Morning Lesson August 29, 2023

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.

Part 1:

Rabash. Article No. 29, (1987). What Is “According to the Sorrow, So Is the Reward”?

Reading Article. (00:45) “Our sages wrote..”

1. R. (32:57) Meaning the reward that we expect is to have the opportunity to bestow upon the Creator just like He bestows upon us. That we will receive from Him all the goodness that He wants to give us in order to arrange to give Him pleasure, to give Him contentment. So it has to be accompanied with a Tzimtzum, a restriction to receive and then with the returning light, that we want to bestow upon the Creator just like he wants to bestow upon us and then we reach with Him, equivalence of form and we understand in what state He's in, we feel Him and He feels us. Last one or two paragraphs, how is it organized there? Read it again.

2. S. (35:31) How do I check that I really have a desire to bestow?

R. Who can give him an answer? Well, there is none, except for you.

S. He writes here in the article, it's upon a person to do this introspection. What causes him to not have the desire to bestow?

R. Yes.

S. Later on in the article, there are also things that you said after the lesson, that this is what we need to hope for, this is what we need, to want the desire to bestow. If I want, I don't know, I know to scrutinize it inside of me. If I want anything else, I need to check if I have it or not, if I need it or want it, and also know how to explain it?

R. You need to check it with the Creator.

S. How?

R. Because you want to give Him contentment.

S. The whole scrutiny that I'm doing.

R. All the scrutinies?

S. All the attempts?

R. In your will to receive.

S. And it seems to me, yes, I have something to define, as something that I want the desire to bestow and suddenly after a few minutes, moments, years, I discovered that I'm in the same state. I'm in the same desire to receive?

R. So if that's the case you didn't correctly define what is the will to bestow.

S. How can I define something I have no grasp or concept of?

R. Because the will to bestow is considered that you enjoy and in my pleasure I give contentment to the Creator.

S. But when I feel what I'm enjoying, it's from my will to receive?

R. I'd say.

S. I don't have something else. That’s all I have and then I'm looking for how this will be inverted and He will have the desire and not for my pleasure but for His pleasure?

R. Like a baby that wants to give pleasure to his mother.

S. Still, I look at the baby as a father?

R. No, no. You're looking as a baby.

S. But you, too, this baby. I was also that once. When I smiled she wanted me to smile. I smiled, she wanted me to eat, I ate.

R. Yes.

S. If I didn't eat, she beat me up.

R. Okay, well that's your mother.

S. So, again: how do I examine something that I have no idea about?

R. What are you lacking?

S. The list is long.

R. That's not true. Well, it shouldn't be a long list or any confusion. It should be very simple. I want to enjoy things in which I give pleasure to the Creator.

S. Well, for the time being, I will adhere to the friends so that they can give me an example?

R. Yes, that's your salvation.

3. S. (39:04) Here in the article, it's written, it's like it's describing a person that is constantly overcoming and working without reward, and he has ascents and descents and seemingly, according to the sorrow, there's no reward. So, upon which fuel does he work? I didn't understand.

R. He sees his life wasted if he doesn't give contentment to the Creator.

S. But he doesn't know how to bestow to the Creator, he can't?

R. He doesn't know he can't or he doesn't have any interest here, any thought.

S. He only has the complaints of the spies.

R. Right, okay. We will scrutinize this.

4. S. (40:10) We see that the Creator here gave us two campaigns. He built two systems, two unique systems – one for Kedusha and one for Tuma’a, one for purity and one for impurity. And, the more we aim to truly bring Him contentment, He gives us more of the force of overcoming, which is actually our reward. And, as much as we advance more, we feel we want even more of His help to overcome even more. That's actually the, ‘I have seen an opposite world,’ where this is my true reward actually. For the more I advance, he writes here, he gave me two campaigns: one of Kedusha, one of Tuma’a and he imprinted the desire to bestow in the Kedusha and removed from him the desire to receive.

R. Yes.

S. Meaning the more effort, the more I do it for the friends and I’m asking for the friends, He lets me receive it for them, receive it in order to bestow?

