https://kabbalahmedia.info/en/lessons/cu/Jbhl4fNS
The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it
Daily Lesson (Afternoon) November 2, 2024
Part 1: Lesson on the topic of “The Conditions for Studying with Friends”
Reader: Hello friends. Our lesson today is on the topic” The Conditions for Studying with Friends”. We will read selected excerpts. The study materials can be found in Sviva Tova and in the Arvut system. You can also send your questions live through those websites. Anyone asking a question in the study hall is asked to stand up, hold the mic close to his mouth and speak loudly and clearly to me.
Opening Comments Petah Tikva Center: (00:30) Dear Rav, We wanted to update you on why we chose this topic. The reason we chose The Conditions for Studying with Friends is because throughout some of the afternoon lessons, friends are instructing the lessons. Also, in the last part of the lesson there's a time where we, the friends, are studying together and we have more opportunities like that from day to day. And we wanted to open it up and scrutinize how we study together. We also received a lot of questions on the topic, and we thought it would be correct to bring the sources and see what they write about it and let the friends ask on this topic.
Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Taanit, 7a
Reading Excerpt # 1: (01:23) I learned much from my teachers, from my friends - more than my teachers, and the most - from my students.
Re-reading Excerpt # 1. (01:36) Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Taanit, 7a
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (02:04) We discussed it in the Ten earlier and we asked ourselves, what is there to learn more from someone who's not Rav? Because Rav has much more to give us than students and friends. So, what can we learn from everyone else?
M. Laitman: If we think about learning as having to receive amounts of knowledge, intellect, information, then it may not be quite so right. But if we look at the learning as each one diminishing himself before his friend and accordingly, he can receive through him, then he's receiving from the Creator, through the friend, everything that he needs to receive in order to correct himself. Therefore, subjugation before the friends, internal and real, is far more important than any other subjugation.
Student: Should each one have a student to receive this extra?
M. Laitman: Not a student that he teaches, no. I heard that there are those who interpret it this way, but you're kind of escaping from the real meaning.
Student: So, what's the real interpretation of a student?
M. Laitman: That the teacher can learn from the students more than from anything, from friends, from students, a person can learn more than from anyone because it all depends on the extent to which he submits himself.
Student: But who is considered a student if it's not someone I practically teach? Who is that student?
M. Laitman: Even a single word, a single sentence, someone who hears from his friend and it's also written, then it creates a connection between them of a rav and a student.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (05:06) What does it mean that a person subjugates himself? You said that everything depends on the extent the person subjugates himself, submits himself, and then he can receive from the students.
M. Laitman: Yes, the extent to which he lowers himself compared to the friend.
Student: Lowers?
M. Laitman: Yes, lowers in appreciation.
Student: The more he sees the friend as great?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Then he can learn from them?
M. Laitman: According to this, he receives from them what is in them.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (05:53) There are three things, my teachers, my friends, and my students. What is my teachers?
M. Laitman: My teachers, in the sense that they are many, they are important. My teachers, my rabbis.
Student: The Kabbalists we're learning from you, Rabash? That's the meaning of my teachers?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So, my teachers can also be my friends and my students?
M. Laitman: Usually, the environment is divided in such a way that it's my teachers, my friends, and my students.
Student: So, what's the difference between each and every one?
M. Laitman: The extent to which I appreciate them.
Student: My teachers is the highest? No, the other way around, I learn more from my students.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: I thought that maybe all these degrees are inside of a person. One is my teacher, one is my friend, one is my student. One is the one who teaches, one is the smallest one, one is the friend, the greatest.
M. Laitman: No, the calculation is, as we said, that from all the people that he is with, say, in the society, he learns with them, discusses the material with them. You can divide them into these three kinds—teachers, friends, and students.
Student: Where is that person who studies with those friends and teachers and students, in the place where he needs to add? We learned that once he needs to be the smallest, once the greatest. Where does that fit?
M. Laitman: Between them. Sometimes he is great compared to them, sometimes small, sometimes equal.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:24) So, it turns out that if I teach, I learn the most. How is it that I manage to pass something to the friends that I learn the most?
