what we built, if we're afraid that someone will remain buried under the ruins or I won't be able to rise above, what do we do with that fear? 

M. Laitman: There needs to be a connection with the Creator and this needs to be stronger than all the rest of the breakings and clashes.

Question (Women MAK 26): (16:20) It turns out that the elders are those who are not afraid of the breaks or the falls? 

M. Laitman: On the contrary, they take forces from this breaking. Yes, very correct. 

Student: Meaning we need to learn how not to be afraid of the falls? 

M. Laitman: Yes, of course. Meaning be careful of them, but when it happens, then no problem. Start asking for their correction. 

Question (Moscow 1): (17:12) Is the shattering always a state of death?

M. Laitman: No, not so much. It can be small, meaning your hopes, your calculations, that too, can be broken, connections with the friends. It's all possible to be breakings. 

Student: Do I understand correctly that as it was said there you have to give yourself to the others and you kind of reject your previous impression and add the impression of the society? 

M. Laitman: Probably.

Question (Hadera 1): (18:14) Can we say that the building is some of the reality where I understand and know and maybe even control a little somewhat there, and that's always finite and the Creator is endless, eternal. To come to a true connection with Him, we need to break the part that I am certain that I know, so that by faith we are connected to Him and adhere to Him. And that is actually the meaning of we need to break the temple?

M. Laitman: That's correct. Advance onwards and check.

Question (Women ITA): (19:21) Is there a difference between the spiritual construction and the temple in the spirituality? Between spiritual construction and the temple are they related spiritually?

M. Laitman: No, it's the same thing. 

Question (Women Kavkaz 1): (20:38) It seems like we understand these deep concepts very superficially. I don't have a concrete question, but I have a desire to make an effort in understanding and feeling. What should be done to make the foundation of a strong temple? 

M. Laitman: Don't let go of it. Constantly do something and pray and ask for you to have more strength, more power to build the foundation for the temple. 

Question (Turkiye 2): (21:38) Can we say about the Unity Evening, is it a beginning point? Can we say that the Unity Evening was the beginning point of all of this? 

M. Laitman: The Unity Evening? Yes, it's a very important point and it's a beginning for our path, yes. 

Question (Women PT 33): (22:42) There is a very strong desire for our group of friends who work together with the student from Israel on the vision for them to succeed to build this and to attain spirituality, for them to be in attainment. And this desire is very strong, it's really strong. I want to ask for the Creator, not from my ego but from something higher. 

M. Laitman: Ask. The prayer, the appeal to the Creator, requests always help. They always help.

Question (Women German): (24:02) Does the Creator break our building on purpose because we haven't yet connected things appropriately? What was not correct in our building? 

M. Laitman: This is just like we talked about in our first article today, compared to what we're doing now, where it's written that the ruin of the elders is the building and the breaking of the youth… It seems that we're breaking, but we're not breaking, and by that it's built and vice versa where it seems to us that we are destroying it, we're ruining it. That's actually in construction. We need to interpret this more but for the time being let it be like that in our mind. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:28) So, to try to understand the question of the friend. If the building is broken, it means that we didn't build it correctly, or does it mean that actually, we worked correctly and it's a good result that it's broken? 

M. Laitman: No, it's also another question here. We need to accept things as they are. 

Student: Who breaks the building? Is it the Creator who builds it and breaks it? 

M. Laitman: Of course.

Student: For what? 

M. Laitman: For us to then ask and He will erect it. He'll build it.

Student: So, our work is to build the building and the Creator's job is to break the building? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And when is there truly a building? When is the building stable and standing? 

M. Laitman: It's stable and stands when we are all corrected. We correct the connection between us, turn to the Creator and turn to Him. 

Question (Hadera 1): (27:02) Is Rabash telling us here that spiritual advancement is attained only when a person is not stuck in his ways? 

M. Laitman: Yes. That's it. 

Question (Women German): (27:34) How can I help the friends building the Temple when they reject my help? 

M. Laitman: Maybe she should check why they are rejecting. Maybe that is actually her help and her correction.

Question (Women Almaty): (29:10) The Creator does all the actions. What is active participation in building the Temple? How to incorporate in an action that He does with us? 

M. Laitman: For that, we need to feel what He is doing and to go in His ways. 

Student: It was my question. Simply, it was interesting to me that the Creator does all the actions. We are like this machine that adapts itself to all of His actions. The question is how to accept all His actions, but to simply be a participant. After all, we don't have to add anything. If we add, what do we add? What is the true participation? 

M. Laitman: Our desire. We add our desire. 

Question (Women MAK 48): (30:18) If we break our attempts in youth, how do we accumulate what we need to for the soul? 

M. Laitman: It gets accumulated.

Student: Do we have to actively do something? 

M. Laitman: We need to constantly try and ask the Creator to help us connect and ascend. Connect and ascend. 

Question (Women MAK 26): (31:00) It's written not to listen to the youth if they say build. Please explain: what's the mistake of the youth? If they want to build, it sounds correct. 

M. Laitman: What they want to build sounds correct. Nevertheless, it won't stand, because it's the youth, it destroys everything, meaning they don't yet have a clear understanding of how it needs to be built. 

Question (Women French): (31:41) I didn't understand yet. What do I need to break in me? I need to find inside of me something that's not corrected and then break it? 

M. Laitman: Your ego towards others needs to be broken, and your love for everyone needs to be expanded and brought up. 

Question (Women Kyiv 7): (32:14) The main thing is to hear the voice of the elder, is that correct? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How to build ourselves in our perception, so we hear the truth and not what we want and what our will to receive wants. 

M. Laitman: Read our articles on the topic, the articles of Rabash, and hear. Just read it in a way that you're not reading it from yourselves, but completely with a connection to what you're reading.

Student: Another question. How to help build this stable foundation for the Temple and the Temple itself? 

M. Laitman: To tell Him about this, to ask Him to try to come closer and give Him those forces that we have. 

Question (Women MAK 30): (33:32) After all, we constantly build the Temple as we're aimed to the Creator. We're asking Him what we need to do. How to scrutinize with the Creator before we break what we built? What did we do correctly and what not?

M. Laitman: That you will see yourselves while you're in action. 

Question (Moscow 1): (34:08) We need to learn to be flexible in this process, meaning to learn to work with everything that comes from the friends, from the World Kli. There are certain articles of Rabash that talk about the reward and advancement and receiving the friend; there are such articles. 

M. Laitman: Of course, there are and there are many, but the thing is that it's not the articles, but rather the thing is how a person accepts them. So, I advise instead of the simple reading of the articles in this quick order. We don't need that. The best is try to connect together, and together reading one article is better than reading ten articles alone. You'll feel you'll immediately receive ten opinions. You just need to do this concretely.

Student: Completely technically. When we used to listen to the morning lesson again in the afternoon, we could penetrate it deeper and be in it all day long. Now there's this very quick change and a lot of material. We feel that if we start deepening in something we are removed from the general process. So, what do we do? 

M. Laitman: Turn and ask for them to repeat the morning lesson if it helped you so much. 

Student: But many want to be with Rav in a lesson now. It's considered more qualitative. 

M. Laitman: I don't know. That depends on a person, that depends on a person. We are saying goodbye till tomorrow and we'll continue to advance.

Announcements: (36:42)

Song: (37:18)