Morning Lesson February 21, 2024

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

Part 1:

Rabash. Article No. 12, 1987. What Is Half a Shekel in the Work - 1 (from the beginning TO: and not satisfying his wish.)

1. R.(28:40) Anyone want to ask something? Basically, Rabash insured everything for us.

2. S. (29:05) It's written that it's forbidden to come with a deficiency but that a prayer is not a deficiency?

R. It depends what prayer you don't have just any deficiencies in a prayer but only those that are either about the greatness of the king or the person who wants to achieve the greatness of the king.

3. S. (29:50) With what clothes should I approach the king? It's says that I cannot come with the sackcloth and I should be happy with my part with everything that I received so with what clothes do I need to approach the king?

R. According (blip in video)... fit for the king.

S. Should I come happily? Should I come with white and with good clothes? That's how I want to see and how I am coming to the king each day. I need to see that he is happy with my part.

R. Correct. This also depends on the king to the extent to which he shows you who he is.

S. I want to share with you, I got up this morning like I get up every morning, I went to sleep quite late and I was  driving too late and then I felt I asked myself what does it mean to feel the friend and I had this question on the way, physical, virtual, physical, virtual, it doesn't really matter I feel the friends and the heart I got up with this feeling that my friends are with me in the heart and that's what's important to me.

R. Yes.

S. I want to get up with that feeling each day, not just this morning but that my friends are with me in my heart so if I get up with this feeling of the friends with me in the heart Is that a clothing through which I give contentment to the Creator? Is that the correct clothing?

R. Of course, the question is if I do so that tomorrow you'll receive such a garment.

S. Exactly.

R. This you have to prepare in advance?

4. S. (32:08) It is written in the article that those prayers that a person himself says that is written on a person's heart, so we just need to correct the heart? In order to pray correctly?

R. Yes, yes.

S. What corrects the heart?

R. Prayer.

S. What's first? If a prayer needs to be complete?

R. There's a unique state in the heart and a person has a feeling of what state he would like to achieve and then he prays from the state he's in now to that he wishes to have.

S. It feels as if there's a spontaneous prayer from the heart where you feel that you are turning correctly and then there are prayers of creating such a state? Meaning, that there are mechanical prayers but we also need them right?

R. No.  

S. What do we do with all the prayers?

R. That you always see yourself aimed at the purpose of creation in order to reach it you have to make such and such steps forward and you pray for these steps.

5. S. (33:47) He writes that those prayers that a person himself says that's written on a person's heart meaning that the person requests not as written in the Siddur but what is written on his heart?

R. Yes.

S. Now you gave an example of Rabash where you went through a state and Rabash asked you, why didn't you ask. Now I'm finding myself during the day going through many states and then after the state finishes then I remember that I didn't ask, that I had an opportunity to ask and I didn't. This request is just something that it's not serious so why is that the case?

R. You have a small deficiency.

S. But afterward I really feel that I missed this opportunity that I was in the state and I could have requested.

R. That's in order to teach you for next time.

S. Then for the next round you forget that state so what should you do?

R. You don't forget no because it all accumulates and then you form the right request.

S. Is there any advice or anything on how to request in the correct time, how to create that request?

R. If we knew how to put our requests together we would already succeed.

S. According to what is written the request is simple because the heart is in a certain state and then you simply turn with that to the Creator?

R. Yes.

S. There are states where you remember that and then when you do remember that it is a joyous occasion that you can do that but the question is how can you restrict those states where you do not remember them?

R. Connect them together. Yes.

6. S. (36:17) My heart is filled with all kinds of desires all the time, all kinds of corporeal things sometimes not corporeal, is that called a prayer?

R. No. That's just a confusion of the heart. The heart is man's desire, so you want to say that you have many different desires and you're not clear on what to do with them.

S. Nice, so continuing what Rabash wrote in the article, what turns this confused desire as you said to a prayer?

R. That you think of the desire that you scrutinize it, you see what parts it is included from, where is it drawn and what do you want to do with it in accordance with the desire of the prayer and is this desire of the prayer the same desire you'd like to have or not so much and so forth. Then you turn to the Creator to correct your desire that He will give you such a force in your desire that you can really cry to Him, ask Him and He will help you realize it.

S. Meaning there are two stages here there's a stage of feeling which could be corrupted confused not connected to anything as you said, and is the process of this mental scrutiny where does it calculates upon his desire asking why I want these things and maybe it should worthwhile that I choose things that are more connected to the direction towards the goal and then what?

R. Well then not right away but then he turns to the Creator that he wants a different desire that will be aimed differently at the Creator to a different goal.

S. Meaning that the beginning is to reach the correct deficiency that I would want to reach the king to speak with Him to be in connection with Him that is the place that is lacking? One of the things that I saw is that when there is no connection with the friends in the system of the Ten then my desires certainly are completely confused and they completely disconnected from the path and whenever we somewhat engage in connection between us as you always say that somehow that directs towards the goal. Can you explain how that works to where I think about these friends and this work suddenly directs me to the Creator how that works that thing?

