Morning Lesson December 30, 2021, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1: Preparation for convention “Rising Above Ourselves”
Lesson No. 2: Annulling before the Friends
1. Rav’s Introduction: In other words when does one enter the Holiness, the feeling of the Creator? When he crosses the point called zero from his will to receive, he works more and more to subjugate, to submit it and then he comes to the point of zero. When he crosses it, it is considered being born in the spiritual world in the quality of bestowal and of course through the road is not simple it is complicated, this reality is unclear, and it all comes through subjugation. Mainly it is subjugation before all kinds of disturbances on this path, this is why it is considered that the beginning of the work is when he comes to a state of zero. When one sees that he seemingly doesn't exist he doesn't have his own desire seemingly, reportedly, there are desires but he cancels them. Before that state that he wants to be in spirituality, in Holiness.
2. S. (02:34) I don't understand how you can annul all those desires if I take myself to his state of zero?
R. I understand you and agree with you that we can't imagine how to depict to ourselves a situation where our desires are canceled as if they don't exist. They do exist, they even grow, and appear to a person as more and more assertive in all kinds of manners which he didn't even know. A person remembers his whole life when he is reminded of his whole life with all the events that he experienced. He looks at others and sees them and doesn't see them or understands them and doesn't understand them. It is all in order to reveal to him all the will to receive that is in him. He begins to criticize and to examine his whole life from a new perspective and one by one as the images that go through him, the thoughts, his situation, his thoughts in life, his relation to life to others, and in general others with respect to him. He begins to sort them and see how he himself comes to a state of zero. Before everyone, before every single person, because in truth each and every one before the others is truly a zero and only after he goes through everything, he becomes an embryo. That begins to grow spiritually with spiritual manners and powers and thoughts and it's all on top of continuing to annul his will to receive more and more and more. It turns out that the will to receive remains and grows from that point of zero but he can give to his will to receive, well of course not him the upper light the Creator, gives his will to receive the form the shape of Adam, man who is Domeh similar to the Creator. This is how he grows and all of this is with guidance or safekeeping from above. It's called being in the mother's womb and by annulling himself generally before the world and specifically particularly as each cell of his spiritual body is revealed, this is how he grows. It is called the nine months of pregnancy, conception but it all begins from the zero. When he cancels himself more and more, by turning more and more to the Creator and more and more he attributes his success in annulling to the Creator. In this way it comes to a state of zero.
3. S. (07:09) What are the Ten Commandments for attaining the state where a person feels like zero, what are the conditions?
R. The Ten Commandments are the overall connection of a person with all of the qualities he builds and his overall connection with others which he builds. Not his own body the way he sees in corporeality but he builds his body by connecting with others, this is why we have a ten. That's how we build it. Yes. Both in himself and with the friends on the outside and with everything that a person begins to detect as the spiritual system. When he tries to unite with all those things this is called expressing correctly and carrying out correctly the Ten Commandments. We will learn what it means the Ten Commandments in practice.
4. S. (08:52) Can you describe the process, you said I sort out desires, how does it happen, the desire appears from the past or the present, what do I do with it, how do I work with it? How does it happen, the process of sorting?
R. We don't go into these desires, we don't start poking into them. Checking and criticizing and turning them around but on top of each and every desire on top of each and every thought, that is revealed. We have to create connection between us and turn to the Creator to connect us, correct us.
S. I seemingly observe the desires, I don't enter them?
R. Correct, I don't play with them it's needless. The important thing is to come to want on top of the desires, despite these desires I want to be connected with the ten and with the Creator, to develop the right plea to the Creator or the right appeal to the Creator.
5. S. (10:17) In all that we have learned in the lessons what other tools do we have to be able to feel the other's desires, annulment specifically?
R. We have no vessels, no instruments at all, even annulment is not our own instrument, incorporation is also not our own instrument, we have nothing. We are in the will to receive and it's also a corporeal will to receive, it's the lowest the basis, it's unrelated to spirituality and we have to try to bring ourselves through everything that is revealed to us to connection and from connection to connection with the Creator as it is written, from the love of people to the love of the Creator. This is how we grow but, in the meantime, we have no qualities by which we can advance, none. We can only annul ourselves before the upper force and ask of it to turn us into and to give us the right shape, the real spiritual shape.
