Morning Lesson May 30, Transcription
To Bestow Contentment to the Creator - Selected Excerpts from the Sources, #11
1. Rav’s Introduction: We need to try and follow, observe what is going on with us, how we are moving between states and in those states in all of them we arrange them in such a way that we need to give contentment to the Creator. This important to me is not to get up when I am full of forces or coming out of my sleep, jumping out of bed, starting to be waking up from morning or maybe from the day before. Perhaps it is important for me to wake up like a beast that understands nothing, wants nothing. I have no attitude towards the Creator. no feeling. what contentment. I am not thinking about it. I do not understand, on the contrary, I start from zero to build my attitude towards the Creator, maybe it is not even zero but completely not wanting to do this. I reject the whole thing, a broken Reshimot from the shattering. If it is a true broken Reshimot, it awakens in me complete repulsion towards the right attitude of the Creator connection to any thoughts about spirituality. There is nothing in it for me and this way I see that I am in this state and I have to see this as an opportunity towards the new degree to rise to a new state and the to see in it and you'll opportunity for spiritual ascent, a spiritual elevation towards the attitude of the Creator. Truly give him contentment, try see this as a new opportunity to rise towards the right attitude to the Creator. I do not want anything for myself it is very strange and very fervent, why would I think to do something towards the Creator, to belong to him every day. I think about contentment to him, but I do have to see this opportunity and I need to be happy about starting from zero or below zero feeling a complete rejection towards doing anything to what's the Creator. This is a true Reshimot from the shattering where I used to be attached to him since he created creation and then the Creator himself broke the single creature to drive us away from him and I discovered this distance between us. I finally receive it through Reshimot that I have to correct that I have to return to state the way the Creator created it in the beginning before the shattering before he broke everything. In this way I set up all broken desires, broken intentions towards the Creator as none else. Since there is only him existing and I have to begin to correct all of them in order to give it to the Creator. The Division towards the Creator has to reveal in me this rejection towards the Creator has to reveal in me the spiritual way over the Creator. Accordingly, I try each time more and more to correct them, this broken Reshimot, broken states to bring them up towards correction, changing this rejection all the way, the inclination to connection, all the way to love. This is our work, in each spiritual degree includes these two parts, the coarseness, the restriction, the screen, the reflected light, the giving and the persistence on the corrected state we are in. When the entire state that is opposite to correction with hate repulsion, laziness, helplessness, and even above this we gradually dress this form into the intention to bestow according to the greatness of the Creator. As much as we can appreciate that Creator to the extent we would want to do something nice to him and this is our spiritual work expressed in restriction, the smallness, greatness over all the broken Reshimot this is how we are learning in those a spiritual actions in all the worlds and all our elevation from this world to the spiritual world to Ein Sof or in order to acquire each time broken Reshimot and each higher world will receive Reshimot which are even more broken more heat, rejection, laziness, helplessness is revealed to is bestowal. This is how we overcome it rise until we come to a place where love covers all transgressions and in practice what we need to do we can only give contentment to the Creator to the degree we connect between us and the measure of the connection between us is that what causes contentment to him, Because by that we bring all the pieces of the broken vessel or the fragments of our broken vessel from the soul of Adam to the complete state where the upper light is revealed one unique and unified. We also need to unify are selfish vessel and the intention to give contentment to the Creator this is called in order to bestow and this is how we correct ourselves; we give contentment to the Creator. In practice this is possible only through the connection between us and buy this the restore the broken soul of Adam, our general soul and this is why the main intention to delight the Creator just as he has the only intention to delight the created beings. This is how he created us in this action he prepared everything for us so we would be able to show our contentment from our parts we express the in the connection between us, so we want to show our work from our part through the connection between us.
2. S. (9:39) The state that you described that you are in a fog when you start the lesson, how to minimize this time and move to bestowing to the Creator?
