Morning Lesson August 13, 2023

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

Part 1:

Rabash. Letter No. 40

Reading (00:40) “Letter No. 40 – I received a telegram from ... that we won. Let us hope that we will win the war on the inclination...”

1. Rav’s Introduction: (31:31)This was a trial, one on who deserves to have the writings of Baal HaSulam, especially was about The Zohar, the ladder commentary on The Book of Zohar to our teacher Baruch Shalom Ashlag, Baal HaSulam’s eldest son or his younger brother Shlomo Ashlag. And Rabash didn't want to be a part of all these feuds and all that and he went to London. He had a student there, I knew him very well, and he was with him until the trial ended and when it ended he wrote this letter. Therefore he starts with ‘ we won’ and then he went back to Israel.

2. S. (33:00) I will talk on behalf of the whole Moscow group. First of all we want to disclose that we asked to have a lesson on this article and why – because we really want to come closer to the Creator and He gives us great gifts, a point in the heart, the group, the sources, our Rav. We also want to give Him gifts. That's why we chose such an article because it is, specifically in it, we see how deep the question is and how difficult it is and that’s just the beginning. Today the whole Moscow group, we want to devote the entire day to the matter of gift to the friends and gifts to the Creator. So we would like to thank the Petach Tikva group for their support in this action of ours, especially the friends and all the friends from MAK online, gratitude to the Creator and to you Rav, who help us attain new degrees of love and bestowal and the first question we want to ask is: To give a gift to a friend it’s clear, it means to make a step in coming closer to him, support a friend, what does it mean to give a gift to the Creator because after all He has everything? Can you do this in some form of action or only in intention?

R. That is a question that is not so clear to me. I am familiar with this life. I see many mothers who have children and how much a mother is anticipating that her child will smile at her, will say a word to her if he's little, that he will turn to her and relate to her in different forms. So it doesn't matter that she's an adult and she doesn't depend on him so to speak. Love makes the strongest bonds beyond all of reality that we know and beyond that. So, we have to understand that if we wish to connect ourselves to each other and all of us to the Creator then there is nothing more than love, which covers all crimes and all times, and it is above all. Therefore, we don't measure how great or small a person is in and of itself but rather how tight he is to others in bonds of love, that really indicates everything; only the ties of love.

3. S. (36:55) It works out that there's a long period in which the child just asks from his mother and receives gifts from her, sometimes he doesn't even notice these gifts. At some point he himself wants to give to the mother. What is that stage, and all together why does this flip take place here? What is important at this stage?

R. To the extent that a person grows, he enters an exchange of relationships with the environment, with closer people, with farther people. He may have a very vast network that connects him to thousands of people in the world and he connects to them and they connect to him and that just indicates how important a person is to humanity and how much humanity feels that it needs him. In a family we build such connections, and it’s clear to us that without this we cannot survive, and similarly we have to see that in the group.

If we have connections between us in the group, we thus build in reality, we build the connection between the friends in which we reveal our connection to the Creator. And that is really the only way to connect to the Upper Force, to discover Him, and reach a relationship, an exchange of thoughts, emotions. So achieving connection with the Creator is possible only through the connection with the friends. We have no way to exit this world except through the ten.

4. S. (39:39) How do you help a friend who has difficulty with annulment in the work? How do you get a friend to love annulment?

R. He cannot nullify himself if he doesn't love nullifying himself. He really has to look for in what way he can connect to the friends and to the world and to the Creator, which is ultimately the same thing really, and he does that through the friends. He discovers the Creator within the group, and the Creator is like that which includes everyone and through that he connects to all of reality.

5. S. (40:56) What does it mean to love the friends with the evil inclination?

R. It is said, ‘With all your inclinations: with the good inclination and the bad inclination,’ meaning that we wish to be connected in all of reality, straight and back, good and bad, we want to be connected to everyone to the point that we achieve the connection of the sphere or a ball, so that we accept everyone as belonging to the same family, the same society, the same world. That's how we will advance towards the concept called ‘Creator'.

6. S. (42:02) What's the difference between charity and a gift for the sake of in order to bestow?

R. Charity and gift? Charity is given to someone we feel is in lack and he needs help and he's on a lower degree that is usually attributed to charity. In the rest of the cases, we have to raise or elevate the others in our eyes and then we connect to them.