S. Besides our interaction within the ten and doing actions that you give us to do and that Baal HaSulam and Rabash tell us to do, what else can we use to hasten this time of development of the vessel?
R. Only pressure ourselves to connect and learn and ask. Nothing else. The instruments, the tools are pretty clear and concise, direct. We have to try to unite to connect and ideally it should be accompanied by learning and through it we also raise our prayer. Connection during the study along with the prayer. This is our main means, really, we have no other opportunity, everything is connected to the upper force and learning to his expression before us. How He directs us, directs Himself towards us, how He is aiming for it expecting it, and in this way through learning it's called through the Torah we expect the reforming light to come to us through the learning.
6. S. (13:49) You said a few times now connection and prayer, what is a prayer from the state of zero?
R. It is a very special state, a very great state, when a person comes to the real feeling that he is zero. Just as he writes here, the importance of the work here is precisely when he comes to a state of zero, meaning when he sees that he annuls his whole existence and being, for then the will to receive has no power. This is called coming to a state of zero that the will to receive has no power, it's got nothing. Besides the will to receive we have nothing so if we feel that we that it's canceled, and through this point where it is canceled, it normally does not happen at once, but over many such approaching to the state of zero these approaches, only then does he enter the Holiness the intention to bestow. This is why Rabash writes that it's good to annul himself in practice through subjugating himself in practice, to annul himself in practice before the others. To support them as much as possible to support their advancement.
S. You also said that when a person has attained the zero, afterwards the work is in developing and growing the zero, what does it mean to develop a zero, what can be greater than zero?
R. From zero when we learn if we learn correctly the reforming light operates on us so then we reveal more of the ego on one hand, and on the other hand we nevertheless understand and appreciate the ego less and less. There are two apparent forms we speak in our diagram. Rav is drawing. On one hand our ego seems to us like it is growing, it's not linear, like it's growing, on the one hand. On the other hand, our relations, our attitude to our ego, how we appreciate it grows lower and lower and when we come to a state where we can't stand it because it seems to us so big. We begin to feel that we have to get rid of it, that this is just intolerable. Because otherwise we are totally opposite from spirituality, so in the distance in the gap that we have, we begin to cry out to the Creator and then he hears us. Of course it's not so smooth, one goes up, the other goes down, there are many, all kinds of shapes and forms in it, fluctuations.
S. It is a gradual process, it's not that one time exit?
R. No, once we come to a state where we have an ego that according to our estimate, on the one hand of course we hate it, on the other hand we can't get rid of it. It's as if we had a different relation to our ego, it's fine, you can get along with it, and then we come to a state where we can't stand it and it still controls us. The more I seemingly want to get rid of it at the same time, I see that I can't get rid of it. I can't. It doesn't let go of me and I too, even though I suffer from it I can't disconnect. It happens to us even in life, as with people we will sometimes see such couples, they love each other but can't get along with each other. A mother and a child, who can't get along nicely with each other, a child with a bad character or the mother but they can't separate. If we come to such a state where we just can't so what do you do with it? Here, there is a point where we nevertheless run away from the ego as if from Pharaoh from Egypt, and here begins a new era, a new period, the Exodus from Egypt is a spiritual birth. We emerge from the governance of the ego, even though for a long time afterwards we feel it's pressure on us. We can't completely get rid of the ego, it is our nature. On all of the degrees on all the processes until the end of correction including at the end of correction, I use it but in a different way.
S. I want to understand if I reach zero, then the next step is again to start from zero, what's the next step?
R. We'll go together and you'll see I'm not sure what you're asking, what does it mean that you come to zero? If you come to zero and you cancel yourself so you cancel yourself for the time being and that's enough for you to be able to feel on top of it the force of bestowal. It doesn't mean that the will to receive doesn't exist anymore in you, it exists and it will grow more and more but now it will be in a way, ‘That he who is greater than his friend his inclination is greater than him’ it begins to grow as the left line and opposite from it you will establish you will position the right line.
