Morning Lesson September 10, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2:
Connecting the World in the Last Generation - Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #15
1 Focus Group: (00:28) After two-and-a-half years that we've been sitting alone at home, behind the screens, so from next week we're going to start sitting together with the Rav and all the friends in Israel in our Hall and in our home. And it seems we are going to keep doing it on the daily basis throughout all the holidays, many friends who heard this news were inspired and excited, we feel this excitement in the air and we want to ask: how do you see this opportunity we get to come back and be together in one place?
R. We are following the instructions of the Ministry of Health so when the COVID started we went into isolation because we had several attempts not to watch over ourselves and we were seriously hurt by the flu virus and other such things. And therefore we were very careful with our audience because hundreds and hundreds of friends would come to our Center, and friends and children, so it was very it was dangerous.
So the moments the virus appeared we decided that we have to move into isolation, meaning not allow our friends to come here, much less with children etc.. This period Is probably ending for now according to what the doctors say and the Ministry of Health so we can now reopen the doors of our Center to all of our friends from Israel and overseas, usually many people would come over here. That is what I can say, everything else depends on you; if there is an okay from the Ministry of Health and an okay from your management then operate these things the way you think you can operate. As according to what you want to what you can do, it is all according to your desire, I agree to anything you decide.
FG: How do you see this opportunity we got to come and be together in one place?
R. I look at it from two sides: on the one hand, people who went through those three years, I think it is nearly three years, right? Two and a half, so people got used to sit at home before the computer and to participate as if they are together in one company. And it’s as if it's not missing, on the one hand; on the other hand, some say they really miss not feeling the friends physically and there are those who say if there is no physical meeting then why should we even ive in Petah Tikva close to our Center, we can move anywhere in Israel and overseas and from there be connected to you, and that too is correct on their part from their perspective. And some say if there's no coming here meaning holidays and services, and prayers and activities for the children, etc. then we will look for another place where there is such a life because this is more important to us.
So because of all these things, we need to see that we should resume some sort of a community life, some sort of a framework and you need to determine this framework and organize it so it will not seem like we are rejecting our friends who are overseas and we want to bring those who are in the country closer. Decide however you want to do it, we have the holidays approaching, we needs to learn many things about these holidays because they are a spiritual holidays, as we always learned that all the holidays, all the activities we do are spiritual activities, spiritual actions which have a corporeal projection. So we have to decide if we do them or if we don't do them, accordingly is the number of the participants, are rebuilding Sukkah or not. Are we having meals or not, common, community meals or not? Are we doing prayers or customs of the Sukkot, etc, we have to study these things and know to what extent it is important for us to do them. I don't want it to be against our will but that we will understand that it has to do with a spiritual ascension the more we add to it our intentions.
FG: There are friends that got used to sitting at home and living a virtual life.
R. I understand them, I understand them certainly, and?
FG: What would you answer so then we have a lot of messages from friends that don't really want to come physically?
R. Of course it is convenience, he gets out of bed, puts on sleepers, comes to the screen, to the monitor, he sits before us and it is convenient. Also people are getting older, lazier, I agree with them, I agree. The only question is other people for whom it is important as we hear, specifically to be in connection with others, and then they will come here and participate together and perhaps, also afterwards they will have this breakfast. I don't know, however you want, it all depends on you. But don't tell me afterwards that you don't have a Minyan, people for the prayers, no connection, no activities for women and children. I'm saying the building is yours, I'm not limiting you in anything, so be men ready to organize and fix everything.
FG: I have friends that are asking: is it a decision that the whole ten has to come as one physically to the center or each side can decide on their own if someone to stay virtually, physical?
R. I cannot say, let's first of all see a list of friends who are in groups and how many want to come here for the morning lesson everyday from each group. And, or, if they don't want to come every day, they want to come only on Friday for example, or the weekends, and the rest of the times they want to watch from home because then it is more convenient for them to get to work, etc.
FG: One of the nice things that happened during this time of the Corona, this two and a half years, is that we all felt in the virtual realm as equal. So how to keep this equality that was attained?
R. I think that what’s important, for some people, I'm talking about those who are in Israel, for some people it is important come to the prayer, to the service, so if that's the case then they should come to the morning lesson at the Center and then stay for the prayer. And this is what they will get, we have to two places, two spaces with the Torah book and all equipment that is required, the pedestal and the Torah book and everything, so they can reactivate it. If they come this is what will be.
FG: I’m sure all the conditions and customs people take care of it, I know it is taken care of. but how to keep this feeling of equality between the World Kli, the Israeli Kli, the people that come physically, the people that come virtually, how to create this feeling that everybody is in one area? It doesn't matter if people are here physically with the Rav or people are in the Arvut system. How did people create this?