7. S. (42:52) How to evoke love to the friends out of indifference?

R. Your indifference or the indifference of the friends? Out of his own indifference, then we need to think about how the path is specifically to build connection above the indifference, the connection where we can come together and work together and in such a way we will provide each other in a straightforward way and in the opposite way all kinds of connections, so we become one body, otherwise we will not reach a single system; the connection to the Creator in revelation.

8. S. (44:09) How can we measure love of friends?

R. According to the mutual giving. We between us need to depict ourselves as parts, pieces, that if we do not connect between us then just like in nature, when we see disparate pieces then they're neutralized. They can’t connect, they cannot be alive because all of life is in the exchange of materials where each one communicates to the other, one's impression, one’s matter, one’s thought, forces, so they work together against a certain disturbance and so there is no choice: the connection between us really opens the path for our development.

9. S. (45:22) What is it to feel the stony heart? Does that mean that I'm rigid and closed to the attempts of the friends to come closer to me or him towards me?

R. It is that I feel a disturbance within me, that it doesn't let me connect to the friend. To the extent that the friend wants to come towards me, to get closer, to hug, to embrace, help each other because spiritual development is in connection between us and the more we connect with other friends to a single body, it is like we see in nature, how cells do it and accordingly we advance. So, we have to see in our connection the only means for development.

10. S. (46:46) From the article I got that time is more valuable than money or material possessions that we can give to the friends. Is this correct?

R. Yes, we can help friends shorten the path in connecting together and making a step forward and that is impossible to do in the other way.

11. S. (47:30) How when I receive a gift from a friend should I come to a state of joy and not to a state of Hassidim, of mercy?

R. I warm up the heart and open it toward the friend and I want to also feel that the friend also connects his heart to mine, this is called the joining of the hearts.

S. It's a very important article for Moscow and Petach Tikva, there's a picnic today for us in Belarus.

R. Good luck, good luck.

12. S. (48:30) About the sacrifice that he's describing here, that it goes well beyond time or money, all the way to self-existence in order to bring Him contentment and to do as he says the person needs a sense of pleasure. How can one be non-existent if he’s still aiming for pleasure even from bestowing to the Creator?

R. He has to replace the pleasure, the reason for pleasure, the goal of pleasure, without the pleasure you cannot live. That's what Baal HaSulam says more than once but we have to work on the nature, the character of the pleasure and then it'll be clearer to us what the Creator demands from us but together we have to reach an internal, true pleasure.

S. Who is the receiver of the pleasure if he is non- existent?

R. I give up the pleasure that leads me to move away from the group and the Creator because that's where the source of pleasure is. So, I make all the efforts to go in the opposite direction.

13. S. (50:54) In the article he's talking in the context of reality, he talks about four discernments: one is survival, minimalism, bread and water, to sleep in a cave, two, is materialistic minimalism, a house, the third one is luxury, and the fourth one he talks about which controls all the previous discernments of three and is concerned everyday, he hears his whole life. What does he have to do with this perception of time and control of these three previous worlds for him? Can you explain those three discernments?

R. Now, we're not in that now. Not yet.

14. S. (51:41) Our ten for five years is working together. How can you find new flavors in the gifts that the friend gives and also for me to be able to innovate the gifts that we give to them because we know each other so well that sometimes we don't feel them as gifts anymore?

R. Yes, but of course the friends are the same friends but you're feeling that what you receive from them can be new everyday.

S. That's the question: how to renew that, how to feel that the friend is about to give and how do I find innovation in this process?

R. The thing is that you have to reopen your heart every time anew and then you will feel from it a new fulfillment each time. I don't see any problem in that. Try to show that to each other, every moment will be as new towards the friends, you will see that the world is always changing, turning upside down.

15. S. (53:23) The first time I feel that we read it fully and what I understood is that love of friends is something that we need to cancel the degrees of reality in the observance of reality, not to intensify the deficiency for bestowal or be connected but rather as a vessel through which we nullify reality, that's the innovation that I heard from this article. The question is: What is the connection between love of friends, nullification of reality, and the deficiency for bestowal?

R. That's all of these inclinations connecting together, leading you to feel in your heart the flow of reality, where is it drawn to, that it's all drawn to an inner connection between the hearts called love.

16. S. (54:45) He's talking about here hitting the goal, the heart of the friend and to hit that same place he's talking about. He talks there about how every bullet hits the same place and also here in this world we appreciate that someone knows how to shoot the target in all kinds of states, in the same point, as close as possible. He also says here that it's a matter of intention. Even when you're doing an action you want to give something, what 's important is the intention?