M. Laitman: It could be.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (08:57) First, I have a question from the Ten. What is the inner work where I see the friend is great or is Rav? If it's not in the intellect, where is it? What is this inner work where I see the friend as Rav, or a teacher? If it's not in the intellect, then where is it? Where do I make the friend a rav, a teacher, if not in my mind?
M. Laitman: Yes, in the mind.
Student: In the mind because in the excerpt it says not in the mind? Maybe we didn't understand.
M. Laitman: What is written? I learned much from my teachers, from my friends - more than my teachers, and the most - from my students.
Student: And then, there's the part that says if I want to make the friend great in my mind, I can't. And that's why it's not the work of the mind.
Moderator: We haven't read this excerpt. We read only the first excerpt.
Student: Another question. When I subjugate myself, is that an act of bestowal?
M. Laitman: You subjugate yourself, and that's it.
Student: Is this called an act of bestowal?
M. Laitman: No. Neither according to the intention, nor according to the act.
Student: When I submit myself before the friend, I understand that what I receive, I don't receive it from the friend, but I'm allowed to receive from the Creator through the subjugation before the friend. Is that not bestowal?
M. Laitman: No.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (11:07) When we're in the lesson with Rav, we're all in this singular movement. You're leading us, and you're working with us. How do you see the study, when Rav is not here, but only the friends are here? There's an option where we take some source material, we read it together, and then we have workshops. And during the workshops, we hear every friend, each and every friend is a Rav, as a teacher, as a great one, and then we reach something common, mutual. And there are other ways where, as we tried last week, when we ask questions. What do you feel is best for us? How do we need to study when we study among the friends?
M. Laitman: I think that, in the usual way, we'll soon read all the excerpts. We need to try to diminish ourselves before the friends, in order to receive from them, as from a teacher, as from a friend, in every possible way and opportunity. That's it.
Student: When I'm in the lesson with Rav, I feel that I'm moving toward wholeness. I complete what's happening here, and I participate. And when we are trying to study without Rav, I feel that I'm breaking apart. I'm not able to catch a certain direction, and another group changes the direction. What do I hold on to, in order to draw, or rather to raise the group toward this connection?
M. Laitman: There are three degrees here that a person sees before him. One is my teachers. The second is my friends, and the third is my students. So, a person who learns, in the end, has to position himself with respect to the giver of the lesson, with respect to the friend with whom he's studying, so it'll be clear to him how he relates to the person he learns with, or from, or he teaches, on what degree he is, in what way he comes in contact with him. That connection determines a lot, because through it, I can receive from the Creator. I can receive internal teaching from the Creator.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:47) What does it mean to annul himself toward the students?
M. Laitman: That it is like sitting next to a person who is wiser, not in the intellect, but wiser in feelings, in his vessels, and you want to learn from him, his internality.
Student: But at the same time, I need to teach him and be greater than him in order to give him something. So, how do we do it together?
M. Laitman: You have to try to connect with him in order to receive from him as he is learning.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (16:57) On our path, we are educated by the reforming light. In the study, do we only relate to the lessons, or also when we study text together, or in any action that it takes together in the society together?
M. Laitman: Not in any common action, but when you study the sources, it falls into the category of learning.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (17:34) How should a friend in the Ten relate to a friend who is teaching?
M. Laitman: At the time when he is teaching, he becomes like the rav.
Student: And afterwards?
M. Laitman: And then later, it goes back to the usual.
Student: It equals completely in the Ten?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How, on the one hand, do we make the friend as a Rav, and on the other hand, we protect him from the eruption of his ego?
M. Laitman: You make a friend into a Rav when you try to see him as such and to relate to him this way. That's it. This is called seeing a friend as the rav, as the teacher.
Student: How do we protect him from the eruption of the ego?
M. Laitman: I don't understand.
Student: Maybe someone else can ask about it.