R. We can't quite determine what will be with us tomorrow, how will we get up. We understand that according to our experience, and I also saw it with Rabash how he would get up in the morning. It was very difficult, very difficult. If you get up as if you cannot hear, cannot see, like a shadow of himself, like a ghost. This is how he would get up in the morning until he recuperated, woke up. If it were possible, he would take a short walk until he gets back to the right thoughts. It was not simple. It’s like what we learn with the Baal HaSulam who lost his spiritual feelings and then his assistant would sit and read him the alphabet, some words that could revive him in this way. Similarly, a Kabbalist who loses his higher degree from the day before would wake up the following day even worse than how he got up yesterday. Each time there is darkness at the beginning of the degree. He works on it and attains the connection, the intention to bestow and he does it in the Katnut of the degree, GE, and then the Gadlut of the degree, AHP. He activates his desires in it from the smallest desires to the biggest desires and this is how he corrects the soul of Adam HaRishon. Until he sees that soul, it's the reason that it exists, it doesn't matter how the world itself is not corrected. It doesn't bother him. He can bring the world to the complete correction. It is not like in this world where if we are not corrected each one feels himself corrected, so on and so forth. In spirituality, we can see these things until the end of correction as each one is corrected according to his degree. It is not that important. But we need to understand that we wish to give contentment to the Creator which is our similarity of form with Him since He created all of creation with the intention to do good to his created beings. It works out that each one of us, when he connects all of creation, pushing creation towards connection and correction and adhesion to the Creator, this is how we do this.
S. What does it mean that we start from Katnut and then Gadlut?
R. It doesn't matter, we don’t understand it yet. It’s the matter of degrees. Each spiritual degree appears to include two parts: Katnut and Gadlut smallness and greatness or adulthood, half and half. And from bestowing to the Creator, performing an act of bestowal above our egoistic desire which we connect, so we correct it first by rising, having this desire rise above the ego that means reaching Katnut, smallness or infancy, making itself into this neutral format to the degree of Bina, bestowal in order to bestow, the light of Hassadim. Later he works in receiving in order to bestow which is working with the light of Hochma. In truth, there’s no difference in the light, it’s the difference in the vessel. How much the vessel can reveal the quality of bestowal.
3. S. (15:23) The state you described that you wake up in the morning feeling great distance, burdening. How do we know that this comes from progress and not from lack of preparation or disregard that because of that I drew farther?
R. It shouldn't be that important to me. Of course, I have to prepare myself to such a state that tomorrow, the next day, I’ll wake up with a great awakening towards giving contentment to the Creator. This should be my new day. But whatever it might be, if I get up then accordingly, I accept it with joy since each and every state comes from the necessary state which comes to me because this is how I have to work. There are several forms of relationship, here, towards the Creator. Everything is correct. We cannot make these scrutinies, we do not have any experience in it. We’ll come to it and scrutinize it. The main thing I want to say is that I have to wake up each time, it doesn't have to be in the morning, it can be in the middle of the day after each and everything whenever there is a (cessation?), we need to try to use this (cessation?), this break in such a way that I begin from zero or if I’m actually feeling rejection from spiritual work, and this is the revelation of the desire that awakens in me. Specifically, when I feel this repulsion, I have to be happy because I have an opportunity to come from this rejection to closeness to bestowal. And this is how we advance.
Excerpt 11 (18:03 - 19:40)
4. R. (19:44) This means that the important thing to aim himself entirely towards the Creator and then to check with which vessels, desires I can do this, or in which desires I cannot do this; what do I need to have more and more to have more desires and intentions to join that same direction of bestowing contentment and that’s how we advance.
5. S. (20:17) He writes that everything will be for the sake of the Creator. Meaning that’s the reason we work?
R. Well, you can’t bestow not for the sake of Heaven or the Creator, rather to whom? To you? There are only two possibilities in reality, you, and the Creator.
S. The question is: what is the request to He will help what is this? Why do we need to ask for help? R. Because maybe you wish to do this somehow but to actually do it without the help of the Creator, we cannot do that -- how? Do we possess the force of bestowal, the force of connection? What good forces do you have other than your ego that wants to control everything and wants to be closed in itself?
S. But we say that the main thing is the work we have to do?
R. So the work is about asking. The work is to raise the Creator to the degree of bestowal, to a high degree. You begin to respect Him, appreciate Him. He becomes great in your eyes, all of reality is only Him you are asking Him for the strength to do to show how to do it. And when you get it from Him, you will be able to bestow. What forces do you have on your own that you wish to recruit, bestow to Him?
