Part 3:
Morning Lesson November 14, 2021, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences from audio
Baal HaSulam. The Freedom (Influence of the Environment)
1.R. He wants to explain what our freedom is and what is not, can we come out of our nature, as much as we go into the research of man's nature, we see we are in handcuffs, tied, and we can’t come out of our nature. We also see this about ourselves as we try to come out of our nature and we see this about ourselves, as much as we try to come closer to spirituality our nature won’t let us come out of it. So what has the Creator prepared for us so we will be able to be a bit higher as the Kabbalists write to come out of our corporeal nature to the spiritual world is something special and we don’t understand how to do this. In this article he tells us how much we are in corporeality, in the forces of nature that act on us and what we should do if this is so, and how much we have the ability by which we can come out of this world to the spiritual world. There is some key to open, some trick, maybe a code that can open these walls that I don’t see that I can come out of them to a different world. How to do it. Here there are a few factors, one is the way we are born, my inheritance and the influence of the environment.
Reader: (02:50) “Influence of the Environment”
2. R. (07:30) There is nothing special here, we know this out of our own life when by the environment, that is how he also gives the title the influence of the environment that wherever a person is, wherever he was educated accordingly we can say about him what he thinks, what his qualities are what his habits, what is closer and what is further away from him.
4. S. (08:20) He also writes that there is a source in the person, that Source can directly come from the forefathers or opposite, how does the society influence that part?
R. I can't say in a decisive way, however according to what he writes a person is influenced by the environment either in a negative way or in a positive one because this is dependent upon him as well and this is how he receives it. Meaning he may grow up in a society that appreciates highly something specific but for him, according to his Source he will get it but his importance will be negative instead of the opposite. That also may happen and we even see this with human beings that suddenly they come from a certain family that it is clear to us what can come out of it but something extraordinary comes out of it.
S. So this the ability that a person has?
R. This does not depend on him, that is how he was born, that is how he grew up, he doesn't choose it to mean that he may grow in a way that is the complete opposite of his environment, that also is in the environment as a result of the shattering in the vessel that happened in the past.
5. S. (10:42) What are those qualities?
R. They are the records, the Reshimot, if you were in an environment that would appreciate something else then each of you accordingly would feel his internal inherited data in a different way. How can it be that suddenly from an ordinary family we get Rabbi Shimon or ARI, or Baal HaSulam without any precedence or discernments, how can we measure that this family should bear genius Kabbalists. No one knows about it, later when somebody writes a biography about them then he writes whatever he feels like. But usually there is no realistic basis for this happening.
S. So it turns out that there are corporeal genes and spiritual genes for a person that it depends on the spiritual root?
R. It depends on his connection before the shattering that was made before the shattering of Adam HaRishon as it was made in a way that now it governs it, because we are in the direction of the final correction.
6. S. (13:04) The source shows us an opposite tendency that if I am an angry person, I could be angry toward my ego or if I'm stingy I could be stingy to the connection with the friends and so on.
R. No, it's not so simple as everything depends on the person's exertion as much as he is successful and how much he can draw the life that reforms. There are few subjects here that they can take part in this action of correction, we can't say anything in advance here, for each and every friend we need to relate to him like an angel and this is the person that will bring the final correction to the entire humanity and he will give the best benefit to the Creator. That is something that we don't know that all kinds of forms of the true vessel will be revealed that we will know how much we can't understand out of the shattering the state of the connection.
Reader continues: (14:49) “Habit Becomes a Second Nature”
7. R. (17:15) It seems to me you didn't hear it enough, friends pay attention this is according to our nature.
Reader reads again
8. S. (19:45) What does it mean that a tendency becomes a concept?
R. When we can use not any tendency, it is our intellect, or emotion in a way that we decided and chose.
S. What does it mean that he said that you can't change the tendency and now he says you can even uproot and invert it?
R. Soon we will see.
9. S. (20:30) In the middle he says that sometimes he can uproot a bad tendency, is it possible in corporeality without connection to spirituality or what is the actually speaking about here a spiritual or corporeal state?
R. No, he explains in a simple, earthly mundane way how we can change the data that we were born with by being in an environment, by habit and all kinds of actions that we can perform over our self. How can we change the data with which we were born.