R. That's where it comes from and then you feel the root.

7. S. (39:46) I heard that you told the friend that the person needs to scrutinize his desire? How does a person scrutinize his own desire?

R. He hears the heart.

S. Yes, but how can I scrutinize my own desire? I feel that I have this, it's like a dog chasing his own tail, and I always end up in that same result within myself.

R. You have several desires more external, more internal you want to detect the innermost desire, what does my heart wish?

S. What do I see there?

R. The heart, you ask the heart.

S. With that same material I reach the same result each time I progress and I see that I'm in that same state in that same illusion?

R. So ask the Creator. Ask him what do I want? He'll give you an answer.

8. S. (41:13) Those correction it's written when there's vitality, when there's life we can correct it and then when there isn't we cannot correct it. What does he mean by that the correction is done through some kind of vitality? What is that correction?

R. The correction happens in man's desire that a person at first let's say wanted something specific and then after the prayers and the plea this desire is changing.

S. Because during the work I really want to sleep. You need a lot of forces to reach that correction to request so that you do not come with sackcloths to the king's gate but you come with this inner pain?

R. So you come, you sit down, you drink a cup of coffee, you get ready until you enter the lesson. Then in the lesson too, until you organize your desire, your thoughts, your feelings to the right direction it takes time. Only once you're in the right direction, then you give strength to it and you understand what's important to you now, what needs to be important.

S. It's very hard doing that alone. Do you need the society with you?

R. So you come to the society you're already here you're sitting down here and now you're getting close to the society.

S. The preparation is more important than the lesson itself then?

R. The lesson itself is already a result of how you've prepared yourself this way.

9. S. (43:39) He writes that a person needs to be happy and that he speaks with the Creator and that that is called, right line and then he says, for that he has three partners, the father, the mother, the Creator, it seems. How can a person hold on to the right line as the father when there's a few degrees above him? Meaning, then maybe not in the best situation he can be in connection with this upper one but the right line is the upper upper one how can a person be awarded with that to hold on to that right line?

R. The upper line, lower I don't understand these things. I know about right, left and middle.

S. What are the three partners and how can they help, to help in holding on to the right line?

R. They hold the person and position him, posture him correctly toward the Creator.

S. Which is the right line?

R. No, It's all of them.

S. But on his behalf even holding on to the right line is wholeness?

R. That's not wholeness. It's not yet wholeness the way he sees it's correct that this is the right line and it's all correct and good but that's without taking the left line into account.

10. S. (45:30) He writes here that if a person is at the kings gate that if the person looks at himself and wants to see if he's okay, that if he is has transgressed to the king's commandment then he cannot look at the face of the king it's forbidden to come into the king?

R. Why what king?

S. Why Is the king degraded if a person comes?

R. With respect to the king, how?

S. That he sees that he cannot hold on to the king's Mitzvah?

R. Are we talking about man or are we talking about the King?

S. A person checks himself so why is it if he checks himself he degrades the king?

R. I have such an answer that in doing that he thinks about himself. What state he's in with respect to the king and that he is concerned about himself.

S. It's also in the article that 'come to Pharaoh 2' that we've read a few times where the person comes to the building with two levels and before that he needs to make sure he first goes before reaching the second now it's the opposite where if he transgresses the Mitzvah of the King so then he degrades the king it sounds the opposite.

R. I didn't understand.

S. In the article to 'come to Pharaoh 2', he needs to learn the manners of the king before he comes to the king where is here it's the opposite as if but if a person checks himself that it's not transgressing the king's Mitzvah so that may through that the king becomes degraded so it's not understood.

R. No, you said it incorrectly. When is he?

S. If a person looks at himself to see if he is ok, meaning if he's not transgressing the king's commandment then through the sack the king is degraded. He continues.

R. Why is this a blemish on the king when a person checks himself?

S. I'll continue reading. 'why by him seeing that there are people of whom he is one, who do not recognize the greatness of the king and they do not want to take upon themselves the king's authority. On the contrary, they have the power to say that they do not recognize the king's kingship'.  Why if a person looks at himself that if he's not transgressing the king's commandment then through this act the king is degraded? It seems the opposite. It seems as if he is relating to the king in the correct way?

R. No. If he doesn't see to the importance of the greatness of the king in the world this means he's not even in that, he's not moving towards getting closer to the king.

11. S. (49:11) Rabash speaks here he gives an example of a person who has an importance of corporeality and he's running after that and he's getting pleasures from it. I want to ask about a person that comes to the path he lives in corporeality and the Creator awakens him to seek him and he comes here and the person is happy and believes that the Creator spoke to him through the heart and is happy that he has brought here. Then from the nature of things we know that the Creator takes that importance away so that the person builds it by himself, but the person is used to being joyful and that the Creator is in his heart and if now the Creator gives him this thing that he has no importance and turn to corporeality so that naturally he goes back to what I always did his life. Here he needs to transfer over to faith in the sages and not to rely on what's in his heart directly but to build now a system through what the sages tell him and not what the heart tells him and that gap I feel it takes a lot of time and it's involved with a lot of faults because a person is used to listening to his own heart. How, can we now help a person acquire this understanding that he needs to hold faith in the sages and not listen to what awakens in his heart?