S. The fact that we don't have strength and we need strength from Him is clear but if we want it to be only for the sake of the Creator, meaning no reception for the self, then why do we need to ask Him for help? We just need to do it.
R. But how? Do it how? Tell me, what will you do, as you say, for the sake of the Creator, or bestowing contentment to the Creator, which is the same, without receiving the quality of bestowal from above?
S. Our inclination to connect. Is that not called, ‘for the sake of the Creator, to bring Him contentment ‘?
R. It’s given to you for now, for the time being, in the beginning.
S. And when He takes that, we still need to work in the same way as if we have this strength, right?
R. And how do you do it?
S. I don't know if I can do it but even if we do it ‘make believe,’ then that is supposed to bring Him contentment, already.
R. Maybe, but how do you advance?
S. What is the advancement? What is the actual advancement here?
R. Practically, advance means how to bestow contentment to Him from each and every state you’re in. Where in each and every moment, if you are capable of working with them, then bigger and bigger broken Reshimo appear in you and above them, you'll have to connect with the others and from the connection to bestow contentment to the Creator. You cannot bestow anything to the Creator except the result of the connection between us.
S. So we, basically, ask for help to make connection between us and as a result of that . . .
R. We bestow contentment to Him that He can bestow into the connection His bestowal. We are preparing His vessel, the vessel for Him. We are putting together the vessel from the broken pieces.
S. So, now it’s just not clear -- what is it that after we make an effort to connect between us, there’s another stage that’s not clear to me. What does it mean that we bestow to Him?
R. We are connecting between us from the beginning to bestow contentment to Him.
S. Yes but this is only to create the Kli if I understand correctly.
R. But what for? Why do we create the vessel?
S. To achieve some address, to turn to Him, I cannot see beyond that.
R. Okay, so you turn to Him, why? You wish to present to Him that place, meaning the deficiency, into which He can bestow. That’s His pleasure and we need to do this in such a way that our corrections will be in order to bestow to Him and not that we have connection for our sake or receiving a new degree for our sake.
6. S. (25:20) What does it mean to always exert to be in the King's palace?
R. First of all, where did we read it, did we just read it? (Reader reads the section of the excerpt addressing this). Yes, he doesn't leave the connection with the Creator. Whatever he has, he gets from the Creator and whatever He does to him he should aim himself towards the Creator. This is called ‘to be in the place of the Creator’.
S. Meaning to always raise the importance of the Creator in the 10?
R. Of course. We have to constantly work on the importance of the Creator, this is certain.
Excerpt 12 (26:57 - 28:56) twice
7. (29:23) What is the best state to bring contentment to the Creator, when my will to receive feels pleasure or not?
R. We can give contentment to the Creator from our coarseness. As much as the person has an egoistic desire and he can turn it into in order to bestow, accordingly the person can bestow contentment to the Creator. Meaning the worse he is at the beginning of the action and he corrects his intention to bestow contentment to the Creator, from realizing that great ego that is now revealed, and he turns himself to in order to bestow, then the difference between the beginning of the work and the end of the work, between the great desire to receive that is revealed at the beginning, the desire to bestow which turned the desire to receive in order to bestow with their intention at the end of the action, the gap between the two, this, you can measure this difference, that delta as the measure of giving contentment to the Creator.
8. S. (30:57) To bring contentment to the 10, is it the same as bringing contentment to the Creator?
R. It is not the same, it is the foundation, a condition. And if I cause any connection to my 10, from that I bring contentment to the Creator; and, the difference between the two is in the intention on a higher degree. We’ll learn about it. It can be in a greater connection where we connect not only between us but also with the Creator, with the inclusive.
9. S. (32:01) I want to ask: it seems from the article that if I can manage my will to receive in relation to the quality of bestowal. But in fact, my will to receive is completely without control unless I and the 10 or the Creator, Himself, I cannot achieve a state of bestowal on my own, so the Creator has to do the work? How to relate to all these states that frantically change.