M. Laitman: Can someone add?
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (19:16) When friends teach us, and we see them as great, I'm trying to interpret the last friend’s question. How will it not feed their pride and just grow their ego?
M. Laitman: There's nothing you can do. There's nothing that can be done. It happens. Whether we want it to or not, it changes the relationships between us, our perspective, our outlook on reality, on the society. It changes.
Student: Our friends who are coming to give us a lesson, how should they prepare themselves to give us a lesson? How should they see themselves relative to us?
M. Laitman: That's a problem. We allow for such things to happen, but not in their first or even the second year, because then a person immediately wants to jump up the ladder. For this reason, we teach and learn and sit together and want to, nevertheless, to correct our relationships equally.
Student: When a friend comes here to give a lesson, how should he position himself? Should he show himself like the one who's serving everyone, in service to everyone, so the light will pass through him and do its work? He needs to show himself as great, but inside…
M. Laitman: If he is leading the lesson, then everyone, including himself, of course, must accept him currently as the teacher, and that the upper force, in some sense, is operating through him now.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (22:03) When we come to Rav, I remember about twenty something years ago, the moment you opened your mouth, I felt, this is my teacher. There's a feeling of someone who is greater than you, and he fills the space with a certain intensity, a certain power that I couldn't feel anywhere else. How can we advance toward this intensity when the friends are teaching us? Because it's a totally different work, a different kind of work.
M. Laitman: We have to try to elevate the friend, if he's teaching, to extol him to the level of a teacher.
Student: How do we do it? How do we raise the friends from the bottom of the heart?
M. Laitman: There has to be inner conviction in a person, inner persuasion in a person. If he hears the words of Torah from a friend of his, he should immediately position himself in such a way that he is learning from a great one.
Student: When we ask Rav, when we ask you about our spiritual development, you somehow manage to answer us individually and collectively, meaning, if I have a question on how to advance, I know that Rav is going to give me an answer. Can the friends also aim us this way regarding how to advance?
M. Laitman: I don't know, but if someone from the friends speaks in this style, in this way, then we should try to listen.
Student: I'm talking about a lesson that the friends are leading. Can you ask the friends specifically about how to advance? Or we should engage more in scrutinies and questions around.
M. Laitman: More scrutiny and the connection between us.
Student: How do we receive answers about the advancement between us?
M. Laitman: This is with the teacher that we chose.
Student: Is holiness, sanctity, passing through the friends who are teaching us? Are we taught the fact that the Creator is speaking through their mouths?
M. Laitman: Holiness doesn't really pass through the teachers. It passes according to how a person relates to it.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (25:05) It says here that if a person values the other, the other obligates him to exert, and it cancels the opinion and the action of the other. Why is the ego canceling the other? When I value my friends, then my ego immediately cancels the importance of the friends. Why does it do it?
M. Laitman: It's to give you more work.
Student: Another question. How do we proceed with our actions to the ego's tendency to cancel the importance of friends in our eyes?
M. Laitman: We need to cancel our egos with respect to the friend in order to appreciate him more than ourselves. This is our work.
Student: So, our work is each time to increase the investment in one another, so this will decide on the line?
M. Laitman: Toward each of the friends, I have to work in such a way that I elevate him. I exalt him more than myself.
Student: This is our mutual work before the Creator? He's hardening the ego, and we strengthen the importance of the friends.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (28:06) We are accustomed to working with you where there's a root and there are branches. We assemble the pieces of the connection with you, and in the lessons with friends, and also in workshops, how do we take that intensity of the connection with you, and when each and every friend speaks, we create that same connection, through him with Rav, and also in the lessons. What can help us maintain the wiring, meaning to be flexible enough to be in connection with you through the friends, and in connection with the Creator through the friends?
M. Laitman It is a problem to be in connection with the friends and with the Creator, in both of them, through the friends. For this, I need to diminish myself more than everyone. Otherwise, there will not be a connection.
Student: Are the friends dependent on my annulment, and on the correct connection? Only when I correctly connect to the friends, if I correctly connect to one who is teaching, just the way we are accustomed to working with Rav, only then the connection can pass between us, only then can we have a lesson where Rav is present?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes. That's true.
