Morning Lesson October 22, 2021, Transcription
Part 1:
Shamati 28, Baal HaSulam - I Shall Not Die but Live
https://kabbalahmedia.info/en/sources/AlcJhnYS?language=en
Reading Shamati 28. (2:30)
1.Rav’s Introduction: What does he want to tell us here? Baal HaSulam spoke these words and Rabash repeated them. It is written I will repeat I shall not die but live, meaning that one who determined that he does not want to die in spiritual terms, in the end he comes to spiritual life. This is the only way because he is between these two discernments, spiritual life and spiritual death. A person in order to come to the truth must come to feel that if he does not obtain the truth, he feels himself as dead since he wants to live. This is how we feel ourselves in ascents and descents and in all kinds of states. Which actually, we determine death as a state where we don't want anything at all. We are not against holiness or for holiness or anything. When the desires are taken away and we do not want anything in life, this is tantamount to death. Kabbalists call this differently. They say that life and death depend only according to my yearning for holiness. If I want something else from holiness, this is also death. This means that the verse "I shall not die but live'' is said about one who wants to obtain the truth. Meaning he feels life and death in those two discernments. He advances to above reason and goes above his intellect. He wants to develop his approach to life not from within his desires, natural desire but despite it, above it, so he is going towards life. This is the meaning of Jonah Ben [the son of] Amitai.” Ben the son of Amitai. Jonah comes from Hona’a, fraud, and Ben comes from the word Mevin [understands]. The word Ben, son, comes from the word understanding. What does he understand? He always examines the situation he is in and sees that he has deceived himself and he is not working on the path of truth. He is lying to himself. This is basically all of our mistakes. When we lie to ourselves and then we are happy this way in our feelings even though it is a lie in terms of the path. He deceived himself that he is not working on the path of truth.
Truth means to bestow, meaning Lishma [for Her sake], and the opposite of this is fraud and deceit, meaning only to receive, which is Lo Lishma [not for Her sake]. By this, one is later imparted the “Amitai,” meaning Emet [truth]. In other words, after the scrutinies of being in between truth and falsehood more and more in the end he clarifies more about the concept of truth until this concept becomes so obvious in his eyes and that he begins to detect and see the Lishma (for her sake). This is the meaning your eyes are as doves. The eyes Eynaim of Kedusha holiness meaning of bestowal, the holy Shechina called Eynaim (eyes) of the Shechina (divinity). They are as doves. In other words, they deceive us and we think that she has no eyes. We think that holiness has no eyes, that we can do whatever, that only we exist in the world. This is basically what the Klipot (shells), the opposite of holiness, wants to show us, and we must protect ourselves from it. One who is rewarded with the truth, meaning who tries to raise himself above reason and sees that she does have eyes, that there are Eynaim, eyes of holiness, her eyes are as doves. They deceive us and trick us into thinking there is no Creator, no Shechina, no providence, no nothing. But everything is in the hands of the wicked and this is how we advance. If we discover the truth, Lishma, in order to bestow, then we see that she has eyes, Holy Shechina, the appearance of the Creator in our eyes in our world. This is the meaning of the bride whose eyes are pretty and whole body needs no scrutiny. Meaning if we come to realize, meaning beautiful eyes, which is Lishma for her sake, we discover seeing the Shechina and then we also discover her entire body, her bestowal that she sustains the whole of reality.
2. S. (9:00) What does it mean that the eyes of holiness?
R. It is providence. When providence is concealed, it seems to us that there is no Creator he's not looking, He does not see us and we are only in our own hands or in the hands of blind nature or evil nature. But if we rise above it, either through our work or through an awakening from above, when we are given this feeling, when we are elevated a little bit, then we think that there might be eyes after all and there might be providence and we are in contact with the upper force.
S. Only above reason we get this state?
R. When we discovered that there is Shechina and she has eyes. Meaning that she has the guidance of the Creator over us and it is a tight guidance and we are in this guidance, we do not exit it. We do not emerge from it. Then, of course, it is through the power of above reason, which is the power of bestowal. We try to continue going this way but again it is through constantly falling and rising. Falling from the guidance as if it did not exist and again, we tried to raise ourselves by force to open providence and likewise each time.
