The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning), December 21, 2024.
Joseph’s Dream: Gathering Sheaves in the Field
Part 2: VaYeshev: And Jacob Dwelt
5. RABASH. Letter No. 59
Reader: We are reading selected excerpts from the sources and the topic of the weekly portion, “Vayeshev”. We are in number 5 by the Rabash.
Reading: (00:22) Omer comes from the word [in Hebrew] “gathering sheaves.” RASHI interpreted, “as it is translated, gathering sheaves, collecting.” It means that by becoming mute and not opening the mouth with complaints against the Creator, but rather, for that person ‘Everything that the Merciful One does, He does for the best’ (Berachot 9), and says that he, meaning his thought and desire, will be only for the Creator, then he is gathering.
That is, by connecting all of one’s thoughts and desires with a tight connection of having only one goal—to bring contentment to the maker—a person is regarded as “gathering.”
M. Laitman: Questions about what we just read?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:54) It sounds like the perfect state, like Gmar Tikkun, the end of correction. A person has no complaints to the Creator, all his thoughts and emotions are to give contentment to the Creator, so it doesn't seem like a stage of work. It seems like that's it, really every thought, every feeling to ascribe it to the Creator having no complaints.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Is it really like that, or is it a degree?
M. Laitman: No, it's just a situation. How does he know if it's a degree or not? He doesn't see the whole ladder. The state that he had, it's a state that ends the previous state.
Student: And that's called “Omer”?
M. Laitman: Yes. We don’t have anything else to do on this scale.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (03:02) He writes, that by a person becoming mute, and he doesn't open his mouth with complaints against the Creator, but, rather, for that person, oh, the Creator does everything for the best, and all his desires are for the sake of heaven. What does it mean that a person becomes mute and doesn't open his mouth and complain to the Creator?
M. Laitman: It's like being mute. He doesn't speak, he doesn't utter with his mouth his desire, his will.
Student: Where does he get such forces to not open his mouth against the Creator if he's full of complaints?
M. Laitman: Probably, from within the degree itself. What does it say there, afterwards?
Student: He says that, my question is, from the degree itself, it means that he's doing some action and a person becomes mute, he doesn't open his mouth in a desired way, he chooses it, or is he already in a state that he doesn't open his mouth, he's mute?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How can a person do such an action if he's full of complaints about the Creator, and he doesn't open his mouth?
M. Laitman: I don't see that he's in such a terrible state, like you say it.
Student: No, it sounds like he has a ton of complaints against the Creator, and he's not opening his mouth.
M. Laitman: Are you talking about the second concealment?
Student: No, in Omer, gathering sheaves, it means that by becoming mute and not opening his mouth with complaints against the Creator.
M. Laitman: That's interesting.
Student: What's interesting?
M. Laitman: We'll find a solution for it.
Student: I guess, he has forces from above, that even though he has a lot of complaints, he's able not to open his mouth, and he became mute.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Meaning, by connecting all his thoughts and desires, to give contentment to the Creator, it's an opportunity for him to be mute.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:06) The question is, what's the matter of the mouth compared to the thoughts? If his thoughts and desires are full of complaints, where are those complaints? They're in his heart; it's his desires, it's his thoughts …
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But he doesn't open his mouth, he stays mute. So, what if he doesn't open his mouth? So, what's that action? What is such an important action not to open his mouth when he's full of complaints? If his heart is full of complaints, and he doesn't open his mouth.
M. Laitman: Yes, it's not good.
Student: So, it's not good. Then he says, his thoughts and desires should be only for the sake of the heavens.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But his thoughts and desires, I guess, he has complaints, no? Otherwise, what state is this?
M. Laitman: I don't know.
Re-reading: (07:40) Omer comes from the word [in Hebrew] “gathering sheaves.” RASHI interpreted, “as it is translated, gathering sheaves, collecting.” It means that by becoming mute and not opening the mouth with complaints against the Creator, but rather, for that person ‘Everything that the Merciful One does, He does for the best’ (Berachot 9), and says that he, meaning his thought and desire, will be only for the Creator, then he is gathering.