R. We wish to see ourselves as connectors between the will to receive that the Creator awakens in us -- this is His work. He awakens the will to receive which He placed in us and we ask for correction over that will receive. This is how He corrects it, in order to bestow. And we see nothing from our part, only how much we grow the will to bestow, the Creator in our eyes. That we describe to Him the starting conditions, the beginning of the work, the middle and the end, everything is described to Him. This whole process we go through to discover that it also belongs to Him that there is none else besides Him. All these actions, all this creation, we are only seemingly like witnesses to what the Creator is doing to us. This is truly our work, to discover that there is none else besides Him in every state, every action, every quality, so on and so forth.
10. S. (34:23) This quote we read, it is aimed at the person always finding himself in gladness in every state, whether he wants or not to walk on the path of bestowal, it should always be gladness. What is this gladness that the person is holding it, independent of his state?
R. It’s a gladness from being adhered to the Creator and then it doesn't matter what state the person is in personally. He doesn’t have any personal, individual form. Rather he, then, feels himself as simply existing in adhesion to the upper force, this is it. I don't have many words here, perhaps.
11. S. (35:52) Please clarify from the excerpt: as long as the work is not in order to bestow and another issue is that he doesn't want to receive anything from the work. It is not clear?
R. He checks, measures in ways that work, not according to whether he knows how to give contentment to the Creator but according to the effort he is putting in. It is like a baby, what can the baby do? Nevertheless, the fact that he's trying to do something, by this, he already brings a lot of contentment to his parents. Therefore, this is how we grow. Look at the baby, this is how the Creator also raises us.
12. S. (36:49) My will to receive will not be happy but I will. How can that be?
R. The will to receive is what the Creator is created so the created being would be able to exist inside the will to receive. The will to receive is the creature but this creature has to assume the form of the Creator in order to be whole, eternal, like the Creator. Consequently, on one hand, our will to receive in us grows from state to state; on the other hand, we apply greater and greater correction on it from state to state until the entire will to receive that the Creator created in us will be revealed and we will perform all the corrections above it in order to bestow. This is the process we are going through. Then, the creature has to be included of two things: the will to receive which is the nature the Creator created, and will to bestow, which is the intention. How much the person is able to use the will to receive but not for himself but in order to bestow to others. In order for us to realize this, to apply and implement this, the Creator shattered this whole state. Now, we can use all these pieces in order to put them back together and recreate that whole state again. This is our work. Everything is already given inside our lives, we just need to try to discover the upper light and accordingly will be able to see where we are and what do we need to do.
13. S. (39:15) It says in the excerpt that without being dependent of the circumstances sent to him, if you can give an example that there are stars around the sun so there is the center of the 10 and then there is my state that is wandering around this center. Now, in all of the circumstances that I received, where is our choice? How to advance towards the center without wandering around?
R. You have to follow what Rabash writes about and now build for yourself such philosophies, things that you imagine. Just read his articles carefully, and carefully try to do them. I do not want to talk according to the picture you are painting. You will see the picture they are portraying, and you follow that picture.
14. S. (40:27) According to what you heard, we bestow contentment to the Creator from the coarseness. There is an initial state and a final state, here. The initial state is the shattering, and the final state is what I need to imagine.
R. Yes.
15. S. (40:51) It says, here, ‘and if he feels that his work is still not in order to bestow, he should also have to be glad because, for himself, he says he doesn't want anything for himself’. How can one say that he doesn't want anything for himself if he feels that his work is not yet in order to bestow?
R. He doesn't want to take it into consideration. He doesn't want to relate to the fact that he still has any vessels that wish to receive, and they need correction. He doesn't want to belong to those vessels.
Reading 13 (41:46 - 43:44) twice
16. R. (43:48) Meaning, specifically, the opposite. Whenever there is a conflict, collision disturbances and various fractions, then the person who works spiritually in the correct manner, he is happy about it because what appears is, as Baal HaSulam says, ‘Happy am I about the wicked that are revealed because it is certain that they are there because the vessels were shattered and all the shattering is there, all the broken parts are there’. Therefore, I need to correct these broken pieces, to unify them, unite them so the more they are revealed, it is a sign that I am capable of connecting them. This is why I am rejoiced. I never feel despair from the appearance of these broken vessels since it is certain that if the broken vessel appeared, it means that it is certain that the correct vessel also exists. We just need to look for ways to reach the corrected vessel. We have to turn to the Creator from the broken state and from that to reach the corrected vessel. And to do his work in this way. To be the mediator between the shattering and the correction.
