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

Daily Lesson (Morning) June 19, 2024.

Part 2: Rabash. Letter 39.

Reader: We are reading from the articles of Rabash, Letter 39.

Reading Letter 39: (00:28) 

March 6, 1958, Manchester

Hello and all the best to my friend,

I received ten pounds for Purim, which is half a shekel. Ten gerah (a coin that was used in Israel in ancient times. Twenty shekels are one gerah) is a shekel, and half of it is ten. It is written in holy Zohar that half a shekel is called ten, which is a stone with which to weigh the contribution to the Lord (Ki Tissa, item 4).

We should interpret the words of the holy Zohar. Half a shekel means that when a person begins to weigh how to return to the Creator, when he knows that he has many iniquities and transgressions, the holy Zohar says about this that the person should know that he is always regarded as half and half. That is, he is half merits and half faults, and he can always choose to sentence to the side of merit. It is as our sages said, “One should always see oneself as half guilty and half not guilty. If he has performed one Mitzva (good deed/commandment), he is happy for he has sentenced himself and the entire world to the side of merit,” etc.

We should interpret the reason as our sages said, “He who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater than him.” It is so because if he is not given a greater evil inclination, he will not have the choice, since if the good is more than the bad then he does not have choice, as choosing is precisely when both are equal, and the person decides.

By that you will understand what our sages said, “In the future (end of correction), the Creator brings the evil inclination and slaughters it before the righteous and before the wicked. To the righteous, it seems like a high mountain. To the wicked, it seems like a hairsbreadth.” We should understand who is right, meaning what is the measure of the evil inclination.

However, as I have explained, the wicked have few merits, so their evil inclination is not so big, but only as a hairsbreadth. This is so because in order for it to be half and half, when there is little good there must be little bad. But the righteous have many merits so their evil inclination must be big, as well. Therefore, in the righteous, the evil inclination is a high mountain.

By that you will understand people’s questions about the verse, “Come unto Pharaoh for I have hardened his heart.” Does it mean that the Creator denied him the choice by hardening his heart? According to what I have explained, it is the opposite. By the Creator hardening his heart he can make a choice once more, for when Pharaoh said, “The Lord is the righteous, and I and my people are the wicked,” it means that he has already sentenced to the side of merit, and he is entirely good and has nothing more to do. For this reason, in accord with his good, the Creator had to increase the evil inclination, as our sages said, “Anyone who is greater than his friend, his inclination is greater than him.” Therefore, when Creator hardened his heart, he could make a choice once more.

May the Lord grant us two portions—healing and salvation.

From your friend who wishes you and your family all the best,

Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag

M. Laitman: Questions? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:05) How to make a state, like propaganda, we read about in the previous article. How to make propaganda between us, that when the evil inclination awakens in a person, that it's advancement. That it's the Creator inviting them to feel that they can't determine to here or to there. What propaganda can we do between us and the Ten in order to increase the advancement through recognition of evil? To respect it, maybe, can we say such a thing?

M. Laitman: To respect it, you have to increase the evil but there's a difference whether you see the evil is great or you increase it. We don't need to increase the evil but the evil that's in us, that it'll seem unbearable, that we can't stand it. That's something else, I guess.

Student: Maybe the direction is that recognition of evil causes us to want to get rid of the evil, that the Creator will help us in that. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, recognition of evil is a good thing, but its purpose is to increase the good inclination, not the evil, itself.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Until you can't stand it.

M. Laitman: Yes. Well, if you don't want to, you don't have to.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:04) I just want to continue what the friend started because I know phenomena that a person who grabs his evil inclination. He says he doesn't have a place here, and he runs away from the campaign, he just escapes. So, the question is how we can take friends that are in such states and give them this law, everything but leave. That all scrutinies and all the continuation can only happen here, and not on the outside? Even if a person feels that he is going to harm, and he's evil, and he has no place.

M. Laitman: I think we're constantly learning that this is the place for the wicked and we're revealing the evil. And we just have to grab it, and in the hands, and the legs, and the tail, and whatever you can. I don't think that there are people here that if they see the evil, they'll run away, no, wrong. 

Student: I, also, don't see how there are so many wicked, here, before us, that's also not so good.

M. Laitman: The society is not meant to reveal to us the wicked. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:46) When he says that he reveals greater evil every time. That means that he sees cruelty in himself that weren't there before? Or is it the same thing but his attitude towards his negative side changes? 

M. Laitman: He discovers what was there, of course.

Student: I don't understand.

M. Laitman: He discovers what was there before. 

Student: He discovered what was there before, so there's nothing new here. It's just his attitude changes.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:25) According to what he describes, the Creator always makes sure that the side of merit and the other side will always be equal. So, why does it say that he should always see himself half and half. If the Creator is in charge of that, so what should a person make efforts with? 

M. Laitman: No, it's not the Creator that cares for that. A person needs to care for that.

Student: He explains that the righteous have more merit, so the Creator gives them more iniquities.

M. Laitman: No, no, when a person begins to measure how to return to the Creator when he knows that he now has many transgressions and crimes. For this, the Holy Zohar comes and says that a person should know that he is always regarded as half and half.