Student: I can annul myself because I'm small. When you're small, of course you see the friends, it's great, it's easy. But if I studied here thirty something years, and I have roles, and I would be accustomed to seeing myself as great, small before Rav, but equal in the Ten, it would have been more difficult. So how do we help one another? The intensity of each friend and connected between us, so we can give contentment, because in the connection between us, we'll even raise Rav, raise the Creator. On the one hand, connection between the friends, on the other hand, total annulments, everything will connect and be greater than the sum total of everything.
M. Laitman: This is done by exercises. There's nothing you can do. You have to exercise this every day, where I go through all the friends in my perception, in my appreciation, I perceive them as great, and that they connect me to the Creator.
Student: Can I describe an exercise? A friend, he's opening his mouth, I hear what he's saying, and I'm full of resistance. That's how I feel. What do I do in that moment, not to harm the general Kli, not to harm the friends, because it's a great responsibility in every friend. What do you do? Pray at that moment?
M. Laitman: Yes. If you can't exalt that friend who is now in your perception as great, and he is in the connection between you and the Creator, then that's not a good situation. Therefore, you want to close your eyes, not get into the connection.
Student: Close your eyes and not enter the connection?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Can I also ask to overcome and use this resistance to give power to the friends?
M. Laitman: If you can, by all means, absolutely.
Student: And if we help one another, if we ask one another, will that help us at that moment to open those pipelines, those conduits?
M. Laitman: No, you won't be able to do that. No.
Student: So, what can we do?
M. Laitman: So, that's what I'm saying, that we need to give each one the ability to bestow, and in this way, see if we can come closer and connect.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (34:01) Who is a friend? Let me put it this way, anyone listed in my Ten makes him automatically a friend?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Even if he's not incorporated in the activity of the Ten or selectively?
M. Laitman: This is something you already need to check and see. For each one, what degree in the connection between you is he receiving?
Student: Is it something the Ten decides on, or I decide on it?
M. Laitman: The Ten.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (34:49) It says that I learn most from my students. It turns out that there's an order where I annul myself a little bit more than I learn from Rav. If I annul myself even more, I learn from friends, and if I subjugate myself even more, it's like learning from students. So, the question is for the friends who are teaching. It turns out it's not only our work to turn ourselves into their students, but also their work to be like Rav?
M. Laitman: Of course.
Student: And how to be Rav for the friends?
M. Laitman: No. It's desirable that each one will be as a friend, in general. On the other hand, they should determine who I am for them.
Student: It doesn't depend on a person who subjugates himself and turns us to his students?
M. Laitman: It does depend on that.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (36:23) Is this teacher, friend, student about my relation to the one in front of me? Meaning, if I want to receive from him, he is my teacher. If I'm equal to him, he's my friend. And if I want to bestow to him, he's my student? In other words, if I want to give to everyone and see them as great, so they're all my students and I receive from them the most, so to speak?
M. Laitman: Let's say.
Student: Maybe I'm wrong, but in my feeling, we see that the students, the friends who teach us, they always teach in couples, in pairs. The connection between them, when they come very connected to the lesson, besides us annulling ourselves before them, the connection between them will pass more light during the lesson?
M. Laitman: Yes. If there's a good connection, good contact between them, then certainly through this connection, they can pass on a lot more.
Student: Should that be their main preparation when they come to give a lesson?
M. Laitman: I wouldn't say that it's central to preparation so much, but let's say yes. Let's say yes. Very important.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (38:21) Should both the friend who teaches and the friend who is learning subjugate themselves in order to create an internal spiritual connection between them? And can you explain how this works, how the Creator works through the friend who teaches how he dresses in the two of them? The friend who teaches and the friend who is learning.
M. Laitman: There's a Creator and there are two friends. Is this what you're trying to explain to us?
Student: Yes. One teaches and the other learns from him. So, if you can explain the way between them, how it works, how the light works, how he dresses between them.
