Morning Lesson June 8, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam. Shamati 47. In the Place Where You Find His Greatness
1. Rav’s Introduction: Here Baal HaSulam explains to us, well Rabash writes it but in the words of Baal HaSulam, this is why this notebook is called “Shamati” I heard, so he's telling us how we can use correctly the fact that we elevate ourselves and lower ourselves, we are being elevated or being lowered. So how can we use these two opposite states? Usually we make a mistake in them, in the states of ascents and descents, both in terms of what is the reason for the ascents or descents, or what is precisely the definition of an assent or dissent, and how we can use them, in your order to advance both by this and by that, in a way that it remains constant, our advancement, towards the goal. So in the place where you find greatness of the Creator there you will also need to get to know his humbleness, meaning how humble He is, not great, but the opposite, and according to that you can invert your state from a descent to an ascent. This is how you will constantly be in a state where you'll actually determine that your ascent will be constant. That each and every time you will advance and grow with the discernments and also with greater steps, so that you will not err in the state where you are in despair, lacking any strength, that this is a state where you have nothing to do, and also in the state where you are in an ascent, in that too, you will actually know how to do use the ascent correctly, and it is not that this descent will throw you away, and you will feel yourself following some time, that indeed you are not in a ascent but in a descent, meaning, let's see how we extract all of these things from this little article. So article 47 in “Shamati”, In a place where you find His greatness, the greatness of the Creator.
Reading Shamati 47 (03:32) “In a place where you find his greatness there you find his humbleness...”
2. R. (06:29) Then he sees how much he is truly in lowliness, and he will ask for correction. Maybe we should read it again.
Shamati 47 (06:45) Twice
3. R. (07:47) The humbleness, the lowliness of the Creator.
Continues 47 (07:48)
4. R. (08:11) This means that we stop appreciating spirituality, the Creator, this means that He lowers the heavens to the earth.
Continues 47 (08:23)
5. S. (10:05) There are many questions here, completely unclear, what state then Baal HaSulam talks about here? First, what does it mean that one who is in Dvekut he sees that the Creator that he lowers himself how does it work together?
R. It is written, this is what is written in the sources, in the place where you find His greatness, the greatness of the Creator, there you’ll also find His humbleness, meaning His smallness, Katnut. It’s as if you are searching for Gadlut, greatness, and there you can actually find Katnut, smallness. This is how the Creator appears to you. It means that one who is always in true Dvekut adhesion, meaning that he’s yearning to adhere to the Creator, according to the forces of bestowal as he develops, he sees that the Creator lowers Himself, specifically, meaning that the Creator is present in the low places, and the person does not know what to do. This is why it is written who sits on high, who looks down on heaven and on earth. This means that the person sees the greatness of the Creator and then the lowliness of the Creator, who looks down, and he doesn’t know how to arrange these things, and the advice is to think that if this desire comes from the Creator, all of the desires in a person, and the thoughts, it all comes from Above, then we have nothing greater than that as it is written, the Creator shows the person that He, seemingly the Creator, is in lowliness, by this He gives a person the opportunity to start appreciating this state of loneliness, until it will be the highest state, and then the person has to work on himself in order to develop vessels of bestowal, such that what was great in his eyes previously will be small and what was small in his eyes will be great. I'm continuing to read. So this is called He raises the poor out of the litter. First one must see that he has a lack, if he does not have a lack for spirituality, for bestowal, for the adhesion with the Creator, coming close to the Creator, he should pray for it. That is the most important to put in as a prayer, as much as possible, in every possible state, one should pray. What if one does not have a deficiency? The reason one does not have a lack is due to the diminution of awareness, so he’s asking to have a greater awareness, to have a greater lack so that he will be able to pray. Hence in every Mitzva, commandment, one must pray. Why does he not have awareness, and that he's not keeping the Mitzva in wholeness. In other words, the will to receive covers it, covers the greatness of the Creator so that he will not see the truth. If he would see that he is in such a lowly state, that he could not raise himself, but rather he agrees just to sit like this, the way he is now, in this lowly state, with lack of knowledge, lack of feeling, just so the time will pass. Maybe time will make some change in him, then he would certainly not want to be in that state. If he is thinking about the truth, where he is, instead one should exert in one's work every time until he comes to repentance. What does it mean, repentance? As it is written “he brings down to the netherworld and raises up,” which means he starts to demand an ascent. This means that when the Creator wants the wicked one to repent, if the Creator thinks about the person this way and He wants to elevate him to arrange him, correct him, then He makes the netherworld so low for him, He gives him such a great descent, a descent that is, it’s not darkness, because a person cannot agree with darkness, so he wants to rise, but rather there's no strength, no desire, such apathy that one cannot imagine to himself that he can be in any other state besides this, until the wicked one himself does not want to be so. Hence one needs to pray pleadingly, that the Creator will show him the truth. By what? By adding to him the light of the Torah. From the light of the Torah the person can feel himself as worse because this is truly his situation, but out of seeing himself as worse he will want to rise, and he will ask the Creator to elevate him.