17. S. (45:25) We aspire to the state where everything we receive from the Creator is pleasure for us and it is pleasure to bestow to Him. It is not so clear what is the connection with that and the connection with the 10, all of a sudden, in the state we want to achieve. We want to receive any state from the Creator as pleasure to then to bestow to Him.
R. No, we wish to bestow to the Creator and for this bestowal to the Creator to be as pleasure for us.
S. How to bestow to the Creator?
R. Through the connection between us. This is called, ‘the correction of the shattered vessel.
S. Only the connection between us brings Him contentment?
R. Yes, you don’t need anything else. There is no other action. There cannot be any other action because the vessel was broken, there was a vessel then it was shattered and then our correction. To the extent we connect the vessel we present this corrected vessel to the Creator and then He will have the possibility of bestowing all the fulfillment into the corrected vessel.
18. S. (47:01) How do we understand this transition from the state that we bestow contentment to the 10 and then to bestow contentment to the Creator?
R. This has to be, for us, an action, and an intention. We cannot give contentment to the Creator, directly. We can only cause our broken vessel, the relationship between us that are all broken because of each one’s individual ego. We need to try to rise above our ego, each and every one of us and help. By setting the right example for one another, bring ourselves to a state where all of us want to be connected, then we look between us for ways to ask the Creator for the force of connection. Then we receive from Him the force of connection, we feel ourselves more connected and in the connection between us, we reveal new states between us, spiritual states, a different world, the next world, the upper world.
19. S. (48:47) When will the equivalence of form be revealed to us?
R. When you come to it, how could it be different? Tell me? How could it be in any other way? You need to come to a state where your bestowal to one another will be like the bestowal you wish to do to the Creator. You wish to reach bestowing contentment to the Creator, then bestow contentment to the friends. What does this mean? You should try to connect them together in such a way that they would all want to connect and help one another. By this you are giving contentment to the Creator.
20. S. (50:05) You explained beautifully today what Baal HaSulam wrote, that we need to go through this process all the time, and the evil appears in me and I have to rise above. The question is: how, when it happens, I forget that it’s the work, when the evil appears in me, how do I not let it happen, so I don’t forget, and I continue the work?
R. This is a sign that you are not incorporated in the group, and the group does not influence you. This means that I lack the surrounding light and I forget. I am not in contact with the result, with the spiritual result. It turns out that each and every state that comes to me, throws me out completely from any contact with spirituality. What can help me when each and every state that appears throws me out of my individual spirituality, but not from the general spirituality of the group. Meaning if I perform actions that force me to connect to the 10 all time, then I always be in a state where the external influence from the 10, both the corporeal influence and the spiritual influence, they work on me and then I do not forget about the goal.
21. S. (52:15) How can my friend feel pleasure from my part when I am actually doing coercive actions and demanding from the Creator, how can they feel the pleasure in the 10?
R. This all depends on how much we are together. If we wish to resemble the correct 10, then the Creator has a way to bestow the upper light to us, and then this upper light enters the 10. In this way we can feel the fulfilment that exists in spirituality. It all depends on how much we hold ourselves together in each and everything. We are sitting in the same boat and this boat is sailing through a stormy sea, and everything depends on how much we can hold onto each other. If we don't hold one another, then this boat will go down even in a calm sea, it will sink. But if we are holding each other, then the Creator will make the sea stormy on purpose, to give us additional reason to be connected together, to hold each other up, and then accordingly to the level of coarseness, meaning the level of the height of the waves, disturbances, and also according to the measure of connection between us, from these two states, the coarseness, and the connection above it, from that we begin to restore the vessel.
22. S. (54:45) In the state of bestowal there are still discernments of inside and outside with respect to me and the world?
R. Yes of course, there are those discernments. The state of bestowal is a state that opens up before us all the feelings, both inside and outside of it.
23. S. (55:20) We find the force to convince the friends and speak with them about the fact that it’s greatness and joy to work with the Creator, but how do we show this gladness to them and to ourselves? Many times, we are tired and have no passion, so how can we find the power to convince them?