R. I will say so.

S. Because he writes it's always working on this upon that.The more you overcome in order to bestow to that extent he overcomes in order to receive?

R. Okay.

5. S. (41:40) Some of those articles appear very, very long to me and could be probably summarized in two paragraphs and he opens and opens. What to do with it?

R. Continue. Continue learning and repeat it at home. Then slowly, slowly, you'll be connected to the author.

6. S. (42:24) He writes in the beginning, in the fifth paragraph or so, for the desire, the Creator can not   take place unless the lower one receives what he wants to give Him. How to scrutinize what the Creator wants to give?

R. You need to scrutinize. You need to scrutinize.

S. How do we perform this scrutiny?

R. We need to advance towards the Giver and then you'll see, you’ll understand what He wants to give, to come closer to Him.

S. How do we understand what He wants to give, what, through the ten?

R. Presumably so.

S. What does he talk to a person through the ten that  a person wants to bestow?

R. Yes.

S. What does He tell them?

R. Whatever you hear.

S. Does He tell each person something different?

R. Possibly.

7. S. (43:43) First of all, what is labor, toil, in Torah and Mitzvot?

R. Labor and toil in Torah and Mitzvot means that I invest effort –I invest effort against my desire. Just like in our world, I want to rest but I need to work.

S. So, what is in Torah and Mitzvot?

R. That I want to attain the strength of Torah and Mitzvot, the strength of bestowal, in order to attain it I invest in it in the connection among the friends, in reading the articles, in demanding from the group, from the study the light that reforms.

S. Are we supposed to receive from the study some impression – some idea of what has come closer to the Creator from the reading, from the common study?

R. Yes.

S. What is sorrow and sufferings in the work?

R. Sorrow and sufferings is when I feel that I can't do actions of bestowal, that I'm lacking forces of bestowal, of love and from that I have sorrow and pain.

S. What does it mean from these sufferings we receive a reward?

R. That I accept the fact that I don't have the ability to bestow but I want to bestow, but I don't have the ability to do that. So according to that sorrow, I receive reward; according to the sorrow, the reward.

S. According to the desire that I don't have, I receive the desire to bestow?

R. Eventually, yes.

S. Do I receive the desire or also the ability?

R. The ability.

S. It’s written in the article that from sorrow and suffering, he needs to come to a state that he comes to a true deficiency. So, okay, sorrow and suffering brings him a deficiency, but what's the real, the true suffering that comes to him? In the work sometimes, there's a little bit of suffering and sorrow, but it disappears the moment that it appears?

R. Okay, but slowly, slowly. The more he feels sorrow and suffering from not receiving forces of bestowal, accordingly, he advances more and more in prayer, in request, in demand. 

S. How does the ten help to contain this suffering and sorrow in a way that we get more of the desire? In what way does the ten help a person in this?

R. The ten helps a person by giving him an example, by giving his prayer to the Creator because it comes to the Creator only through the ten, and he has to be, has to be in the society. I remember when I was studying and I asked Rabash, I can remember in one of the places in the forest on the way to the city, and I asked him, “What am I lacking?” So he said, “You are lacking a group.” I did not really feel it. I found excerpts here and there and they weren’t Rabash articles. So, what is the society? He says, “That is what you need.” I actually never needed a group. According to my personality, I am an individual. You can lock me up in some place and I can be there without coming out. That is how it is.

Then, I started organizing the group. I went to the Berg Institute and I brought forty guys. Rabash said to them, “Go, change clothes to the clothes of the ultra-Orthodox and come and study every day at 6:00 a.m, sorry, at 3:00 a.m and all with kippot with yamakas and grow beards.” We thought that it was going to be like that when I, myself, I thought, okay, they are going to leave right now. So much effort to pull them and not go back but no they did not. There were even those that were so distant from religion, they were doing drugs and all kinds of things. They started coming with the kippot and clothes not like you are here today and that is how and that is how it changed.

S. When he told you that you need a society, Rabash already had students, no?

R. Yes, there were, but I also studied with them. I sat with them on Saturdays and on high holidays. But, still, it was not friends. It was not a society.