M. Laitman: The light is, first of all, in the one who is closest to the Creator, and then it continues to descend and clothe in those who are further from the Creator.
Student: The friend who teaches is closer to the Creator at that time.
M. Laitman: The friend who teaches is clearly closer to the Creator.
Student: So, through him everyone receives from the Creator.
M. Laitman: Let's say.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (40:04) I wanted to ask what it means to learn, because I feel like everything I thought I was learning, I have to throw away. Now there's a new form. So, what does it mean to learn?
M. Laitman: To learn means to acquire the correct attitude, correct approach to the forces that fill this reality.
Student: Should I see my friends in the Ten as Rav, as teachers that I am giving to them all the time or only when someone teaches me in practice? I always thought that I didn't need to see my friends, not in the way that I see you, but now there's a difference between the friends who teach me. Should it be the same approach, same relation to them? To bestow upon them?
M. Laitman: Yes. You need to try and see all of you, all of you women, everyone in the group as being in a higher degree than you.
Student: And also, those who teach me, and to the same extent those who are giving the lesson?
M. Laitman: That's not important.
Student: There's no difference?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (42:40) Why is there this matter that sometimes a person is great toward the Ten and sometimes he's small? What does it give?
M. Laitman: It gives him relative to certain topics, certain discernments that he sees himself in this way.
Student: Is that a matter of degree that in the beginning of the degree a person is small and at the end of the degree he can be great?
M. Laitman: We think about everything in terms of degrees. Those are states, for the time being, personal states
Student: And what should we aspire for to be in the place of the small one which just adheres, or in a place where you can give and you can advance them?
M. Laitman: I need to aspire to be in the same place where I will give contentment to the Creator.
Student: So, according to the conditions a person receives, he works for the Creator.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:56) Just to reinforce what we heard from Rav before, in the chapters of the fathers it says this. He learns from his friend one chapter or one law or one verse or one word or even one letter. It is all the more so that he should treat him with respect.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (42:40) Concerning the phase where we are in, the friends teach couples. This is also a very important phase in history. After the ruin of the temple there were pairs of kabbalists who led the people. Is there a difference between learning from a pair or learning from one teacher, and if there is a difference what is the difference?
M. Laitman: I can't explain this to you because we don't understand how they used to learn, how they used to teach. That's a problem.
Student: And today when we are in a lesson and there are two friends who are sitting, they're like one essence or the like. How do we perceive the learning from them? I'm talking about something more internal beyond two people sitting in front of us.
M. Laitman: This speaks of two people where although each one feels himself and his attitude to his place throughout the entire system, together with that they are connected to one another and they complete and complement one another, and that's what's important for them.
Student: In other words, in order to learn from them, we receive the learning through their complementation?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (46:31) During the day we take Rav’s words in the morning lesson and we engage in it. Throughout the day we workshop, we send excerpts, exercises. When friends give a lesson, what do we do during the day, what do we engage in?
M. Laitman: The way you decided regarding my lesson, you should decide regarding their lesson.
Student: Should we relate to the words of the friends as to Rav’s words, and what the friends tell us during the day, or maybe sources?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes. You can receive from all of my students the path and the degree.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (47:42) As a group, through the closeness and importance between us can we build a connection where we will feel you also when you're not physically with us?
M. Laitman: That's on the condition that you are learning the words of Rabash and Baal HaSulam and you wish to advance.
Student: The importance towards you has grown within us over ten, fifteen years. Some people have been studying for thirty years. With respect to the friends who are going to continue this channel, there’s great fear that we will have great importance between us to receive from them the light. How do we build it?
M. Laitman: I think that you, especially women—for men it's a little different—you can receive from them all the relationships, all the lessons, all the attitudes that they give.
Student: I have this constant concern about keeping throwing wood into this fire, so this fire would grow. What are these woods? How can we help the friends add more and more wood to the fire of importance and closeness between us?
M. Laitman: It will come.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (49:40) How is it expressed that in the Ten, in the connection between us, we accustom each other?