R. It is because we are not in bestowal yet, we are not in the work in order to bestow, so it turns out that we can’t feel the importance of our work. We do it because we have to. We read the book and we try to do it as much as each one of us and all of us in the ten understand it, but it is still not in practice. It is a problem, and we have to go through this period when we try to do this also without any pleasure. Why without pleasure? Because we would take the pleasure in order to receive. If the pleasure would be revealed from bestowing to the Creator, we would go crazy from this pleasure, because there isn't a bigger pleasure than bestowing contentment to the Creator. It takes you out of our vessels. This is why we first have to acquire screens over all of our feelings, desires so we would be able to keep them locked under the screen, under the restriction, and use them only in order to bestow, to the extent we can be in order to bestow. Then we can use them. Otherwise, we are falling again into the Klipot. This is one thing. The second thing is, don't think that we are doing something which is not important. We are preparing ourselves for the Study of the 10 Sefirot. Meaning, we wish to perform actions, the actions that TES is speaking about and it should be clear to us how to do these actions. It’s the restriction, the screen, the reflected light, how much yes, how much no, how much we can be above the will to receive, with which intention and coarseness. It is all coming from what we are learning right now. As much as we become accustomed to these actions when we have to connect between ourselves and build a system from which we wish to act towards the Creator. This means that we are restricting our ego, the use of this form “in order to receive”, we wish to rise above it, and want to bestow contentment to the Creator, and we connect between us and we work towards the Creator by giving Him contentment as much as possible. According to that, to that extent we enter spiritual actions, “I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me.” And then we begin to feel the Creator to the extent that we begin to bestow to Him. This is called revealing Him in our reflected light and then the true spiritual work begins.
S. When we feel this huge importance of the work you described now, but we cannot express it, we cannot awaken the friends with it. Why is this gap there?
R. Because this work is entirely in order to bestow, it’s beyond the restriction, and that’s why it happens this way.
24. R. (01:03:37) Also we still don't understand well the actions that TES speaks about. Now we are beginning to talk about it, how we connect, how we rise above from the connection between us to bestowing contentment to the Creator through the connection between us. Meaning, we make a Kli for him to start fulfilling. What does it mean we prepare the Kli through the restriction, screen, and reflected light? We present it in rejection from our ego, we reject our collective ego in the ten and we perform the connection above our ego. And we service this vessel to the Creator to fulfil it, meaning to take it in order to bestow. We want to bestow to Him in that, when we receive inside the vessel, it's not for us, it's in order to bestow Him. Then it turns out that all of these actions, we need to get used to them being all above the ego, above each and every one’s ego. Only through this mutual inclination towards each other and the Creator. We have to organize ourselves toward this action. It's hard for me to express this using our ordinary egoistic vocabulary. Therefore, I'm not so quickly running into TES. I don't want TES to be received like some physics textbook. It is not spiritual physics, it is the physics of your soul. Each and every action that we are talking about there is an action of desire where a person feels how he participates in that, at least to some extent. That is why the study of TES requires great preparation. Otherwise, it becomes completely superficial. Oh, there’s this force and that force, how these forces are in some balance between them.
S. What should we focus on for the rest of the lesson until we get to TES?
R. We continue.
S. What you describe is what we're doing from the beginning of the lesson?
R. Right. we will continue, but we need to envision ourselves further and further being included in this action of connection in the ten, and through this action of connection we raise that connection, we try to make it between us and the Creator. You are in a certain ten, you feel a connection in the ten. Can you raise it to the Creator? Do you feel that you are really serving that to the Creator, to let Him fulfill that connection and to benefit from the connection? Do you have some feeling of these actions? Ask yourself, don't answer us. And then you will see how much more we need to work on this. But it has to be both our work and our study. They have to be as one. Otherwise, we will study superficially and it is a great danger. Therefore, Kabbalists are very cautious that people will start studying. They’re afraid of people starting to study the wisdom of Kabbalah without the inner emotion of the person who studies. Then what happens, it’s just a big corruption. Maybe there will be people who think they are in spirituality, they’ll have some delusions of sorts, or people who will think they understand spiritual actions and they can write their own additions to TES, or other things that in the meantime have no connection with the internality of what it is about. And they just write it from their philosophies that they theorize. It is a great danger that the wisdom of Kabbalah will be turned into some distortion and philosophy, not based upon the inner actions of the author that are intended for the inner actions of the reader.