S. What did you learn? What is the society that a person needs? It’s not like other such people?

R. No, it is not people that are similar to you. That is why it's called society. These are people that, together, they build through the connection between them a single goal; a system.

S. The students that came, did you see the desire in them?

R. No, they also did not know about it. But gradually, Rabash started writing these articles and we spoke about it a little bit in the lessons, and then they understood whatever they could. We spoke about it a little bit. The lessons were Pticha, Preface, maybe a Baal HaSulam article, or a study of TES.

S. We concentrate a lot on the matters of the society, and Rabash, was it a different pressure or a different time?

R. It was for a different time, for a different people.

8. S. (53:03) You said what is special in the society is that everyone is different. What is special here — that there's this connection? How does this special thing take place here? You said to the friend that the society does not need to be similar to me. Rather, they are all different, and above all, that there's something that we are building, something special above all of that?

R. We are building the connection between us through which everyone, who is in connection, is able to rise above this corporeal system, the egoistic one, and start feeling the upper system, the altruistic one. That is what we need to feel, and according to our efforts, to rise from the upper system to the lower one.

9. S. (54:16) Is working for the sake of the Creator. Does the person need to do that also against his will?

R. Of course. We were born to work for the Creator's sake.

S. I'm expecting the Creator to give me, with time, a true desire to bestow to Him, and I understand that in the group?

R. Why does He need to give you, why does He need to give you anything?

S. Because He brought me here.

R. He brought you here. Okay, so what?

S. To build for Him a Kli, to work for Him in the group, in a Kli, it is clear to me it is against my desire and it will be like that until the end of correction. That is okay, but the desire to adhere to Him – to have a feeling towards Him – I'm expecting Him to give me that?

R. No, don't expect that.

S. Okay, so my question is: Do I need to do that, too, against the desire?

R. You need to try and accept it from the environment, from the group, from the ten.

S. So, I do not need to be expecting that I will come and somehow.. that is work, constant work that you have to work on through the environment?

R. Yes.

S. And when he writes, “Each time he sees that he doesn’t want to work for the benefit of the Creator,” that’s how it is until the end of correction?

R. Where will the end of correction come from?

S. In the end, He will give us the true desire, a love for Him? That’s the final correction?

R. That is religion.

S. I want to know towards what feeling I need to come to towards the Creator Himself?

R. Everything is from the connection with the friends.

S. So, what is the result that I need to come to?

R. That you need to make an effort to truly direct yourself towards the Creator and to demand from Him to give you such a connection with the friends,that you will be as one ten, that you will feel that you are, ‘as one man with one heart.’ And from then, from that, towards Him, you always try to do that in front of Him, against Him, towards Him, doesn't matter what you call it. Then, that is how you feel that you are in contact with him.

10. S. (57:18) To continue with what the friend said, it turns out that in the work that the only connection that I somewhat managed to get towards the Creator is that I am sorry that I do not succeed to feel like I'm bringing Him contentment.

R. No, connection to the Creator could be from love of others to the love of the Creator. You see how you are all deviating, right?.

S. This is what I'm trying to grasp here, because in the work in the ten there is some kind of concern for the friends. We work together.

R. That is something external for you.

S. What we are working on now for the last month, two months, in the last period is to put the Creator into this game all the time.

R. Yes.

S. In order to bring Him contentment, to see that from within you're doing it’s not that it's nice to be with the friends but that you’re trying to do some work that is beyond that, and what in practice I see that is happening all the time is that the only place that I managed to feel the Creator is actually in the place that I do not succeed, I see it’s something opposite to that.

R. Try to feel the Creator in the connection between the friends, He is in the center of that connection.

S. You’re saying that already for years I'm not managing to understand what it is you are trying to say. What is it to feel the Creator is in the center of the connection with the friends.?

R. Write it in front of you and keep looking at it.

S. Write for me what?

R What I just said.

S. To see the Creator in the center of the connection with the friends.

R. Yes, what does it mean? Demand, you’ll see, you'll feel, you’ll discover it.

S. In the center of the connection with the friends, something will reveal there, where I will manage to feel HIm or?

R. Yes, you will feel Him, yes. According to your connection with the friends to that extent you will feel your connection to the Creator.