S. So in such states where your brain is fog, foggy and you don’t understand anything, it says here to ask. What do you ask? That the Mitzvot will be in wholeness, then he talks about asking for the light of the Torah, what exactly?
R. Ask, go ahead, and ask, there is no problem. You have to constantly be in the stage where you are asking. Don't stop. Like a baby, like a little child, you see all the time nagging and nagging, all the time demanding, all the time not giving you any rest. Like this. This is how we need to be toward the Creator. By this you're giving him the contentment. This is the only action on your side that can change your situation, so go ahead.
S. So I'm asking what, that He would show His greatness, that He will give a lack? What to ask for?
R. You want to see Him as great, because the state that you are in, in the loneliness, you see that the Creator's lowly. You see that you are not being drawn to it, you can remain like this in such slumber, all the time your whole life, until life will end, maybe the last time life will be better, this is what you think. So, in that state you nevertheless must awaken yourself and demand and ask, and here the most important is the society. Certainly that if a person is such a state he cannot come out of it, cannot, but in society you nevertheless have all kinds of organizations, schedules, you have the Yeshivat Haverim, we study together in the morning lesson, we do other things, and so by these things you begin to change.
6. S. (18:39) Sooner or later a person will notice that there's such a fork in the road that he was in a lowly state and then he comes back to a good state and vice versa, or that each time he falls and lies to himself that he feels it as a new state.
R. So if the person doesn’t do anything, who knows when he will awaken because nevertheless he exists inside of the system of Adam HaRishon, inside of his ten, inside of his life, his corporeal life which also changes and they don’t give him rest, and so bit by bit he awakens, but this awakening is an awakening which is not according to the method of Kabbalah, it is according to the corporeal world, and if we want to awaken faster and in a more practical spiritual manner, then we have to do what Baal HaSulam writes. That all of the time we have to organize ourselves in a prayer in the ten where we turn to the Creator where we ask, and we demand of Him. That’s it. In each and every state pray, turn to the Creator, turn either with request or with gratitude.
7. S. (20:26) From the, He raises the poor out of the litter, but being poor is the most sublime state, you feel that you have a lack.
R. He raises the poor out of the litter means that the person, yes he feels himself that he is in lowliness, in poverty, he has no powers, and then he cries out, yes. Maybe you asked correctly.
8. S. (21:08) These two extreme states where we’re in darkness, where have pitiful thoughts and feelings and they cannot seem to come out of this, and the opposite of that being this elevated state of where everything is light as a feather, but when in this lower state it’s like nothing can come bring me out. I have no feeling and no connection. You talked about, a little bit before we got to this article, how you can sort of be in a constant ascent, would that just be with the strength of the environment? I think you answered my question, where everything turns to a prayer, but what is this better method where we more, rise more constantly? How do we get out of that pit?
R. We need to constantly adhere to the ten and all of the time we need to ask, from the Creator, that He will take care of us. That we want to be together, as one man, and all of the time this one man, that we build between us, will advance more and more towards the Creator. That’s it. This is the necessary and important action and the constant action.
9. S. (22:40) You said to pray like a child who is nagging that keeps nagging until he receives. Until when do we continue because we don’t get a response?
R. All the time.
S. But how to know that I got what I wanted because usually the Creator doesn’t give you what you want.
R. Ask all the time.
10. S. (23:09) What does it mean to do the commandant in wholeness?
R. To do the commandant in wholeness, in full? To do the Mitzva in wholeness is that you ask with all your heart of the Creator that he will correct you, so you will give Him contentment.
11. S. (23:47) When you wrote that one should think that everything should come from the Creator, in the lowly states where a person is detached from spirituality, when he is bothered and he's able to remember that the Creator orchestrated it, why in that moment the feeling doesn’t change? He knows it but the feeling stays of disconnection?
R. So it will not be a reward, so that he will remain with these deficiencies and advance more and more.
12. R. (24:26) I recommend to you to go over this article again, during the day, and we're going to move on.