25. S. (01:09:27) What does it mean to reject the general ego in the ten?
R. Try it. Try to connect among you in a tendency towards the Creator, and in that tendency, you will start discovering what kind of egoistic desire you have among you that doesn't let you connect, that this is called as one man in one heart, with a single desire towards the Creator. That ten individual desires connect to one collective desire and you don't feel what is our collective desire. But the truth is, you need to feel that from the individual desires of each and every one. And it is the collective desire that you raise to the Creator, that becomes the spiritual vessel where you receive the response of the Creator, the revelation of the Creator.
26. S. (01:10:57) We start to learn the wisdom of Kabbalah without the inner emotion, we should learn the text as a form of a remedy? What’s the concern here?
R. The concern, the fear is that we begin to study the texts and then materialize them. To materialize them or corporealize them means to not elevate the texts to the degree of bestowal, in order to bestow. And instead to start sorting them out, processing them in order to receive. A person hasn’t yet been awarded with in order to bestow so he studies TES in a way that he thinks he understands what is going on there. And it doesn't awaken even a lack in him to attain these things, but rather what he thinks, what he understands, he already thinks about it as some sort of correct attainment. This is already a bad state. This is why there is a lot of doubts about when and how to start studying Kabbalah with beginners, with new students. Meaning you study with them to some extent, Pticha the Preface, you explain a little bit, but you know that you are speaking to an ear that has no hole in it, meaning no lack, no true deficiency. But you study in order to draw the light that reforms, but not in the sense that you start thinking that you understand. Meaning if you study without a lack for attainment, for connection, this is what it is about.
S. You feel we should also be careful of it? Because when you speak of the study of TES among us in this newly started session, we are highly impressed by the internality, the alertness, and the new attitude toward the text between us, and not this materializing or the intellect.
R. Yes, we need to be cautious, nevertheless, to not materialize the study, as Baal HaSulam warns us at the end of the Introduction to TES.
S. Specifically when you teach the new students in the point in the heart community, they have a deficiency to study TES and they’re not looking to materialize it. The lack of connection to TES makes it very difficult for them. What can we give them beyond reading item 155, which we always go back to?
R. We don't have a choice, we have to study Pticha and even begin with TES, but we have to explain more and more about the correct attitude towards it. It is a big problem. That is why it says: a 1000 come to study and 1 goes out to teach, meaning there are people who understand this with relative ease, and others only listen and don't understand and after many years, could be decades, they then begin to understand the kind of approach that is correct in studying TES. This is a problem, it’s the difference between two worlds. That a person needs to change in that what he studies, each and every word in Kabbalah, is in order to invert his will to receive to in order to bestow. Otherwise, he is not reading, he is not studying, he is not listening. This is the problem. During the study, as Baal HaSulam writes, did they disconnect during the study and forget about the main thing? Maybe not in the beginning, but throughout the study, did they detach from the light that reforms? They no longer study for that, and the whole study becomes the opposite, becomes a failure. This is very important. It is better to not engage in such a study if we are thinking about the study without correction. Rather the correction is first and foremost, and that is why we study.
27. S. (01:17:25) Last week we had an exercise in the ten, and the friends on the connection duty decided that rather than taking things from the lesson, we would have a gathering of friends and each friend opened their heart and shared how much they love the friends in the ten. It was truly a beautiful exercise. We felt a great sense of contentment in the ten. What do we lack now to raise this feeling to the Creator? What should we have done at that moment, that we feel the contentment in the ten?
R. We need to connect between us and ask the Creator to open our hearts, that we will begin to feel these spiritual actions. What does it mean to bestow? That we will begin to somewhat recognize, somewhat detect the quality of the spiritual action. This is what we need. That we will get to know the intentions, what does it truly mean in order to bestow? Because I myself will always be in order to receive, there has to come some aid from above that will turn my head around to the direction of bestowal. That is the only way it can happen.