S. To work with the friends gives a lot of forces, you can feel that it gives great power. Without the work with the friends you really see that you cannot be here for ten minutes, you simply disappear from here. This Creator that we were talking about all of the time He's kind of not here.

R. He's not here that is why it's called Creator, Boreh, which means come and see.

S. What do I need to do so He will finally just come and just enter between the friends?

R. Enter the friends, get them all together, and together demand for the Creator. No matter how many you are, if you're six or ten, demand Him. 

S. Okay, we’ll try.

R. Great! How long have you been with us, twenty years? Twelve, that’s it? You're not even Bar Mitzvah.

11. S. (1:00:45)  He writes here about the arguments of the spies that come only after the toil that they start to work in order to bestow?

R. Yes, they didn't start in order to bestow then what is the claim that we are giving, giving, wanting to bestow upon the Creator, raising requests, it's nothing and after you do that then you come and complain.

S. If a person already came in order to bestow?

R. What bestowal did he reach?

S. It is written that they come to it, they started to work, they came to the land of Israel which is straight to the Creator, Yashar El, and only then the argument of the spice comes.

R. That does not mean anything.

S. Meaning that’s still that period of the preparation. There's some kind of experience here, some kind of a trick here that you see there’s friends here that there is no reason he should leave except for the fact that he says I have no taste in the work, I have nothing, like he writes there, it’s come, it’s come to reveal something.

R. You’re not listening to what is written, they’re still not listening to what’s written.

S. There’s simply no flavor in the work, there's no reward. I’m studying for decades and after I have…

R. After tens of years you hear that we are repeating again and again the same articles, why? Why? Tell me. There's a lot of material TES, Zohar, there’s a lot of writing. What is the problem? Why do we repeat the same articles?

S. I don't know, it is clear what we need to do. We need to connect, to pray, that is clear.

R. Well.

S. I'm asking about a person who says, I don't have fuel to work. I understand the friends are great, the Creator is great, everything is good. but I don't have fuel.

R. If he does not have motivation to work, it is he did not enter the work, he's treating the work like some worker and he sits down and does something. It is not that he is investing himself and wanting results from the work, he’s not in pain, that he expects this to happen every moment.

S. No, actually who have put forth a lot of toil?

R. I'm telling you what I see. They think otherwise, okay. 

S. The question is, in what way can we help?

R. To correctly hear what the teacher is saying. You don't understand this, I've been repeating it for what, 20 times?

S. Really? Look at a friend, 12 years he's connected

R. You can write resignation letters and go to any place he wants.

S. He heard just now the answer that we need to connect, what doesn’t he know that?

R. Maybe he heard but he didn’t hear what is in these words. He is not demanding, when did he reach out to the Creator with the prayer to connect with the friends. And if he did then sometimes like this like that but not enough because the Creator needs to respond it.

S. His appeal to the Creator who does it depend upon?

R. The person.

S. Well, that too a person hears but it's not that he’s not turning to Him because he doesn’t want to, he can't. It’s as a result of the work.

R. I don't need a guardian, I need the truth. Where am I still being lazy and not reaching out to the Creator to help me adhere to the friends, to build in it a place for revelation of the Creator. From day to day you are expecting something but this expectation is very weak. It's not a strong force.

12. S. (01:06:00) What can sustain a person on the way where that does not hear the articles. R. That doesn’t hear?

S. You're saying that we're sitting here and you’re not hearing the articles and what he’s saying here, he doesn’t care. What will hold me here if I don't hear?

R. I don't know. To read again and again with the friends, alone, I don't know. Search and search and search in the articles and pray, of course, the main thing here is the request, the main thing is a request that the Creator will help us

S. What to do with a friend that is fatigued from the path?

R. That is different work. This is already work with the friends, and then they connect and ask the Creator to help to save him to pull him.

S. You said now that day after day you were expecting something but that expectation is very weak, it's not a strong force. What intensifies that expectation?