7. S. (22:06) With the ego when I can't stand it, I have nothing in me but my ego, I never had, so who is the one that hates the ego in me? I feel like I am immersed in it, in this hate and everything is happening. It's all so, I don't know, the ego is pouring over it, it expresses itself in such bad ways, I feel it's bad for me?
R. Up to the entry into spirituality there is a psychological struggle here, many people are aware of how egoistic they are and how it ruins their life and they hate their qualities and are eating themselves from within. But continue this way, they do drugs, they take all kinds of medications and whatnot. But for us the recognition of evil is different. We measure ourselves compared to the quality of bestowal and gradually we advance ourselves to a state where we position the will to receive, opposite, facing the will to bestow the love of others. So in us it acquires a form where it becomes spiritual.
8. S. (23:56) How can I tell if I am truly in a state of zero. How do I measure it?
R. It's a feeling, there is nothing here besides a feeling. Therefore you can explain it, zero means that first of all you are the worst of everyone. That this desire actually came from the Creator who gave it to you especially on purpose for a special purpose so you would feel how opposite you are from him. That there cannot be any contact, any closeness between you. But you can ask from the Creator, it is actually from the depth that you call the Creator, that because you feel that you are far, that you are opposite, you can cry out to him and demand of him. But here we need to understand that the outcry, if you're asking for help, already has to be only from within the ten. Alone it doesn't work. Meaning you begin to not only know your ego, but your ego in a purposeful manner. That's a big difficulty because when you feel and reveal the actual reality that you are in, that you are an egoist and you are the worst of everything and everyone and that's not enough. To ask you need to turn to the Creator, the Creator that you can turn to is a form that you depict, you build, as it says, “you have made me” and you do it by being connected to the friends. When you turn to him, you turn for the ten not for you alone. Because what do you want to loan? You want to be great, corrected, a saint? No. Here you have to muster your strength as much as you can with your desire to connect with the ten into one vessel because that is the only way you can bestow upon the Creator. Therefore only in this way your request comes to the Creator when you want to be connected with the friends because in this way you truly are aiming to bring him contentment but if you cry out alone, it is called an outcry in the desert. There's no power in it.
9. S. (27:43) To be a zero is possible when the zero the one that ten is doing something if the friend offers an action for connection, then there's a resistance in me and I ask the Creator to make me the correct form, what to do the rest of the time, I don't feel resistance or a feeling I have to rise above?
R. What Rabash writes in his articles. We connect as much as possible, study, participate, until the form that is opposite from spirituality is fully revealed, and then you overcome it.
S. You said before don't turn to him alone, turning alone is a cry in the desert?
R. Turning to him alone doesn't mean you have to turn together with the friends like in a choir and cry out together. No. Turning alone means you don't feel connected to the friends that your will to receive is not connected to them and the will to bestow you also don't intend to work together with them and that this group, you're not taking them in order to bring them to the Creator this is called alone.
S. I don't have to think if I'm turning alone or not, I have to think about incorporating with the friends, once I do that the plea will automatically come from them?
R. Yes, correct.
10. S. (29:34) Is it going to be possible to feel my friends when I reach the zero state?
R. Of course I don't think that you can come to the state of zero without being connected to them. All the states in the zero state is already a spiritual state and then you'll feel it in connection with the friends. The essence of the connection with the friends is the spiritual state and likewise all the spiritual states we measure them in a manner, with a power, with the essence of the connection between us, we have no other measurement, no other yardstick or gauge or meter. We need to pay attention only to this.
11. S. (30:45) When we ask from the ten, do we need to feel who were asking from or what?
R. We need to work the way Rabash writes and I can't repeat those conditions. We even have these rules that we put together, gathered from all the Social Articles and turn them into one page, put them all in one page, can you maybe show it? That's what we do, I have nothing to add, everything is written.
Excerpt 2 (31:40) twice
12. S. (33:19) In what does a person enter Bina?
R. He has to annul himself before the friends
S. With what vessels does he enter?
R. He has no vessels, with his annulment, with his desire to annul completely in all acts as if he doesn't want to exist.