S. Let's say in a regular environment or dissemination I can say that it works in corporeality like this as well?
R. If a person wants to work on himself, he can work as it is written here, he will certainly need an environment as a factor and the work on himself but he can change these things. When he says that by this man has greater strength than the vegetative because we read this, because the wheat cannot change but only in its individual part whereas man can change by the cause and effect of the environment even in the general parts. To turn the complete tendency and uproot it entirely. person can do that by the environment and that is called cause and effect of the environment. It has nothing to do with the wisdom of Kabbalah, these are ordinary things.
10. S. (23:27) It turns out that he said you can really sculpt a person and change anything of his qualities, like if a person would lose his memory and forget everything that he had, we can just implant any software or qualities into him?
R. If you think that there is an upper force, and upper system, Creator, that the upper light works on us in a decisive way incessantly then of course it is clear. That with all of the things we decide the Creator and the upper light decide even before that and they bring us the data and the desire, the actions here and this is how we basically behave. With man and the Creator this is something we should decide, in the meantime the work on the free choice is something that we cannot decide. Where is the Creator or not, are we in freedom as the article is called “The Freedom: article, are we in freedom from the upper force or he created the system and through the system he forms some imagination of freedom. Where is it or where isn't it, how much can we interfere or maybe I'm learning how I should exist according to the Upper Providence to the extent that I perform the same action as the Creator did, I mean. I feel that I am free and I am doing, meaning that all of our work, I'm not saying that this is how it is but this is something to think about, all of our work is when I choose to resemble the Creator so I have chosen and every moment I choose again. What has changed here, basically prior to the shattering of Adam we were parts that do everything in a necessary way and now after the sin and the corrections we do what the Creator wants. It is our own free choice. That is the difference.
11. S. (27:00) If I am hearing the article correctly it almost sounds like society gives birth to concepts that want to fulfill the tendencies that are found in the sources, is that accurate or am I asking the question inaccurately?
R. The society doesn't bring out anything, the environment is governed by the upper force and in this society, there is no free choice in any way, rather the choice is for a person who can rise and does rise above his nature.
12. S. (28:03) Can you explain the example he gave on the stinginess I didn't understand?
R. What he's trying to say is that even if you do choose something, you choose according to your internal tendencies and also according to the environment because that is a factor. The habit becomes second nature as he says in the last part that the strength of man is greater than the plant, the wheat which only has its own part but man can change through the cause and effect of the environment even in the general parts. Meaning to completely uproot a tendency of the will to receive and change it to its opposite, a person can do this because he relates to the environment something that doesn't exist with animals, the still, vegetative or animate, they do not influence the environment, they do it but in a way that is necessary for their existence whereas humans that are in connection with the environment and he canceled his ego to the environment so the environment will act on him then it turns out that by that a person prepares himself to the internal revolution and by this he becomes like the Creator.
S. He gives the example that he understands the stinginess in an intellectual way?
R. It says to uproot completely a tendency and invert it to its opposite, look what is possible, this is all if a person is incorporated in the environment and through the environment, he gets bestowal from the upper light and by that changes himself. How important the environment is for us.
S. Can you explain the middle paragraph where he is speaking about the stinginess and protecting himself.
R. By the environment he changed his tendency and understands his stinginess and some intellectual way, let's say he protects himself, he protects and defends his habit. Meaning he has a measurement for the stinginess, that he can give it up if he doesn't be afraid of it, it follows that he has changed substantially for the better from the tendency he inherited from the forefathers sometimes one wants to completely uproot a bad tendency, this is done by habit.
S. What is he trying to say here?
R. You read it again from home and then if you need, we will talk about it.
13. S. (32:29) Is there a bad quality or tendency?
R. The will to receive is egoistic, is this bad or good?
S. Depends how you use it.
R. You answered it.
14. S. (32:53) in Pticha and Shamati, Baal HaSulam talks about the lights and vessels and an article like “The Freedom”, is this a different kind of article, a different emotional approach or do I switch to my head when I study something like this?