R. A cry from the heart. A cry from the bottom of your heart. You need to cry out.

S. I see that he cried out and still, in his work he did not merit an answer.

R. He hasn't yet so more and more. The fact that things didn’t work out until now doesn't mean that he has everything and there is nothing else to do. Either he leaves or he continues.

S. At that point what can hold onto a person?

R. Society, society. What else do you want? The friend, society, teacher, Creator, you have nothing else. And still our state is good. There were years, hundreds of years, that many Kbbalists wanted to reach and to build and to develop and it did not work out for them, they were very distant. The Creator acts like He was locked towards their prayers, and today it is different, you do not feel it but today it is completely different.

13. S. (01:09:25) I wanted to ask how do you place the reward that you were demanding from work?

R. This comes according to the light that reforms. To the extent it works on a person he begins to feel that he now has a different claim, a different complaint, yes.

S. I'm trying to see how you enter a state where your sorrow is actually from you wanting to be even more in the work, that you want even more to bestow?

R. Think about it more, artificially, this is called from Lo Lishma, not for the Creator’s sake to the Creator’s sake,

S. Clear, otherwise I see that the sorrow is always for the will to receive all the time. I’m constantly in sorrow of why, what is happening with my desire, and in sorrow from what we truly need to be, not from bestowal.

R. We are constantly pushed off of this degree of this state that we're in, that we're not in the state of sorrow. You feel oh, it’s more comfortable it’s better, we can be here, we can sit here. but what we need is to be the top where it is very difficult to be.

S. I also heard you say now that we need to hear the teacher correctly and to also manage the articles, so how to develop that ability to truly hear?

R. Repeat it every now and then. You’ll certainly hear what you did not hear before.

S. Yes, but what is that hearing that gets absorbed, that gets received and protects you?

R. Against the desire. Our ear has a filter that enables only the same words that are pleasant can penetrate, pleasant for us, that is why after a few years we suddenly hear something new.

S. Clear, so how to specifically strengthen that ability against the desire?

R. Listen to it with embracing the friends. That each first of all will connect to the friends and try to be with them together and you will hug and will connect with them, you will connect, to the extent that he is included with them.

14. S. (1:13:10) I heard you saying in your answer to the friend that the desire to bestow is called that, I enjoy and in my pleasure I delight the host, the Creator?

R. Well, that is called to receive in order to bestow.

S. Yes, so that is why the Creator defines the desire to bestow.

R. Okay yes, the desire to bestow.

S. What is that bestow in order to bestow that we talked about also because that seems completely up in the air for us.

R. I want to bestow without receiving anything because my action itself influences the Creator.

S. So, the sorrow and the filling, where do they need to be? In the person or not in person?

R. In a person. In a person.

S. Because seemingly we need to do some kind of a disconnect and separation of different things, this is what is causing the connection. I'm supposed to be sorry towards the friends so that they do not have the ability to bestow, the prayer is supposed to be for them.

R. To the extent that you were connected to them you will begin to feel what you receive.

S. Seemingly my sorrow towards the friends is supposed to be greater than the sorrow that I feel for the emptiness of my empty vessel?

R. Yes.

S. So we do actually. 

15. S. (1:15:00) I'm asking for your advice. Rabash writes in his articles that all we need is just the vessels of bestowal.

R. Yes.

S. We talked between us that all we need is just connection. How to concentrate correctly and put all of it together?

R. What does it matter vessels of connection or vessels of bestowal. Connection isn’t attained in the vessels of bestowal?

S. I’m asking.

R. We can say it’s the same thing.

S  If we are asking for vessels of bestowal it's the same thing as asking for connection, and if we’re asking for connection it’s the same thing as asking for bestowal?

R. Well, let’s say so, yes.

16. S. (1:15:33)The article is about according to the sorrow so is the reward. Is there a way that we can be ahead, anticipating, expecting this state of sorrow and suffering so actually that we can skip it, the sorrow and suffering, and also by praying beforehand before the sorrow comes?

R.  We have to see. It is all under a question mark.

17. S. (01:16:46) The article is very important. How can a person obtain the power and desire to shift from the world of impurity to the world of holiness/Kedusha?