Student: So, when a person feels that he's full of evil, so you're reminded that you can correct. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:45) I understand that choice is given to us because there's no coercion in spirituality, no coercion in love, and we need to choose to bestowal. We, also, hear that what the Creator wants us to choose, and you choose life, what His desires. Sometimes, a person feels he's in the point of choice and he's so ashamed that he's about to exploit this freedom for the bad, what the Creator gave him, according to his feeling and his opinion. That everything was made of love, and he now is going to choose incorrectly, not according to the Creator's desire. And from this shame, he supposedly chooses what's desired in the eyes of the Creator. The question is, is this true choice? To me, it seems no, that's why I'm asking you. Is that true choice that because of shame a person chooses that? 

M. Laitman: But he chooses, the shame pushes him. 

Student: Yes, so is that called choice? 

M. Laitman: What do we need for it to become a choice?

Student: That it doesn't depend, that he doesn't feel suffering. 

M. Laitman: What, for him to rise above all that's taking place? 

Student: Beyond his feeling.

M. Laitman: So, how will he choose? 

Student: That’s a paradox, that’s the question.

M. Laitman: It’s not a paradox, there’s no choice in it. We are creatures of feeling and intellect and these things. And with all those conditions, we need to choose between the good and bad.

Student: So, we can't really disconnect from this feeling, right?

M. Laitman: No. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:54) Why is a person's awareness to correct his soul, strengthen the light that reforms? 

M. Laitman: Because the soul is connected to the light. 

Question (Women HEB 1): (14:14) What does it mean that for the righteous the evil inclination seems like a high mountain and to the wicked a thin thread? 

M. Laitman: What is this talk about, for the righteous the evil inclination seems like a high mountain. Meaning, that they don't have the forces for that, to rise above it. And for the wicked, they say, eh, what's this, eh, we'll just jump through the, this hair's breath. Eh, it's no breath, no, it's really like, as if it's like on the land. So, that's the difference. But in truth, the difference between a hair’s breadth and a tall mountain is, is the whole mountain. That there is between this and that.

Question (Women Moscow 8): (15:05) Is there a clear sign to discern between good and bad? Is that the sign that there's a high mountain or a hair? 

M. Laitman: If they look at it, correctly, then certainly, that's how it is. 

Question (Women HEB 1 and Women PT 23 and Women PT 6): (15:32) I heard you saying that society shouldn't reveal the wicked, what did you mean? 

M. Laitman: A person needs to do that, not the society. The society just gives him light that reforms, and passes to him discernments, different discernments. But he takes them and arranges them towards his individual state.

Question (Kyiv 7): (16:05) Why is choice always through the environment? 

M. Laitman: We have nothing to establish ourselves before, only towards the environment. It's that same conditions, details that we exist upon.

Question (Women Internet): (16:35) What's the right way to connect in the Ten? 

M. Laitman: To receive with an open heart, everyone, and then you'll be able to make the right discernments.

Student: What does it mean with an open heart?

M. Laitman: Let everyone enter your heart and then when they are in your heart, standing in your heart, then you will ask the Creator for the discernments that are necessary.

Student: Can a person let people into his heart without help from above? 

M. Laitman: No, with that. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:24) Can I ask about the prayer we have after the lesson? I see that the prayer, according to what the Kabbalists from the Great Assembly organized. It brings you to a state of subjugation towards the upper force. Is that something that should awaken as a result?

M. Laitman: Yes, that's a good result, a correct result and a nice one.

Student: What is, how do you accept the control of the upper force upon us? 

M. Laitman: That the upper force is the upper force. And it is always, has done, does, and will do all the actions. And what we want to think, for it to be like this or like that, it has no influence on Him. Rather, what He needs to do, He will do upon us.

Student: We learn for years, thanks to Baal HaSulam, Rabash, and you, that the Creator isn't an image, God forbid, it's a quality of bestowal and love. So, what does it mean to lower your head towards the quality of bestowal and love?

M. Laitman: That image that I want to depict before me as the Creator, I want to incorporate from that. I want to bestow to him, I want to open my heart and my mind for Him to fill, as much as possible, all those rooms. And that's the actual prayer, I want to be filled by the Creator. 

Student: We need to try and recognize this entrance into the upper force, and somehow connect it to the attitude to the Ten, that there is where we enter?

M. Laitman: We are in incorporated by the Ten, and we want this incorporation to be filled by the Creator 

Student: So, in that direction, we can really enter the text. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:25) Can we say that a good result from an action like we're doing, now. That it's to feel that we must add the intention into it because the actions themselves mean nothing without going into an inner effort?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:55) Does a person choose, or does he let the Creator choose?

M. Laitman: It is how he addresses, whether either he chose and wants the Creator to accompany him. Or he's asking the Creator to choose and then he will accompany him. It depends on the place he's in. 

Student: Do you have advice how to let the Creator choose?

M. Laitman: With words, try to address Him, in such a way.

Student: To ask Him to choose? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:44) To continue, so, the only choice a person has is to turn to the Creator, he doesn't have any choice about that. Because there's always a struggle between reception and bestowal. That's the essence of the choice, to turn to the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Yes, that's it. If so, then you're ready for the prayer? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:20) Prayer to the Creator. Is that to say that the Creator is the one who determines and not me? 

M. Laitman: Yes. so, you're ready? Let's go. 

Announcements: (22:44)