That is, by connecting all of one’s thoughts and desires with a tight connection of having only one goal—to bring contentment to the maker—a person is regarded as “gathering.”
M. Laitman: Is it clear now?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:09) When a Kabbalist talks about an act, he will never speak of the intention in the act. “To bestow”, “to receive”, it's just words, you can throw anything in there.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Amazing, you need to be impressed by his actions. Is that a condition for being with him?
M. Laitman: Could be that you're right. And then, we need to go according to that and test things, right?
Student: Bestowing can be a million dollars or a punch to the face. You're not told what it is.
M. Laitman: Okay.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:11) There's a kind of a hint in this excerpt, where he doesn't open his mouth. It's as if he doesn't use vessels of reception. And yet, he wants to bring contentment to the Creator. Okay, so it turns out that bestowing… It's only bestowing in order to bestow. Only vessels of bestowal, he doesn't use a desire. Can we understand the excerpt this way?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So, what degree is it?
M. Laitman: To receive in order to bestow.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:48) This excerpt really connects to the alarm that we had, the siren. I was asking how to welcome these states with love. And here, he talks about the process when the states happen, and he looks at the connection, he's silent and waits to see. I didn't get the answer he told me I would get. And seeing that it's good afterwards, so everything connects.
M. Laitman: Okay.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:30) Can there be a situation when a person cannot be mute in order to be in contact with the Creator? Specifically in this way that in order to keep connected with the Creator, he has to have grievances against Him as much as possible?
M. Laitman: Yes. Incorporate it in his complaints.
Student: Yes, because he finds that only this way he can be in some sort of active connection with the Creator.
M. Laitman: Okay. Could be.
Student: Can such a state awaken?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:30) He says everything that the Creator does is for the best.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, what is the process with this declaration that I don't understand and the Creator does everything for the best? How does it help? In seeing that everything is directed toward the Creator and being whole with the Creator?
M. Laitman: There are states that in them a person awakens such a response from the receiver that it will all be for the good.
Student: Is it only from the mouth and outwards or is there an action?
M. Laitman: There's an action in the vessels, and these vessels need to enter a state of Bina. That what happens with it, it's all for the best.
Student: And that's the point, like Rabash says, let it suffer?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Reader: Excerpt number six.
6. RABASH, Assorted Notes, Article No. 938, "Considering the Omer [Count]"
Reading: (14:00) Omer comes from the words “gathering sheaves,” which means connection. A person should try to make the connection between him and the Creator shine, as in a sapphire or a diamond. The world is called “the six days of action and Shabbat [Sabbath],” which are seven Sefirot, and there is Hitkalelut [mingling] of the Sefirot. Therefore, we must connect ourselves to the Creator on all the days of the years of our lives, which are seventy years, implying that each year comprises ten Sefirot.
By correcting the connection, called Omer, we can be rewarded with the quality of Torah, which is regarded as “freedom from the angel of death,” as our sages said, “Do not call it Harut [carved] but rather Herut [freedom],” when we emerge from the enslavement to the inclination by means of the Torah.
This depends on man’s connection with the Creator. When one is in separation, he is called “idol-worshipper,” and the Torah was given only to the people of Israel, as it is written, “He did not do so to any nation and they did not know the ordinances,” since the Torah is called “an ordinance” and “a gift,” and was given only to Israel, and one is called “Israel” only when one is connected to the Creator.
M. Laitman: Okay, it’s clear, right?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:23) What does it mean that there is a connection between a person and the Creator, and what does it mean that there isn't a connection?
M. Laitman: When a person doesn't understand his true state and the results from it, so that's called that he has no connection, no correct connection with the Creator. That’s it, and only when he does have a connection, he can know, and understand, and see what the results are.
Student: What does it mean that a person doesn't understand his real situation?
M. Laitman: He doesn't see the right results.
Student: I don't understand what this means. How? What does it mean to see the right results?
M. Laitman: He sees the reasons and what comes out of them in a direct way.
Student: So, we don't see the reasons for anything and the results in our state?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, we're not in connection? So, how do we become connected?