R. Only in a mutual effort with the friends. Pray together, study together, and in this way you reach it. Except for studies and prayer we have no other means.

18. S. (01:17:38) I want to thank you that through you Rabash started writing these articles; It is an asset to the whole world to be rewarded with such an infinite source of wisdom. Although we do not understand it, it’s affecting us very powerfully, so thank you very much to you for this. What to do when you experience fear, dread, when you discover this monster within you that wants to come out, to break out, even not in the ten but in your regular life?

R. That is our nature.

S. How do you overcome the fear so we can fight against this monster?

R. Nothing can help. Nothing will help except for the Creator. You have to wake Him up, to warm Him up, to push Him into that he will fight our ego, and then we will succeed. We, ourselves, will not be able to defeat.

S. But, you feel this dread, this fear, you want to hide this monster, to conceal it, but it wants to break out and it surprises you.

R. Everything is clear, all your fears are clear. What can you do? Just keep going. The path is long but you cannot deviate from it.

 

19. S. (01:20:51) What expectations should we have in the study or should we have no expectations at all?

R. We have to study and activate everything with the expectation that we will have the forces to rise above the desires of this world, the egoistic ones, and enter an area where where altruistic forces exist and we are hoping that it will happen through our work, a unique and united work, the congress let's say.

S. What should we do if we consciously ignore each other's existence and we lack the sensitivity in the friendship?

R. It will come, it will come gradually on the way to Gmar Tikkun, the end of correction. All the things that we need for our work will awaken in us and connect

20. S. (01:22:19) To better understand the connection between the reward and sorrow, I would like to ask with an example. Let's say I have ten pieces of wood and I need to carry them home. Because I don't know I have a lot of physical strength it’s hard for me to carry the wood.. If someone else comes who is stronger, he takes them, picks them up more easily. So the work of both people is the same work but for one of them it is harder. The person for whom it is harder to get a bigger reward?

R. Each one gets the reward according to the salvation of the soul. As much as the soul gets corrected and enters the world of truth.

21. S. (01:23:31) It is written at the end of the article, as He is merciful so are you merciful. Can you explain what it means “as He is merciful so you are merciful”?

R. That we through the corrections reach the qualities of the Creator. That is it.

22. S. (01:24:05) You said earlier today that we have to listen to the lesson as we dissolve in the friends, embrace with them, connection with them. How to do it correctly so we can reallybe in the lesson correctly?

R. Try and connect along with everyone and lower your ego, as low as you can, and then check what do you feel by that. Maybe it could be that you will start feeling the Creator in such a state.

S. What does it mean to lower your ego? If I want to dissolve and connect with the friends, what does it mean to lower the ego?

R. Work with it less, annul it.

S. You mean that only the friends will remain and no thoughts of myself?

R. Yes, that is for sure.

23. S. (01:25:46) In page five paragraph one Rabash writes, and concerning feeling, it is impossible to feel any lack if one does not know what he is losing by not having the Kli called desire to bestow. I do not know the taste of that vessel, the vessel of not being able to bestow, so how do I begin the soul and develop the soul so that the sorrow becomes the vessel? Because in the end Rabash says the sorrow…

R. Try and be close to your friends as much as possible, help them, support them, as much as need, whatever they need. Try and be in that. Always stop yourself when you feel like being proud, above them, and then in that way you will start feeling in which way you can come closer to them and that way you can build up a place with them where the Creator can be revealed.

24. S. (01:27:29) The text is talking about calculating the abundance to see what percentage we can receive in order to bestow back to the Creator, and when eating we can calculate the size of the plate in relation to the size of my stomach, and I can calculate how much I can eat and how much I can discard. In relation to what am I calculating how much I can receive in relation to the Creator? How can we calculate, thank you.

R. You cannot give or receive anything from the Creator only through the friends. That is why, get closer to them and with them build the system, a closed system, that through it you will know what you are bestowing what you are receiving. There is no other choice or other way to work. That is called from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.

25. S. (01:28:52) What is the connection between sorrow and the intention?

R. Sorrow is a feeling, a lack, and intention is work in aiming himself towards something. It’s different systems.