S. Meaning a person acquires new vessels?
R. Of course.
13. S. (34:04) How do you explain what Kabbalists write here, the instruction of your father, the teaching of your mother, how do you explain it?
R. We'll see later, it's 2 lines, it's too soon for us, for now we're just learning how to achieve annulment.
Excerpt 3 (34:40) Twice
14. R. (36:15) I don't have much to add here again; it is a depiction of how we have to annul ourselves, to what limits and it's totally unfounded. At every degree we will have to annul ourselves more and more and by this we approach the Creator and demand of Him until we begin to receive more and more influence from Him openly. This is how the Creator is revealed to the created being, according to the equivalence of form, to the extent that we are willing to turn ourselves to zero and beyond the zero we want connection and according to that extent we will come into equivalence with the Creator. Then we will feel him in those vessels, by that we do what? We did the restriction on our will to receive, and we want to connect among us as much as possible. By this we draw reforming light from above and so it turns out that the power from above comes to us and arranges us, adapts us, adjusts us, this force connects us and, in this way, brings us into a shape where the Creator begins to reveal in us, to be felt in us and this is called the beginning of being an embryo.
Excerpt 4 (38:05) Twice
15. R. (41:03) Here he explains to us very simply what you have to do in the ten to reach a state where the Gates of Heaven, the gates of abundance open up to us. When each one tries to make himself as zero towards the others and when they connect into a general zero, a collective zero, they are rewarded with the revelation of the Creator.
16. S. (41:37) What it talks about here, the annulments, you annul your life, self-love, that's a spiritual state, right, a person is in spirituality and only then can he annul himself, but what comes before the desire, what annulment does it give you in order to enter spirituality or should it?
R. The barrier is a process where from the moment you begin to annul towards the ten, to the moment you invite the reforming light then you annul yourself more and more and the reforming light works on you more and more, you cross the barrier. it's a transition, between your will to receive, that you overcome, and you rise above it into bestowing. That's why the barrier is not that you jump through something and it's done, it's not a fence. The barrier is a process whereby which waging a war with your ego each one of us ask the Creator, we obligate the Creator to connect us and when he does, we cross end in practice, the barrier from being individual egoist, lone egoist and now we are connected together by the help of the Creator, the upper force that dwells in us, that is the meaning of crossing the Machsom, the barrier.
S. How would you appreciate our current state in the vessel, in our whole Kli, how close are we in the process?
R. According to what we are reading each one can see where he is at first of all our states are not static, they are fluctuating. More or less closer to it farther away from, he is in it, he hates it, he loves it or not, we are constantly in a flux. So I can't say precisely. In general we are at the beginning of the work with the barrier. But this is the entrance into impregnation Ibur.
17. S. (44:46) The hierarchy is at the root of each person's soul already or does it depend on the work?
R. It's both, they bring a person to the spiritual work. If his soul has gone through various different states, he enters the group he begins to study, he begins to work, he begins to feel that he desires spiritual development. But the more he advances, in his spiritual development he has to care constantly about his commitment, and he must ensure that he always has the force of confidence that will hold him on the path. Even when, here, he receives no reward, no payment, nevertheless he stays and he constantly tries to prove to himself that his work is in order to reach the quality of bestowing. To bestow without anything, without any compensation, without any fulfillment in his will to receive rather when he connects with the others, they begin to feel the true payment where he discovers the upper force and himself with the others who are connected to it.
18. S. (46:40) He writes here in the last excerpt we read that a person should poke into his actions and think that what makes me great and then he should annul himself?
R. This is the process whereby a person checks himself how much the ego is controlling him without any exceptions. How much he surrenders before the ego and can do nothing and the moment that he decides about something, the next moment he can't keep to his decision. It's all what we call self-study. If the study of his will to receive. The more he wants to do something good with it he is incapable and then all the questions accumulate in him, all the problems, and gradually comes to a state where he has a true demand for annulling his egoistic will to receive. He knows he can't cancel it but to demand from the Creator through the ten together with them that the Creator would cancel the general will to receive in the society and will allow them to connect together. This is a special thing. What each one prays for the others in the ten and we all asked for one thing only, give us an opportunity to connect between us so we'll be able to bestow to you.