R. Of course, the intention actually gives all the weight to the action.

S. Yes and then he continues and talks about charity. If you shoot and aim during the action that is charity, it won’t bring out warmth out of the stony heart and a gift will. I want to scrutinize: what are the actions that we do? You said early that charity is when someone needs something?

R. Charity is given from mercy and what was the other word? Gift, a gift is given from love, that's the difference.

S. So he's saying that if you start the gift by thinking that you're giving charity to the friend it won’t hit the target, for aim for it to lead to love?

R. Yes but at least start there.

17. S. (56:45) What does it mean that love can break the line as he writes here and brings the person outwards?

R. Love is beyond calculation, love is beyond all calculations. That's why we say that love spoils the line because no calculation can match love. Look again at mothers and children. What can you say? That's her baby and no logic or something you can say here can work but love. That's why it's so to speak, it spoils the line, meaning it can go above the will to receive in order to receive, above the line.

18. S. (58:10) This letter is very powerful, the letter of Rabash. My question is: At what point can a person come to this condition of being capable of loving his friend ‘with all his heart and all his soul?’

R. We have to think more, to really be immersed in thoughts and desires that we will aim them from us towards all the friends because by that we build the system in which we will discover the spiritual world and not otherwise. So to relate to all the friends, it doesn't matter whether they are wise or fast or successful or what, all the friends that belong to Bnei Baruch, we have to relate to them as inseparable parts of our hearts, of our soul because that's truly so. I truly recommend thinking about that.

19. S. (59:55) It says in the article, bestowing in order to bestow, meaning to derive wondrous pleasure from giving to the Creator. So we are talking about bestowing in order to bestow, so in what vessel can we receive this pleasure. Do we need to prepare the vessel of reception in this state?

R. When we are in bestowing in order to bestow we don't receive any pleasure, we want to connect to others and our whole pleasure is from building the system that we connect to each other.

S. It says here in the article, bestowing in order to bestow, meaning to derive wondrous pleasure from giving to the Creator. In what vessel do we receive this pleasure?

R. In the surrounding light.

S. Is that a vessel?

R. It later becomes an inner Kli, yes.

S. So is it useless to prepare the vessel of reception so that it can receive the pleasure?

R. That's the process in which we build our Kli.

20. S. (01:01:55) What does it mean the rubbing or the wearing of the hearts against one another? Is this an effort that I do to be with the right intention to give a gift to the friend?

R. When we feel that we are different from each other and we realize that we have to get closer and even incorporate with each other, then we begin to get into friction, that each one wants to make a connection with the other with some force and then from this rubbing against each other, this mutual warmth, these efforts internally that we want to be together, we get to a state where even our stony heart begins to dissolve, and thus, we get closer and closer and we begin to feel how we are already together in one warm heart and we keep going.

21. S. (01:03:45) When we reach the connectivity state called Adam HaRishon and we create this collective sensation, is this the end of correction that allows us to discover the Creator?

R. I cannot tell you, I practically haven't yet been to that state but yes, it's on the way there, it's on the way towards the correction and the end of correction, yes.

22. S. (01:04:25) What is more difficult to give up: something necessary or something that is riches and abundance?

R. That depends on external conditions. We also see that sometimes a person gives up on this or gives up on that, these things happen in life.

23. S. (01:05:11) It is written here that when there's such love each enters into a world of good and will feel that the Creator has blessed the world and ‘a blessed adheres to a blessed.’ How come we come to such a state that we discover in our love a good world?

R. We have to try to get closer to that, each one towards the others and then we will feel how, how each one makes an effort, and it serves as an example for everyone and that's how we advance in such a group attack.

S. It is written there in the article that when you make an effort you discover the friend loves you too. How to do that attack, how to arrange it in the right way so that we all discover that it depends on the effort, that independent effort you make the friend loves you no matter what?

R. I think we don't need to make any calculations with the friends, just to open the heart and get closer to them.

24. S. (01:06:46) Many friends are about to come to the convention all around the world. We're going to be gathering in Israel at the convention that takes place at the end of September for Sukkot. The question is: Why are we yearning so greatly to be together? Why is it important for us to come and be together and assemble at the convention?

R. Well, that is clear, the greater group we have that gives a lot of power and effort to connect, to achieve connection, then the more results we get from it. Therefore, I also very much expect this Congress to be very special, powerful and internal.