M. Laitman: The expression is all the rest of the friends, with the exception of these two, that one raises the other. All the rest receive a very clearly defined impression from it.
Student: Should there be a boundary to extolling the friend? Should there be a certain measure?
M. Laitman: Yes, not more than the person who's giving the lesson.
Student: I heard Rav say that we sit together, but we want to correct our relationships equally. What does it mean and how do we do it in the Ten?
M. Laitman: Each one hears everyone, and you try to determine this, or establish this impression in the connection between us.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (51:24) Is it true that the most important thing is if I acquire the right manner of study, that it doesn't matter what format we study. Twenty years ago, the first thing is when you open the book, you had to annul before the teaching we learned from the books. So, basically it's the same thing. I have to do the same thing every lesson. So, is it the most important thing for me to demand of myself the right approach the learning?
M. Laitman: I didn't understand the question,
Student: In the lessons that we are together like now, for example, when we study and read an article we don't just sit and wait for someone to give you a pre-prepared answer and you believe him. You always check it inside; you do some work inside. You try to understand the text for yourself, and you do some work inside. On the other hand, you also are now before the text and before what we're learning in the wisdom of Kabbalah. So, basically is it important for us to learn how to learn correctly, because the teacher too probably doesn't like it, because if it's unpleasant to the teacher, if we don't do anything, if we don't try to measure it and understand.
M. Laitman: You need to think how to ask.
Student: I need to learn in the same way every time. I come to the lesson. It doesn't matter who is giving the lesson, I have to activate myself in the same way. At one time it will be less pleasant and more pleasant, like in a closed room. So we just have to learn more actively anyway. (I included all versions of the question. Maybe someone can figure out how to condense them into one that covers everything?)
M. Laitman: Yes, we could say.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (53:34) You said that holiness doesn't come from the teachers but from the approach to them, the attitude toward them, and when love isn't there, the answers don't come directly, but through the right relations. So, along with the relation that we learn how to relate correctly to my teachers, my friends, my students, in subjugation. Is there something more we can add to it, perhaps maybe our expectations should change. Our eyes are raised to you in the lessons. Should that turn into not a direct connection, but along with the right relation and subjugation, should our expectations, our demands, change into having to reveal this holiness between us, the scrutinies, the relations between us. Should we change our intention that we're kind of sitting on a gold mine in this holiness, and our work is to discover it between us. So, what more can we add to the right relation to the intention when we learn without love?
M. Laitman: You need to imagine that the friend, the Rav, the teacher, is between you, among you always in each and every lesson. Then you will eliminate many of the doubts and the questions, and you'll be able to advance.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (55:39) I, as a woman on the path, is there a difference in my approach during the lesson if I'm sitting in front of Rav Michael Laitman or in front of a student.
M. Laitman: If you want to hear his lesson, you need to accept him as a rav. It could be neither me nor that specific friend, but any friend you want.
Student: Any friend, that it was decided that he can sit and give a lesson?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, if I hear all kinds of discernments, such as there is Rav, there is no Rav, there is no such thing as there is no Rav. The presence of Rav within me is not related to whether Rav is present in the room.
M. Laitman: What are you trying to say?
Student: So, my attitude to who is giving the lesson and through which I'm receiving the upper light has nothing to do with the personality sitting in front of me physically.
M. Laitman: We have all kinds. We are learning many cases that are not just like tha.t I need to accept the teacher, the one who is giving the lesson, his deputy. It's not that I accept everyone.
Student: I have a feeling that for women it's more difficult to contain this feeling, more than it is difficult for men. Is this feeling correct? It seems to me like it's easier on men to accept a friend as a teacher, as Rav.
M. Laitman: Let's say. Yes, you're right.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (58:27) If we come to learn among friends, or we're learning within the Ten between us, the friends. In the lesson I heard you say that as we sit next to a person who is smarter. it's not like he's smarter in his intellect but in his feelings and in his vessels and we want to learn his internalities, the inner vessels of the friend. So, whether we're learning among friends, all of us together, or in the Ten. Now I hear a friend speaking. I share her discernments or questions. It's as if I get knowledge. How from that point do I acquire her inner vessels?