R. The simple calculation is the friends. If he adheres to them then it is certain that he incorporates that he detaches from himself and is moving towards the Creator because the Creator is always at the center of the society.

S. The love of friends, the connection with friends that's already faith in the sages. A person naturally is not drawn to that?

R. What do you mean it is faith in the sages?

S. Meaning that it's something that the sages teach us to do?

R. He has to build it.

S. Yes, but his heart is not used to doing that and he has different things in his heart. That gap between the stage where he listens to his heart and that in which he needs to build with a Ten. Meaning, as if overcoming what is in the heart through that in which he believes in the sages who tell him to work with the Ten. It takes a long time until that enters the mind and heart of a person, that gap. I'm speaking about the person and the Creator. I'm saying in the beginning a person is used to hearing his heart and then the Creator brings him to the correct place and then if the Creator takes the way that importance from him, then he just runs away with what the heart tells him and we learn that we don't need to do that but the person within himself does it pay attention to that is drawn after his heart so I'm asking about that time, the gap between when he first comes and he's used to following his own heart and to reach that stage where he works according to what the sage is telling? I know that that takes a long time and I'm asking how do we shorten that?

R. That's if a person is on his own but if he's inside the society.

S. There is the influence of the society but it already starts being a battle between what the person is used to and what the society influences him with between the person and the society and there are these kinds of relationships?

R. Yes.

S. You can say that the society is very weak in order to hold the person and there's a lot of you could say, time that gets wasted or feeling it's a pity when this time just got lost until the

friend really takes hold, and listens to the society, and receives those forces from it and doesn't escape for months or he's just closed in himself for a long period of time.

R. If a person's inside the society and the society influences him then there's no problem for him to subdue himself to the society. There's no problem, the society can turn him in any direction it decides.

S. How does the society strengthen itself toward the friend so that it will influence him more?

R. By them connecting together.

S. Meaning whoever is there needs to strengthen the connection and that will influence others?

R. Yes.

12. S. (54:53  I want to ask about this phenomenon that he speaks about here called sleep. He says when a person speaks that he has wholeness, that gives him life all the time. He's always in work but when he's detached then he doesn't even want to finish his corporal life either. He either wants to end his corporeal life or he wishes to sleep and he would be happy to take a sleeping pill to sleep for months. I want to ask about our attitude toward that phenomenon. We heard from Rav many times that a person could come here and sleep the whole lesson and that's fine. The main thing is that he comes and you give an example of someone who is in your classes with Rabash who would just come and sleep all the time and he was very respected but we also see here that sleeping is detachment.

R. It is of course but instead of being separated at home, he is separated here.

S. Okay that's clear, it's here rather than attachment at home and if it does happen here is that a bad sign should he battle with it?

R. No, no we should battle with it. Typically we should try to struggle with it. There are some states of course when you let a person go through a period for a while.

S. If it's not just a period and it's all the time, does that show some kind of flaw in the attitude of the friends?

R. No, this is not already about someone who's doing it as part of disrespecting the others disregarding the connection with them, no no. Here, it's, I don't really see such examples here.

S. In short, not to?

R. There aren't such examples really that are ill.

S. I'm not speaking about it I'm just saying that a person comes in most of the lesson he's sleeping. Either here or it might even be at home.

R. Better to do it here then he'll come and sleep.

S. That's clear that it's better to do it here. It says that if life is too constantly alert and awake and death is this desire to sleep all the time or even a person who's waiting to go to sleep after the lesson that's also no good.

R. I don't have anything to say, there's nothing to say you need to help the friend struggle. You need to struggle. He just can't activate his mind to follow the thoughts that travel the society.

S. It's a matter of the Ten?

R. Yes, yes. it's a matter of the Ten. But there are people who it's just if they sit they fall asleep just like being in bed literally there are some people like that but we have to see and then typically these kind of people are given some sort of thing to engage with for now.

13. S. (59:04) After the better of the sleep that the friend scrutinized to see the friends sleep in the work you go in the right line who can go in the right line of wholeness without any deficiency in mind and heart. I want to ask that sometimes I'm feeling that I'm this dead person who's praying and you said many times that it's good but there is this kind of gap here, this flaw here?

R. Of course.

S. I want to scrutinize what does it mean every request making in the right that first we organize the right?

R. To praise, to praise the Creator and move towards the Creator and keep going this way all the time. Meaning, to always see that you are in an attack.

S. Let's say that I make a stop for a moment and I want to check and see what happened and I feel deficiencies and he says here meaning your deficiencies make sure there is None Else Besides Him and to be adhered to Him and then maybe through the friends and then you can turn to Him?

R. Then you'll start to turn to them based on disturbances that you begin to reveal.

S. That's a basis into the work that we need to hold on to?

R. The foundation is the connection. To be in contact in connection with them. 

14. S. (01:00:54) Is the organization of the prayer that Rabash says its role is to bring us from from a self prayer to a prayer of the many?

R. Yes.

S. I want to talk about something. Do you agree?

R. No.