S. A friend who exerts in the ten awakens everyone, how does he understand, well he understands this is why he is appreciated in the ten. What does it mean that he annuls himself and with what can you replace this feeling of this importance, with what can you replace it?
R. The fact that I'm doing everything for the ten, and I'm willing to do anything for them, I begin to discover why I am doing this. To get respect? Because I'm not getting an opportunity to control them, to be like a special manager of sorts. I need to check and when I check it, I will certainly find the egoistic reason. Egoistic, that is pushing me to be special and great, strong, wise, and all of those things become despicable in my eyes. I don't want to be wise or strong or a successful manager or stand out in any way, I begin to feel that to be a rag, the simplest, the smallest. That is the desired form. Because I am entirely made of the ego and the form of expression of my work with the ego the correct form is when I feel that I have nothing. I got nothing except for one thing I have the lesson, I come to the lesson because this is an opportunity from the Creator and I have a group, where I must annul myself because it's an opportunity from the Creator, the study, the teacher, all of those things I begin to appreciate these things more and more and to annul towards them and to the extent that I annul towards those things and enter the spiritual womb.
19. S. (51:45) What is the meaning of the heel?
R. The heel is when he calls himself last, the lowest of all the friends. Then we need to understand that as much as he can lower himself more and more, meaning he annulled his ego more and more and becomes closer to the Creator. Meaning he who is lowest, more annulled, it works out that he is higher in spirituality.
20. S. (53:05) In my work in connection with a ten, I noticed something interesting. If I imagine myself being in the chain with all of the friends and try to make connections in my life, that's why I was given life, the work becomes easy. But if I don't connect it with my life the work is very difficult and I can't keep up with it for a long time. What does this give us specifically when we connect it to our lives that it is easy?
R. You then feel the work in the ten can be a leverage, a means, by which you change your entire life.
21. S. (54:30) What is the Shechina in the ten, how to reveal and perceive?
R. By the connection that we build we build the connection between us. Then to the extent that we resist the connection and the intensity of our efforts to connect above that resistance, we build the connection. Just like in any physical system, you have the force of resistance, let's say resistance, and above it if you install all kinds of systems, then you need to invest more forces. Against this resistance you can receive and derive more production. That's what we have to do. That's what we have to do in the group. The more people are egoistic in the group and the more they overcome their ego to connect, the group will be bigger and greater and higher and more successful.
22. S. (55:56) What is the difference between an egoistic desire to connect to and the desire to connect, which is the result of the quality of bestowing?
R. The goal and also the means whereby I don't annul the others but I annul myself and the goal I wish for all of us to be connected in order to bestow outside of us to the Creator. We don't connect in order to receive from him. We used to receive from him the force of correction that he would give us an opportunity to be more in bestowing
23. S. (56:50) Success when the participation of the upper one is revealed in the ten, is it precisely when we are like to heel?
R. No, we understand very well why we need to annul ourselves. We feel our will to receive as hated by us, how much I can't do anything without calculation towards my will to receive, how much I am unable to get rid of it. This becomes like an obsession that I am constantly sick from not being able to get rid of the will to receive. I am ashamed of it. I begin to chase my will to receive in order to annul it more and more and more until I connect to others and I connect to the Creator, until I can demand from this entire state, to help me rise above the will to receive. Help me, otherwise I will not be able to do it, I am better off dead. That's what I can say. If you don't help me, I tell the Creator then put me to death, I don't want to exist in this way. It's not like I don't want to exist because I feel troubles and problems and that's why I want to die, no, I don't want to exist, I don't even want to exist. I'm not talking about our corporeal lives, generally speaking I don't want to be a part of this reality. I don't want to be a part of this will to receive that you created and I feel that I am unable to get help from anywhere. Not from you, not through this society, not from above, not from anywhere a person has to reach such a level of despair then he receives help.
24. S. (59:27) What is the difference between connecting with the friends, because I have no choice or because I appreciate that?