M. Laitman: To be in connection, as he writes, we need to awaken our connections with the Source and, afterwards, to awaken our Source, that the connection will be between him and the Creator.
Student: “Source”, you mean source of writings?
M. Laitman: No, the Source.
Student: I see. And why does he call it a “tight connection”? Why does he use that word?
M. Laitman: Tight, that he can withstand all of the connections.
Student: What determines if a person has this courage, means it is tight, but also courageous?
M. Laitman: As much as he's connected to his roots.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:36) He writes that a person should try to have the connection between him and the Creator shine.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Can there be a connection with the Creator that doesn't shine?
M. Laitman: I guess, so.
Student: What is such a connection?
M. Laitman: His connection shines through a person to all kinds of different states.
Student: What is the difference between a connection with the Creator that doesn't shine and a connection with the Creator that does shine?
M. Laitman: That a person, according to that illumination, can go forward and know what happens to him and what will happen to him, and he can see his next degree in the upper light.
Student: In other words, a connection that shines, it shines the way for him in terms of what to do?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And when a person prays to the Creator, when he's in a prayer to the Creator, is that a connection with the Creator? Is it regarded as connection with the Creator?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Should a connection be mutual or is it enough that I turn to Him ?
M. Laitman: The connection has to be in a way that he will still have a deficiency.
Student: I didn't understand, the connection has to bring a person to the deficiency?
M. Laitman: No, it has to be in a way that a deficiency won't awaken in a person.
Student: When a person is in prayer, does it mean he's in deficiency or not in deficiency?
M. Laitman: Not in deficiency.
Student: And is that a good state?
M. Laitman: It depends. It depends on what state a person is in, if he has the forces, the connection. So, in what degree he has that connection, and then attain.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:07) We are a society that decided for ourselves a sublime goal to attain the revelation of the Creator in this world?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: We, as an entity, see on ourselves many movements, many states that each of us goes through. As a society, as the friend said, there are debts, there are better things, worse things, but we see over time that our ability to overcome these states is our ability to maintain ourselves as one body.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: From where do we get this resource of holding on to the society, connecting to the society above the states? Because what do we see: a person has some debts, he starts swaying, or he gets a little sick. The Creator gives all kinds of states. So, from where do we take this resource of holding on to the group above everything and anything? To what extent does it depend on the individual, and to what extent does it depend on the Ten or on the group around him?
M. Laitman: I think it depends on the Ten.
Student: Because then he is powerless, he fell.
M. Laitman: He needs to annul towards the Ten.
Student: So, it's him. He's the one who should annul. He's the one who should say, “help me!”?
M. Laitman: Whether he says it or not, that's not important. The Ten has to stand guard.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:18) To continue the friend’s question about sapphire and diamond. What does it mean that the connection shines like sapphire and diamond?
M. Laitman: Well, you tell me. What's the difference between a sapphire and a diamond?
Student: Maybe I'll rephrase. I assume, it's a state where a person wants to bring contentment to the Creator. It's not like he comes here to enjoy some light, right?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, out of the desire to bring contentment to the Creator, yes, there's deficiency, but they're down there somewhere, it's not important for him. What's important for him is this, he calls it “sapphire and diamond”. What are these qualities or this pleasure? I don't even know how to ask this question.
M. Laitman: You're asking about the fulfillment?
Student: About the state. When a person brings contentment, then it's called “sapphire and diamond”.
M. Laitman: It's two forms of connection that exist between man and the Creator. As I understand, on the right line and on the left line, supposedly. That’s it.
Student: And that's a form, a way by which the created being brings contentment to the Creator?
M. Laitman: Yes, he prepares himself as two precious stones.
Student: Until we are corrected and are truly in direct contact with the Creator, can we say anything about the state of friends, or are we only seeing ourselves through the friends?
M. Laitman: Mainly, we see ourselves.
Student: A friend said: “I look at a friend and I think he has money or doesn't have money”. He may seem like he has money, but he feels poorer than, I don't even know where the friend is. I want to help him, but I don't really know where he is. Right?
M. Laitman: Right. We need to invest in it a bit more. To invest a bit more of forces in that. That's it.