R. I think we will organize it and it will not be difference, as it's written in the wisdom of Kabbalah, “those who our farther are closer”, that’s the principal.
2. S. (12:17) There is a big excitement from this opportunity, an invitation, so we don't know how long we can do this because there won't be a meeting in February and now there's the holidays were always like a Congress of the month, what is our purpose, what is the blow of love of friends, of giving contentment to the Creator that we can attain in this month?
R. I think there is time now and an opportunity for us to connect more and for this connection to help us. It is nevertheless a time of holidays, a time of connection, we should decide if we're building a Sukkah or not and there's the desire to build a big one and have several meals there for men, for women, for children, for guests also who want to come from overseas. So I am in favor, I am, if again I'm with the Ministry of Health, if the Ministry of Health permits then moreover, we can celebrate everything as much as possible.
S. It's hard to imagine this jump that from next week, every day we will be in the hall, with all the holidays, now it’s Sukkah, meals, kids. Suddenly from zero to one hundred in this week, how to digest this, this change that we can take this in our hands, how can we do it?
R. Look, you to try to get organized this way or that way and see to what extent it is helpful or harmful, what states he needs to overcome. It is just giving us a few exercises, we may have to relinquish comforts but if we become more impressed with each other when we sit together physically or not. When I see you there on the tiny portion of my screen, that is one impression, but if I see you in front of me in your fullest form it is a different impression, you cannot help. It this is how we people are impressed for now so let's activate our full capacity to activate to impress the friends as much as possible.
S. Last question, you said to activate the friends, who can do this? It depends on each and every one or?
R. Yes, of course each and everyone, when I come to the lesson, I have two goals at least, which should be everyone's goals: I need to connect to the Creator, in order to be connected to the Creator I need to be connected to the friends; in order to connect to the friends I have to influence them and they have to influence me and then all of us together coming to this pot where we all get cooked.
S. And the excitement, how can I pass on to everyone? The excitement for the opportunity we have now, how can we stick to each other, that we all get it?
R. We will begin and see how it influences others.
3. S. (16:51) I'm getting very enthusiastic and the friend also because there is Sukkot, the holiday’s coming. And I truly remember together with the friends, we were building Sukkot on the roof and it was really great, it was not about building this physical Sukkah but the spiritual one, it's really amazing together, feeling of connection that we had. We have no plans in Holland on because we cannot be directly physical but I would very much like to be there because now this opening may be there to come to Israel, this is very great if something like that would happen.
But we can also build, let's say, a spiritual Sukkot, or a Sukkah in the Netherlands together with our friends and see if together we can make this Minyan under the Sukkah here in Holland. I don’t mean a physical Sukkah but I mean a spiritual one, do have advices for us what to do, should we come to Israel or should we build one in Holland to connect to the whole world and we do this everywhere in the world, we build the Sukkah locally?
R. Without building the Sukkah everywhere, we will learn what the Sukkah means and how we can put that . . ., the sash, the mutual screen above us that can connect us with the Creator, that is the whole matter of Sukkot, to build that screen above us that connects us to the Creator. We will learn about it and we will try to do it, and to build it physically you don't need to.
S. Is a good let say to stay in Holland and to do that with the friends here or come to Israel together?
R. I also don't think it's essential because, all in all, you will be together with us in meals and in all kinds of events, it's not so much. The Sukkah is we are putting together the . . . . , the sash, the screen above us that we want to build between us and the Creator. So we will try all of us together to implement it no matter where each one is, and together we will all feel this bestowal up on us all. So that's why you can stay there and that's how we will do it, still I think that because of our communication through the internet, even that they were speaking about coming back to connection physically, it’s already clear to us that this opportunity that we got the Corona, it changed our priorities and it showed us how we can be connected through the communication lines, that it doesn't depend on a physical distance but on the heartful distance between the hearts, between the thoughts. That is why it is good if we keep connecting like this in a, you can say virtually, I don't want to, spiritual.
4. S. (21:02) Concerning this direction of physical, what does it mean for the existing tens if there is a group of friends who live in the same city, if they want to, is it recommended that they will get together, say in New York, Santiago, Guadalajara?
R. If they can, it's good, if they can it’s good at least if they can have one or two meetings throughout these holidays, that is good. Because even though spirituality is above time and space, still these times when we all try to do something, there is also like an increasing of the upper force in bestowing upon us. That's why it's worth at least having a meal, connection between you in such big places like New York and Guadalajara and so on.