S. Is it recommended to have these emotional exercises in the ten?
R. No, only prayer. Only praying together to the Creator.
S. When my friend tells me that he loves me and loves the ten, it influences me.
R. That is a kind of game that helps a bit, but just a little bit. We have to organize ourselves more seriously. The main thing is the deficiency for help from above, so that we will understand together in the ten that if there is no help from above, we are not going to attain anything. We need to have complete dependency upon the Creator. And we are close to this. And we also need to be doing this joyfully, that we have come to a point where we do understand that without this help, we can't do anything and specifically in this way, we can.
28. S. (01:20:44) We are new students and ever since we started TES, we meet every afternoon, and we try to repeat the study together. We read the articles, and about every article we make a round of discernments. I want to know how we can scrutinize that the direction of our study is correct?
R. Only by not forgetting about the intention. He writes this at the end of the introduction to TES.
S. Item 156, I believe.
R. Maybe they should find it for us. The main thing is the intention, and the lack of success is about that, that maybe we started reading with intention and then throughout the study we forgot about it.
S. The quality of the exertion?
R. Quality and quantity, yes, this is part of it, but the main thing is about not forgetting the intention during the study.
29. S. (01:22:40) If we repeat TES during the day, should we also discuss it?
R. Yes, it is possible, it could be good.
30. S. (01:23:02) Before we learn TES, we need to understand what is a “screen”, and how to build the screen in order to bestow to the Creator?
R. We ask. All of those things we don't understand, we don’t know, we don’t have. We need to ask for them from above, both the feeling, the mind, the understanding - everything is from above only.
31. S. (01:23:37) I don't understand what it says in TES. I can’t understand anything with my mind right now, but I also don't feel there's a deficiency in me to understand what is written. Should the study of TES beget a deficiency in me? What should I do if this is not happening?
R. There is no problem that you don't have a deficiency to understand TES because we're not talking about understanding it intellectually. We are talking about using TES to draw the light that reforms, the upper force that corrects our vessels, and then by studying TES, when we already have the vessels, then we draw the upper light, but in a different way, where it shows us how to use these vessels that it has installed in us. Then we learn TES in order to realize these actions that we learn about in the right way, the spiritual way. In studying TES, it explains to us about spiritual actions, that’s how it was written. And in studying it, we are advancing towards the correct spiritual application. This is a very profound book, but the question is, how do we approach it. The book is written in a way that, to begin with it is talking about spiritual actions above this world. There is a barrier. To see what we read in TES and describe it correctly through the intention to bestow, to see what the book is actually talking about. And if we are not in that yet, meaning if we don't have the screens yet to correctly establish the spiritual picture, we at least want to yearn for it and in this way, we will come closer to the truth.
32. S. (01:26:27) The point is that we have to realize TES in the connection in the ten. How do we begin this realization? What’s the right way to realize that is written in the connection between us?
R. It is true that we need to first prepare ourselves to be as one man in one heart as much as we can, because only with this condition, being in one heart, we can bestow to the Creator and receive from the Creator. The preparation to the study must be coming to a shared feeling between us, how much each one leaves his individual heart and incorporates with the general heart, which is the heart of the ten, and the Creator bestows to that heart.
Item 18, Introduction to TES
Baal HaSulam, "Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot", No. 18
“The Creator, who created it and gave the evil inclination its strength, evidently knew to create the remedy and the spice liable to wear off the power of the evil inclination and eradicate it altogether.
And if one practices Torah and fails to remove the evil inclination from himself, it is either that he has been negligent in giving the necessary labor and exertion in the practice of Torah, as it is written, “I did not labor and found, do not believe,” or perhaps he did put in the necessary amount of labor, but has been negligent in the quality. This means that while practicing Torah, they did not set their minds and hearts to draw the light in the Torah, which brings faith to one’s heart. Rather, they have been absent-minded about the principal requirement demanded of the Torah, namely the light that yields faith. And although they initially aimed for it, their minds went astray during the study.”
33. R. (01:29:55) Yes, that is very important. Well, there is still a lot about it, but let's say that is enough for today. Just understand that the preparation for the study, that it will work upon us to correct us and then to fill those corrected vessels - there are two actions that the study causes. Correction of the vessels and fulfillment of the vessels. It is all only by the prayer during the study, when we ask for the correction of the vessels and then the filling to the vessels. And all of this is to give contentment to the Creator.
Let’s go to TES. I think we have prepared ourselves.