M. Laitman: There are different vessels. You need to be connected to your friends in a heartfelt way, internally, soulfully, and then to that extent, you can receive fulfillment from the Creator.
Student: Is this also possible toward the friends we learn with, the relation to the friends who teach us?
M. Laitman: Typically, it doesn't happen between a man and a woman. It's not mixed.
Student: So, what do we acquire from the friends who teach us if not if it's not their inner vessels?
M. Laitman: You receive Torah from them, how you can be close to one another with all your friends, and how you advance up the ladder.
Student: So, can we say that through the friends who teach, we acquire knowledge and vessels and in the Ten we acquire each other's inner vessels?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And in these inner vessels, do we actually acquire more and more a feeling of qualities of the Creator that didn't exist in us?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Can we say that it's all the qualities we learned about, like subtleness and humility, and pleasantness? So, it's unrelated to knowledge. It's more about annulment and submission and all that.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (1:01:24) What's the difference from the moment a friend has a deficiency, only then can you learn through his deficiency? Why can we study together if there is no scrutiny?
M. Laitman: You need to learn how to work together.
Student: How can we learn?
M. Laitman: Take an article by Rabash or Baal HaSulam, and you study it together. One is asking, the second one is answering, both of them argue, both of them advance.
Student: And what's the difference if I have a deficiency, and I look for the answer in the lesson, as opposed to scrutinizing the deficiency by way of asking. Is there a difference?
M. Laitman: No. There are all kinds. The important thing is to come to lessons.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (1:02:38) A person who diminishes himself and subjugates himself for the friends, does he actually clear out his, vessel his relation, and by seeing the friend is great is he actually magnifying the part of greatness and bestowal within himself?
M. Laitman: No. We'll learn.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (1:03:10) When we stand in front of you, and the greatness we receive from the lesson, the discernments. how we come out of the lesson with greatness depends on what preparation we had, how much annulled before you. Even toward our rav, as great as he is in our eyes, and there's a significant difference, in that according to my approach, that's what I receive from the lesson. Each day I can say that that's the best lesson I’ve had in my life. It all has to do with how I annul myself before Rav?
M. Laitman: More.
Student: Because previously you said that with respect to the friends, it's a little different. There are more scrutinies and less receiving light, the way we feel when it's with Rav.
M. Laitman: You can receive everything. It all depends on your attitude towards them and how you connect them with the Creator.
Student: In the society afterwards when it's without Rav, does it depend on our relation to the leading friends?
M. Laitman: Not so much.
Student: If we, down the road, relate to them as great, just like we said before that it's all a question of my attitude. If we relate to them as great as it's supposed to be, then basically we will let them lead us and our spirituality basically depends on that as society?
What does it depend on?
M. Laitman: There are additional conditions.
Student: So, the spiritual force that the friend receives when he's sitting there on the stage. Is it thanks to the friends placing him there, that the society decided that he would sit there? So it doesn't depend on who is, but it depends on…
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women Petah Tikva Center): (01:05:48) It's not exactly a question. I want to share my experience I had two weeks ago, when I came from far away, and I was expecting a lesson with Rav, and I see two friends sitting and giving the lesson. Initially, I felt disappointment, because I was expecting something else, and then I discovered that it had so much power. Of course, the work I did too, but the thing that inspired me the most was how great these friends are and how they annul themselves with respect to the questions, with answers, with toward each other. I was just so elated—I don't remember feeling it for a long time—just from discovering how great they are and how much they annul themselves. Afterwards they gave us the talk that you had. The friends, when they asked you many questions about how to teach, how to relate, and in that too I saw their humility and self-annulment, and for me it's an example of what to be like. So, thank you to the great friends.
Moderator: It's a hot topic and there are many questions from here and from the world and we will continue this topic in the second part of the lesson, so there will be more opportunities to ask on this matter.
Announcements: (01:07:03)
Song: (01:13:03)