S. So if that's the case, then the tens for now are continuing as they were?
R. We're not in the tens apart, where did you hear that we are taking the tens apart? We're just saying that during the holidays, when we have meals you can join us to those meals, that's it. Don't take the tens apart, don't take the tens apart, no, no.
5. S. (23:27) Previously there were several physical groups around the world and we closed all the centers and went into the virtual world. For example, in countries where the Ministry of Health also permits to get together is it recommended to reopen the centers?
R. I don't know and I'm not sure that the Corona has left us, here and there, there are signs that it might come back that's why I can say I wouldn't cancel everything we built now and in this way we will keep going and we will see. We will see after the winter as much as it will affect us to come back or not. There are all kinds of, I don't know who to believe, all kinds of things are written down, who knows who it is worth it for. For now, I don't have any opinion on what to do onward.
6. S. (25:08) You said now that we are moving to a stage where we will be able to acquire the common screen and there is a very strong feeling of fear, inner resistance to this. Can you share with us from your experience, maybe, how to overcome this?
R. If a person doesn't want to change the state, especially the state where he is right now because as it seems to him that he is in control of his state and now here he has to annul his control and be really as if he's in the hands of the friends and in the hands of the Creator. It is actually a form of annulment, of restriction that we need to go through and it is very unpleasant for our ego and we will still need to, in a gradual way, to go through it in a way that will give examples to one another, and in this way it will happen.
S. I like to make a precision: roughly the friends can save me, can lift me out of these restrictions?
R. If you annul towards the friends in this way each one helps the other, if he gives a friend an opportunity to help him and annuls him towards the friend.
7. S. (27:21) Over the past two and a half years, we've been trying to behave differently then during the twenty years before that. People divided generally into two kinds: some people are aching to be together physically, aching to feel the friend, to hug him; and some people it disrupts them, it disturbs them, this physicalness. And any attempt to mix the tens really disturbs these people, I spoke to several people in the ten and outside of the ten so mixing the tens, it was clear that it would not work. I'm not talking about the holidays, I'm talking about in general about returning to regular physical meetings. So the feelings, let's say I’ll talk about me, I feel the physical meetings do not contribute to what we have achieved two and a half years, we have achieved and ability to connect above the body so why do we need to return to it?
R. First of all, there is the matter of the Minyan, there’s a matter of Minyan, there are people that are missing it, that they used to it and they don't really feel pleasant in doing it at home. They want to come somewhere and do it together, and why not if we have such an opportunity? So they can first of all, make a list, the sign up in what days I'm willing to come to a morning prayer, maybe not only morning prayer, maybe the evening too. Anyway as much as you want, the center will be opened and everything will take care, will happen according to where you want.
S. I'm asking about the other half, the ones that don't miss it? That the virtual connection answers all the problems, gives them a sense of connection that is much greater?
R. So please send a list, make a list of those who still want to have studies together physically in the center or we can keep doing this virtually from everywhere, from the places where we are. Please make list and we will see what to do, also along with this make a list towards women and children as much as they are interested that the center will take place and in which way and to what activities. So here, please do it, be man, what's up? And see how you will make this work, I'm sorry it stings.
8. S. (31:26) I wanted to ask concerning the holidays, whether it's virtual or physical, students from outside of Israel, to what extent is it important for us to study, participate together and use those holidays the way Kabbalists taught us to connect among us and together with the Creator?
R. These holidays are not like in any other Society because these holidays are, it is a copy of spiritual forces that appear in this world. They are signs that are in our world and in order to perform an action like in the spiritual world, that is the matter of the holidays. It all started that they discovered after the shattering of the vessel of Adam HaRishon, all these matters so they started how to keep it in corporeality and spirituality, these things.
That’s why these actions started, corporeal and spiritual, and then gradually through the thousands of years this is the way people started behaving, that’s it. But actually nobody has to perform it, everybody's free of it only there is the matter of us also making like a copy of it. Let's say instead of a building a screen above us that by it we connect to the Creator, so there is the matter of a week of the year we sit under that . . . . , that sash that we build the Sukkah from branches, trees and we sit under the Sukkah, that’s it. And other things we will speak about it, we will learn it, there is nothing here that you have to actually do but it's interesting to know about it because it is branches from the upper roots, that’s it.
9. S. (34:31) I wanted to share with all the friends that the Fridays when you legitimized virtual and physical was hurtful for connection because when a friend can follow his mood and I’ll stay home with my computer and won’t make an effort to come physically and meet with the friends. So you see that not only the friends come physically or virtually so we’re in neither place, we have to decide whether we go physically or virtually because it's hard to split it, divide it, it hurts, at least I feel, that it hurts the connection in the ten.