25. S. (01:08:00) What should be my way of accepting a gift that I like or dislike?

R. Our preparation for the purpose of life, the purpose of creation, the purpose of connection? Why are we connecting? What is the most spiritual connection we should, that we need to have and are we heading there or not? That is what is needed.

26. S. (01:09:00) The question from the ten: How can I obligate my evil inclination to serve the Creator?

R. That is a true problem, true problem. Well, first make it so that is very important and powerful and governs all of our life and in order to succeed in life you have to treat it well and with subtlety and then bit by bit, from beginning, to change yourself that way towards the Creator you will then begin to change it more internally, meaning that what’s most important to you is to bring Him contentment and that is really what your intentions are about. Start, begin.

27. S. (01:10:47) We have great friends they love me, they care for me, they are concerned for me and they show me this love in all kinds of ways but this situation sometimes evokes in me also certain sense of repulsion, maybe even hatred sometimes and I feel like I don't really know how to receive love correctly. I certainly don't know how to give back to them the love in the same way. It’s as if I'm getting love beyond what I deserve. I came to this path in order to learn how to love, so why is it happening this way?

R. Because you truly don't feel that you can give back to them and therefore you want to reject what you get from them. So it is worthwhile to connect with them in such a way that you embrace them and then how they relate to you will also be how you relate to them and everything will be like a sphere, like a circle which is really the form, the shape of the complete Kli.

28. S. (01:12:15) When we talk about bestowing in order to bestow and reception in order to bestow, meaning your both inclinations, do we need to scrutinize where it is in the person, where it is in a ten or does it come out of attainment? Do we need to scrutinize these concepts between us?

R. I think that each one will understand that by himself, on his own.

29. S. (01:12:52) This letter evokes love in the heart and it is truly a desire to give gifts to each of the friends. Can you always be in such a state?

R. You have to try to be in that constantly and of course other states will come where we won't be able to hold ourselves that way and then we will learn from them about more actions that we need to do.

30. S. (01:13:30) What is special in the feeling of the pleasure of love between people that a person can give up other pleasures, give up everything and even necessities?

R. It depends on how we feel the love but feeling love is a very lofty feeling that fills up everything, it is the relationship between people in many different forms and degrees and methods and stages; so there is no greater feeling than love. That is how it is.

31. S. (01:14:28) It is written here that the surrounding light shines such that it wants to buy the love of the Creator. Meaning a person is making a calculation of whether it's worthwhile to buy the love of the Creator, after all it is not the same thing in relation to the Creator?

R. Everything is okay. It's all good to take everything in the calculation, also the love has to be after the calculation.

32. S. (01:15:15) After the letter, there's this impression that if you don't receive pleasures from bestowal to the friends, from the sensation of love that they love you and from this to love of the Creator and everything, then you must receive corporeal pleasures, that really there has to be this war of pleasures, that we want to all the time receive the pleasures, the spiritual pleasures, from friends, to love them, all our yearning has to be around this all the time?

R. Yearn for it and see later what is happening.

S. Exactly as you were saying, to love, to annul is because it gives correct pleasure?

R. Yes.

33. S. (01:16:10) Question from the ten, from the article: I want to engage in love with friends but each time something else bothers me, how to deal with this, it takes my thoughts off?

R. So let's try and raise an important, certain action corresponding to it, corresponding to that disturbance, against it. That's how it works for everyone, not just for you.

34. S. (01:16:45) Beforehand you answered one of the questions, you said that it is good to start in priority to the Creator in order the Creator will return good attitude to me, no, life won't be okay and so on, that's what we know as Lo Lishma. Now, let's say, I see the friend who is suffering and I want the Creator to treat him well. Do I ask or say however the Creator does, He knows what He's doing and I don't have to get involved?

R. No, you must pray for the friend.

S. Okay, from the other side, I want the same friend to also correctly relate to the Creator, can I ask of that, too?

R. Yes, everything you wish to improve you can ask the Creator because He's the one who ultimately arranges this picture.

35. S. (01:17:51) What is special about our concessions? That’s not enough to love but this that a person makes concessions of himself, he succeeds in being loyal to the process or brings something special out of him? So what is special about these concessions, what does one acquire by them?

R. He is annulling his ego each time a little bit.

S. I also heard once that Baal HaSulam at the end of the day took everything he profited that day?

R. It was to hand out, yes. So what?

S. You acquire faith by this?

R. No, no, it is not simple and don't do it.

36. S. (01:18:52) I wrote here that I heard before that a person is measured according to his connections with love of others. So is it correct that a person each time asks himself how connected I am with others in love?