S. Can this be as a certain atmosphere in the 10?
R. Of course, the feeling of the existence of the Creator and the influence of the Creator on the 10 can be like this in the 10. The10 must be more solidified on top of all kinds of conditions that the Creator arranges for them so they want to discover that it came from the Creator and through all those states they are dependent and adhered to the Creator.
3. S. (11:47) How can you stop lying to yourself and seeing that you are not going on the path of truth?
R. Try to bring yourself back by force to the feeling that you are under the wings of the Shechina under constant governance and there is nowhere to run and that the Creator is holding us tightly. And every cell and every organ, every thought, and every desire, all of them, every single one of them, are locked on the upper force and are governed by it. Absolutely and decisively and the person needs only keep this form in mind and heart; that he is being guided to the point of open providence, open guidance. The person must exert in this.
4. S. (13:22) What is the difference between the person feeling himself dead spiritually or one not wanting anything else. He doesn’t want anything else because he's connected to spirituality or internality?
R. Being dead means that he does not want anything in life. He doesn't even want the corporeality. We have such states. When we are in this state when we do not care about anything, I prefer to die than to live. We are given this feeling. We are made to feel this state because all of spirituality is a feeling, our whole life is a feeling. It is when we feel that we are in a certain world that influences us. It is all feelings. There is nothing else. We are given the brain only to scrutinize our feelings and to try to manage it and govern it somehow. We need to try to constantly be aware of what state I am in. This is number 1. Number 2 is that this state came to me from the Creator. Number three, what the Creator wants me to do after giving me this feeling. He is already in this state, in my feelings because he is managing it. He is doing it. How should I respond to the extent that I understand that this is his intention in bringing me to the present state. Here I need to start to organize the environment, the study, all kinds of things as long as I respond correctly to the situation. That I feel I can turn to the Creator that seemingly this is the simplest, the closest and to organize the right connection, the right plea to the Creator. I may nevertheless need a group and understanding and deeper understanding so that my plea will be as powerful as possible. And will bring me to the new state. The Creator wants us to come in dialogue with him, in conversation with him, in mutual connection with him. “I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me.” I speak to him, he speaks to me and we build a connection to such an extent that the connection grows stronger and stronger to the point where I feel in this connection that we are truly very close to one another. To the point that sometimes I begin to discover that we are actually one. That there is no distance between the receiver and the giver and back from the giver to the receiver and from the receiver back to the giver.
5. S. (16:59) What is the difference, what is there in the eyes of divinity?
R. Bestowal. It is the quality of bestowal, that's it. In every place, bestowal is what I imagine is the desire of the other and towards that desire of the other, I work. All of the desires of the other, the sum total of them, is the desire of the Creator, which I should see in front of me because I come to a state that I relate to all of humanity in its entirety. Of course, there are terrible things here and there are crimes and criminals and so on. But in general, I want to do good to them. That they would be reformed, that they would be good. Meaning that all of them will be in bestowal, in connection. That's it. By this I bring everything back to the Creator.
6. S. (18:27) The person can only be in one situation, he cannot be in several states simultaneously and it turns out that our movement is when we move from one state to another.
How do I not stay stuck in the right line all the time because he wants to continue to receive pleasure for oneself. What obliges me to continue to move?
R. It is mainly the connection with the friends. The main thing is the connection with the friends and besides this, it is written that envy, lust and honor bring a person out from the world. Meaning if you want or yearn for greater things, you can't sit still and yet want to grow. Try to understand that you obtain greater things if you are in greater power of bestowal.
S. Let's say that the desire disappears and I cannot do anything with myself. I just want to sleep and sit and everything disappears.
R. I understand you. Only work in the group can shake a person because then I am more connected to others and I yearn for something. I do something, either company or death, as it is written. Only this type of work in society when we do something together when we move to each other. You can't take an organ from the body and revive it, sustain it. You have to connect it to all kinds of other organs and they will give to them and it to them and in this way by mutual giving this is called life. Life is connection, connection among parts. Not in each part individually but in the connection between them. This is why we have to come to, we have to disseminate, we have to do all kinds of work. We have to organize ourselves in congresses in order to feel the changes. This is the main thing that brings changes. When I take the society and begin to work with them and organize something then even if we forget if we are not so precise in our spiritual work nevertheless by this, we achieve great corrections. Even work in the 10 without much intention because initially we forget about the intention during the work. Nevertheless, it is more instrumental and more effective than just sitting and doing all kinds of intentions, and unifications.