R. Good, so do it, awaken everybody, you want me to be like your kindergarten teacher? I give a lesson the lesson, you want to gather, you want to do the lesson together physically? Please, everything is prepared, after the lesson, you want to have a meal, how do we call it? Hummus Meal, so it, that's it, I will participate happily, I hope that in the next few days, I'm also going to be with you in the morning lesson in the same area.
S. I'm only saying if we decide to go physically then we have to think, maybe we should stop virtually and see how it works physically?
R. No, no, no, I'm not like you, I’m not like you that I stop something and that’s it, I don’t have such states. I don't a big righteous man that you determine how it's supposed to be, that is not the way it works. Don’t ever say such things, that according to your thought, according to your desire, we’ll do such things.
10. S. (36:58) In Italy and I think all over the world, when we organize physical events we always have to push the friends to participate. In the beginning we locate the friends and then we get organized as a group, we started pushing and then more and more friends come to the event. The question is what should be the balance between pushing the friends and respecting their desires not to come or to come?
R. I don't know, I do not know, you have to know, you have to feel the friends as much as you can work and in what way in order to draw them into mutual physical action.
11. S. (38:06) I wanted to ask about the upcoming time, the period of the holidays that we are facing. One of the powerful things that we have acquired as a World Kli during the COVID period was you could see us as one vessel, up, taking steps together day after day. I wanted to say in regards to the whole World Kli, how do we take this period, this opportunity that we have before us and realize it implemented?
R. I hope that together we are not separating, not even for a day, and we are going to keep the connection between us and each one should direct his heart to absorb all the friends and in this way we can build all the Kli. By each one including everyone else and then by that each one can be a spiritual vessel because none of us is a spiritual vessel just as much as he can absorb, incorporate the others by that he will already be a vessel for the upper light.
S. You always tell us when you were with Rabash, on Sukkot there is always an opportunity for an attract, so what is exactly that attack that we can now do in order to become the vessel that has the Creator in it?
R. Just attacking to connection, no more than that. You need to bring us excerpts, nicer ones, closer to the heart and according to that we will advance.
S. Clear we will bring proper materials on everything, but again it feels like there is a like a time of good will now, just like ARI when he asked his students to come to Jerusalem, something great is ahead us so that's what I'm asking: how can each of us be the most effective, the most instrumental in this movement we are going into?
R. I don't know what to say, each one has to search in his heart what else he can add in order to awaken the sensitivity towards the others in order to feel them, that they are in his heart.
Because that is the correction, the correction that each one will include the desires of the world in him, this way he becomes Adam, man that is similar to the Creator, to the extent that he can include the hearts of the others in him. So let's try to be persistent in this and demand from our deficiencies, from our desires, from our longing that we will all enter the heart and so the hearts and to the extent that they enter the heart they will start feeling the Creator that is working in them. That is called that between a person and the Creator is the friends, that if the friend enters the heart so also the Creator enters the heart and not otherwise.
S. So on what does the ability for the heart to be more sensitive and open, on what does it depend?
R. What does it depend on? As much as the person pays attention to it, as much as he tries to be in the tendency towards everyone. I'm looking at all of you now, I see that you are actually ready for a serious spiritual action, I would say that it is very strong. That according to that, you will feel the true world that we exist in but just it is hidden from us, we just have to open the approach to it and it will be revealed. It's like opening an extra screen on the computer, that is how we have to do it.
12. S. (43:59) It will still point to geographical or economic friends that this move, some friends it will be easy for them to come, some friends will be further, some friends will not have the financial means to come, so it does create a certain problem?
R. I see it a lot easier, whomever can come, comes, whoever can’t, can’t. It doesn’t matter because ach one has an ability to be connected virtually, and that connection completely fills us today without any differences. And the Creator, it's not for nothing that you did this exercise to us, that we got used to a virtual connection and we see it as a true opportunity to be connected.
S. It may require we get reorganized in tens?
R. You don’t need anything, everything will come.
S. But if I sit in a room with a ten and there aren’t enough friends to ask questions or something like that because there's a certain procedure that is happening right now?
R. So you have people to turn to, please do it and organize it, I don't belong to this. If you have ideas how to organize better so, I will leave it up to you. I don't recommend to do this in haste.
13. S. (46:23) The women are very happy and excited toward the physical meetings and the meals and are asking: how should we come to the physical meetings on a new level of connection and intention, how do I prepare for it and how do we support it?
R. Try and be in connection already throughout the day, here and there, connect and incorporate and participate in all kinds of connections and groups. I have nothing else to say, I see much greater willingness from the women than there was before.