R. Not all the time but every once in a while, yes.

S. Why not all the time because if you don't think about it we disconnect?

R. It depends on the state he's in, I can't say.

S. Well, I'm talking about the ten not just…?

R. Yes, in the ten it is correct.

37. S. (01:19:41) What is the friction of the hearts? Is there some exercise to reach that?

R. When you wish to enter strong, direct connection, contact, complete contact with one another, you feel that the will to receive is not exactly designed for this and then you have to approach it in a way that is against the will to receive and that's called wearing out the hearts.

S. You described it as something that someone does on his own?

R. Alone, yes.

S. If I want to enter a friend's heart, I feel that it's hard, I don't feel friction in it?

R. There is some rubbing, some wearing that happens when you try to enter the heart of the friends, so the wearing out is always before us, is always invited.

S. Usually when I try this exercise, I try to enter in a bit. Maybe I succeed in it a bit and I merely feel how much I'm incapable. Where is the friction, really?

R. Enter more forcefully, more forcefully on your behalf, against your desire.

38. S. (01:21:21) I wanted to ask about the practicality of concession. So there is a state in the ten where we see that there are dilemmas. Do you agree to concede or not and we say yes or no, and these states repeat themselves. Maybe it's also another state that we could say is more advanced, that we try to bring intention, to bring contentment to the Creator and then there is the question of do you agree or not, how much are you willing to pay for the realization of this intention. I can say the second one I barely encounter. Maybe only passively, like are you ready or not, do you agree or not? The question is: How do we really advance to the next state here that we have a good intention and are really thinking about how to realize it and how much concessions we are willing to make?

R. We simply have to continue and we will learn, we have to learn about this from life itself.

39. S. (01:22:44) Friends touch this point in their question. He writes here in the letter on two points by coercion that lets the body understand that there is more delight and pleasure in delighting and giving to the Creator. Another point he writes is that one must complete himself in love of the Creator so that the evil inclination will also agree to bestow. So it is felt that every moment you need to, in some manner, some trickery, to try to tell your will to receive that it's worthwhile for him. How do you convince the evil inclination that it's worthwhile?

R. First of all, start convincing it and then you will see, what does he listen to, what does he not listen to, how he can approach it and how to get it into some negotiation.

S. Negotiation with the evil inclination?

R. Of course.

S. And in the first stage what am I trying to negotiate with it that it's worthwhile?

R. Think. Look what's going on in Egypt, for example, this entire, long story, it is all work with the evil inclination.

S. It also grows all the time?

R. Yes, you need to give it even more, perhaps, but it's also possible that it's less.

S. And regarding love of friends that the Turkish group also touched upon, he writes that only the time that both of them have an intention of a gift and not charity, the condition for friction of the hearts is that both intend toward a gift?

R. Yes.

S. And she also said that if one decides he isn't ready for the gift doesn't want it?

R. It doesn't matter.

S. So just continue?

R. Just continue.

40. S. (01:25:25) What is the difference between love and the Creator? If the friends love me then I feel love from them. If the Creator loves me, what is the difference between love and the Creator?

R. Love from friends, something we understand perhaps, and love from the Creator, something we don't quite know how to detect.

41. S. (01:26:03) I heard from you that first we have to hold on to the friends in order to reach the Creator and today we have to hold on to the Creator, not to disconnect from the friends. What changed?

R. We need both to hold on to the friends in order to hold on to the Creator and also hold on to the Creator in order to hold on to the friends; we need both.

42. S. (01:26:36) You told the friend that each day we must renew, renew this unique place. So you said, ‘open up the heart and you will feel it.’ On one hand, this is clear, on the other hand, when we read the article he also says that we have to give to what’s sweet to the palate of the friend, that we have to hit that target specifically and we don't know exactly what is sweet to them. So how do we truly cause each friend's heart to open up? Maybe we have the hit somewhere, where is that target we need to hit?

R. You need to scrutinize it on your own with the opening of your heart. That is how it is.

43. S. (01:27:41) Is it correct to say that the act of concession is what brings, removes the separation between us and spiritual reality?

R. Yes.

S. And what remains of the individual from before?

R. It doesn't matter if I disappear as an individual.

44. R. (01:28:14) Okay, we will conclude this letter and go to the next part.

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