R. We relate to “The Freedom” article which is a short explanation but the complexity of our nature, how much we should take into account what the Creator has created in us and to know how we discovered these tendencies, organize them under the influence of the upper light, every shape of the ego in us since we are all egoistic shapes. We will get some correction in a certain way and then we will be corrected human beings. In our correction all these forms of ego maintain, they are still there, the evil inclination is still there it only works in the way that it is in the foundation of every Partzuf of the soul helping us to maintain ourselves there forever even though we say the evil inclination is gone, it doesn't disappear in a way it's not there, it is the form of being bad that we invert to become good. Now it is helping us to place ourselves in a direct way in front of the Creator.
15. S. (35:13) How can we invert a tendency if we say we can't break the evil inclination?
R. I don't know what you're saying but the upper light does whatever is required, we don't need to be too smart as there are such discernments in spirituality when it seems to us that we are higher than them and we can become smarter as if we are governing them but until we reach our degree. In the degree that we are in we see that we have nothing but to pray to the upper light, to work on us and organize all of our different factors. Ultimately it is prayer to the upper light to do it even though we are learning all of these things with internal factors of what you inherit and the influence of the environment, everything is good and fine until we come out to the next stage.
Reader continues: (36:35) “External Factors”
Reader continues: “Free Choice” (Twice)
16. R. (41:34) Meaning even though we were born, we came out of the Creator and we went through all kinds of changes, shattering each and everything that we went through and we are in a state that the forces of the Creator, of nature are controlling us in everything. Along with that we can protect ourselves and reach the freedom of choice. What the Creator gave us even all kinds of qualities, let's say like we see ourselves that we are all different for certain, as each and every one of us has his part in Adam HaRishon which is unique and along with that each and every one is free and is not dependent on anyone else, no one. Even in the Creator he is not dependent, that is something that we later on we'll have to talk about. But still we can reach a state that we will truly have freedom from everyone. That is what the Creator created and we have to digest this and learn about it.
R av Reading When examining these four factors we find that although our strength, although is the right word here, that although the strength is not enough to face the first factor which is the source, we still have the ability and free choice, free choice, to protect ourselves against the other three factors by which the source changes in its individual parts and sometimes and its general part as well through habit which endows it with a second nature as explained above. In this way he can protect his individuality, his freedom. That means that if we use what the Creator gives correctly, we will be completely in exactly like him, exactly, completely free. When we learn that afterwards the environment is a factor, the obligation of choosing the good environment. That this is clear to us what he wants to bring us to, what he wants to explain, that if a person builds the right environment and except for what he builds he is constantly concerned that it will get better and that he will be connected to it in the right way. That he chooses for himself a path that you can't say that someone is pulling him, forcing him to reach it but that he becomes free and truly reaches a state that we can't understand how it happens in nature. That there is nothing above, nothing that obligates him in anything.
17. S. (46:10) Is the second factor influence of the environment that the person acquires, does it stay as a record?
R. Well actually yes it does remain in the system.
18. S. (46:55) You just said that you become free of everyone else and on the one hand we have to be under the environment and on the other hand we reach a state where we are free from everyone, who are the everyone?
R. Anyone towards the Creator and including the Creator, man that corrects himself feels himself free from everything as the Creator he feels himself.
19. S. (47:27) Can the environment accelerate the development of the records?
R. The environment obviously accelerates the development of course.
20. S. (47:45) Can we educate a person to be in the second nature or to have a desire to change his intention from in receiving to bestowing?
R. It all depends on his education and prayer.
21. S. (48:07) Why is it so difficult to acquire the correct habits, spiritual ones?
R. Because it is against the ego, obviously and obviously it is difficult.
22. S. (48:24) Our basis is the will to receive that does not change so what does it mean to acquire the intention in order to bestow?
R. The intention to bestow on the will to receive that with all my nature which is the will to receive I have acquired an intention, a direction of how to use this nature in order to bestow good to the others.
23. S. (48:55) How to develop the trust in the environment and how to get the right support?
R. I need to develop trust in the environment because the Creator is giving it to me, he puts my hand on the good fortune and says take this for yourself.
24. S. (49:23) Ultimately do we have a choice to rise above the ego or not?
R. Of course yes, freedom to uplift above our nature to the higher nature, each and every one, men and women, everyone.
25. S. (49:52) It turns out that the idea of the correction that comes from the environment can only proceed through someone that feels the whole world is not corrected?
R. Of course that is what we are discovering that the world is corrected and we need to cause a correction for it.