14. S. (47:15) Should we do physical meetings in faraway places or overseas?
R. No, no, I don't think it's a must, only lately I see that there are people who are saying that they have a need to gather physically for Minyan or a lesson or a meal, events with their kids, with the women and we have the place. So let them come and let them use this place, please, the place is empty and waiting for you, the rest is on you, how to organize it.
15. S. (48:06) How through lies or pretty words of love in the ten, how from that do we come to the truth?
R. That's how it is, it’s called “from Lo Lishma to reach Lishma”, that we know that we are egoists and that we’re all evil but along with this we come to a state that we need to overcome and in this way reach something right and good.
S. (48:47) You said at the beginning of the lesson that we should already try to begin to feel the Creator in the connection between us? What is missing so we will really feel it?
R. To the extent that I feel the spirituality of the friend to that extent I prepare myself to feel the Creator.
16. S. (49:11) What conditions should there be so I can hear what my point in the heart demands of me?
R. Only to open myself towards the friends, I don't see anything here, it's an answer for everything, open the friends/ Don't be the friends, whatever will happen and open your heart towards everybody and you will see that suddenly you can get a great vessel and in it an ability to feel the Creator.
17. S. (49:59) What should one do if he discovers that there is only indifference where yesterday there was a strong deficiency?
R. Indifference, I guess on his behalf and also the ones he wants to incorporate with. What should he do? See that the Creator is doing to him as the exercise that he will advance. It’s the Creator of making him indifferent, disturbances, that person will get stronger, just like we do with children. We always give them all kinds of small obstacles on the way and we want them to learn how to overcome it and how to do this or that, to find all kinds of ways and by that a person develops and we develop. So we see those disturbances as opportunities to develop.
18. S. (51:13) Is feeling of closeness with the Creator something they can come at any given moment or is it a gradual process?
R. Every given moment it can happen to us if it if we see it as an opportunity to come closer.
19. S. (51:37) There’s a confusion between the work in the ten and the work in the community, how do we reconcile these two?
R. The work in the ten has to be internal, the friends like with my heart, and in the community it is more open organization, there have to organize the borders, the framework, the systems. Maybe more inner or outer circle to all kinds of activities, our community activities, that is what I think has to happen.
20. FG. (52:40) Two and a half years ago, there was a morning lesson just like now and then a friend told you, “look Rav, we love you very much but now COVID is spreading and we are afraid that God forbid, you will get it, you will get infected. So we prefer that you will go out, leave the study hall and give the lesson from a place where you are alone so we can make sure that nothing happens to you.
Since then, everyday when I go through the center and I see it empty, my heart is shattered and I pray for the spirit of life to return, that the friends will come and it will be possible for you to come and be as wel. And you said before that you asked for your place to be prepared, the place where he used to teach us from in a study hall, what do you feel about it now?
R. I feel I'm going on the week off now, not that I'm not stopping the lessons, but for a week I won't be here. Within the week when I come back, physically, I'm going to start teaching from the study hall, we have the study hall, study room, whatever you want to call it, you know it, that's where the friends gather.
I, as usual, I'm going to sit there on the stage and in my place, on my desk with my chair, and you will see me as usual in the lesson just how it was two years ago, that’s it. Let's hope we will come back to the same state and people will come, whoever it's convenient for them to come and sit and get the impression of the air dwelling here and it will be a lot more, maybe, influence and more impressed and way more than sitting at home in front of the computer screen. So I'm inviting whoever’s a friend of Bnei Baruch has a place here and can come and participate, that is what I can say. I hope you also will be happy that within the week, with God's help, that is how it's going to be.
Info:
21. S. (58:28) Concerning the journey next week, the trip: every time you travel and you give lessons, the lessons of very special, there is a feeling, I don't know it's like this inner journey log?
R. Turn to the friends and whatever you prepare that's what you get.
S. I'm not troubled by the study material, I’m certain it will be good. I'm asking what kind of special preparations do I need to do in order to absorb the lessons differently because it feels like we can incorporate with your internal body a little differently, I don't know why it is as if I don't know.
R. I think it depends on you, I don't feel any leaving my place or any distance from you, and what I broadcast from there it is completely equal to what I do from here. It depends on more about the connection between you and the study materials that is prepared by the friends. But the fact that I will be in some 2000 km from here, that is all, there is nothing special about it, I don't feel it. Actually, I don't even feel that I'm going anywhere and this place is working on me and making something else of me
S. Really, there is no Impressions from nature or something you collect during the day?
R. Just a bit and also it's not, I don't know how to say it, that's not the impression that maybe I would want to feel some impression; also at my age and also in all of the inner spiritual state, I don't feel that there’s any change by living, almost no change. But it does something for this something. I will tell you later.