7. S. (22:25) Do I understand correctly that this this rule love thy friend is yourself we can understand in depth and discover it is not just a commandment that is brought to us but it was the basic conditions to receive the Torah for the people of Israel and assures them their uniqueness and the closest to the Creator.
R. Yes, love your friend as yourself is a great rule of the Torah. Rule also means collective in Hebrew. It includes everything that a person has to do if you come to love of others, you correct yourself practically completely. After that you leap into loving the Creator because the Creator is revealed as the common force, the collective force that is in the society. This is why we go from the love of the people to the love of the Creator and not the other way around.
8. S. (24:17) Who is the bride that is being talked about and what are beautiful eyes?
R. The bride is the Shechina, divinity. Meaning the revelation of the Creator to the created beings. This is called the Shechina. Her eyes are how we check the revelation of the Creator to us. That this revelation is clear and beautiful and it is called that her eyes are beautiful.
9. S. (25:00) How to neutralize organs of negative influences and make room between as that is to discover love in every moment that is more sterile?
R. You can't do it at once. At each degree we try to clear the area between us from the ego and see the relationship between us with what is called beautiful eyes. This is how it is.
S. I feel that with every step forward we are more sensitive to external influences?
R. Bestowal from outside it is not so much. The main thing is that within us we have to increase our influence on each other and we have to understand that only through this mutual influence between us we can arise into a greater and greater connection between us and then in the center of connection between us we the reveal in the connection between us we reveal the upper force the Creator.
10. S. (26:28) What is the truth we have to reach?
R. What is the truth to which we need to reach? We have beautiful bestowal, absolute bestowal upon everyone and by this, in our bestowal upon everyone we y the discover a relation to the Creator to the from the love of people to the love of the creator and in the love of the Creator we will then discover how the Creator relate to us according to the law of equivalence of the form as we relate to him, he relates to us the same way and this is what we have to discover.
11. S. (27:43) If we really do not want bestowal, what does the person who is going to the path want?
R. We have nothing more than the way that through our connection we have to come to a state where we find in the connection between us the root of the connection between us which is the Creator. I search and search, how more and more, to connect to the friends and I discover in my search what I actually looked for supposedly I looked for the connection between us but what I really found is the connection with the Creator that he is between us.
12. S. (28:45) Why in our feelings it seems like we are bestowing but it is a lie and we are in the calculation that we are receiving for ourselves? Why is it built this way and how can we reach a state where in my mind we can feel the truth in our mind and heart?
R. It is true that we think we are bestowing upon each other and it is also true that it is a lie. On one hand but on the other hand, we have to accept it as such and play with this until we give sufficient quantity and quality of labor to really discover the truth. This is how it should be.
13. S. (29:45) Why is the holy Shechina hiding its face and under what conditions does she reveal herself?
R. The holy Shechina is the presence of the Creator between us. Meaning that place where the Creator reveals that the desire in which the Creator is revealed, this is called Shechina. It's a network of desires. It is hidden until we ourselves really try through our efforts to discover such connections, correct relations between us and the friends from which we build the Shechina Divinity.
Let's say we have 10 friends and we want to connect between us. All of us in this way and in that way, we build a network. A network of connections between us and this network, if it begins to operate mutually in all of the various connections between us, we call this network Shechina. Meaning from that place where we expect the Creator to be revealed. He is revealed as the Shochen, the dweller. The one that is present in the Shechina, divinity. When the Creator is revealed in the network of connections between us according to the equivalence of this network that we build, the relations we build are in equivalence with the Creator, He is one revealed as the Shochen but he is one and we are 10. When we build among the 10's such connections that these connections have the essence of one as well. Then it is called one receives one and this is how the Creator is revealed in the connection between us.
14. S. (31:41) Is that mutual connection with the Creator from a person in the ten or from the whole ten?
R. Through the ten from the perspective of the person to the extent that person gives to the 10 and also from the whole ten together both operate on the Creator. Because both are the power of bestowal from our perspective but there is a power of bestowal from one person even if it comes through the ten otherwise it would not be bestowal all together. There is the power of bestowal which already comes from the 10, this is already something very special which is certainly directed to the Creator and impels him.