R. What's the difference? I can't tell you, think for yourself and talk to the friends and they'll explain it to you. I don't even want to answer it, what's the difference, the friends will explain to you for sure. If you have questions afterwards then you may ask.
25. S. (01:00:14) How can I check myself that I am not hurting any friend in the ten?
R. You have to constantly check and perform this test and be concerned not that you are merely not harming them but that you are doing good to them, that it will be certain then that you will not harm them. We have to abstain from the evil, remove ourselves from the bad and do good. But it's better with the friends as Rabash writes, ”do good things that will certainly cover all your bad deeds and you won't do them.
26. S. (01:01:10) Are we already in the womb but we're not aware of it?
R. Correct, we're already in the womb in Bina’s womb but we're not aware of it because we are not annulling ourselves inside of this womb – we are not annulling ourselves – but we are already in it.
S. And we have to annul in the ten like a seed that rots in the ground?
R. Yes, you can say it this way, there are many depictions for it. The important thing is to annul the will to receive, to check that it's impossible, it’s like Rabbi Akiva cried, “dust, ground, ground, dust, dust – how hard are you, you take everyone and everyone is swallowed in you;” and also Rabbi Shimon and then he understood that, no, there is no way to not become absorbed by this dust, the will to receive or rather come out of it.
27. S. (01:02:44) What does it mean to come to be a 0 in the work in the ten?
R. To diminish your will to receive in its egoistic use and to transfer it over as much as possible towards altruistic use, helping the entire ten.
28. S. (01:03:13) Are we coming to a state of 0 when we detect our will to receive, our evil inclination?
R. Yes, if we work correctly with our will to receive, we come to the state of 0. We have to understand we are not annulling the will to receive and we can't annul, we don’t even have the intention to erase it, reach some form of annihilation that it won't exist. We speak in this way but it's incorrect in practice, we only want the upper light to influence it, and to cancel the in order to receive part of that desire and will continue to work with it in order to bestow. Without a will to receive we don't exist, all of creation is the will to receive.
29. S. (01:04:17) What does it mean to ask, to pray through the ten. Does it mean that as some sort of interaction, some relation to the ten or for the 10?
R. I need to imagine that I'm connected to all their friends, I am together with them in one heart, and through this feeling that we are all in one desire, we all want to annul. Everyone wants to annul their individual egos and connect above it and from this point of connection to turn to the Creator. To be connected to Him, to annul in Him, to enter Him as a drop of semen inside the womb, this is what we want. We want to go through this process of impregnation and birth together in the connection between us.
30. S. (01:05:26) How to come to such faith whether the desire to enter the spiritual world and then all my existence will be a calling from above and not my own conscious decision?
R. What is a call from above? It has to be a call from below, from us to the Creator; we wish to enter impregnation, we wish to annul towards Him. We wish to get rid of our intentions to receive, the intentions not the desires – that's incorrect. We sometimes speak this way as a short form of sorts but we wish to get rid of in order to receive and come to in order to bestow. And in order to bestow, we want to be in a state where we are connected to one another, that for me this state where we are connected to one another seems like salvation. Salvation, that's the only state where I can be out of myself, out of my ego and enter the upper world, the spiritual world. Bestow to the Creator.
31.S. (01:06:54) Does reality change when a person comes to a state of 0?
R. I can't say whether that reality changes or not. Our attitude to the world constantly changes. It's not the world that changes, it is our attitude that changes and later we'll come to a state where we’ll also understand what it means that “I have seen it upside down world,” an opposite world.
32. S. (01:07:29) How do we come to outcry from within the ten and how to create an outcry?
R. According to the importance of the goal. According to the difficulty of reaching the goal then we are in a state where we cry out. This is something both men and women understand, very well. It's like little kids who cry out and scream when they want something. You have to reach such a state
33. S. (01:08:16) What does it mean “to be far or near to the Creator”?
R. The Creator is in the center of the group, the center of the connection between us. Closeness to Him is measured by our closeness to one another and in the opposite is considered distant.
34. (01:08:53) When Rabash writes that it’s good for a person to humiliate himself before the friends, what external actions is this about?
R. He writes there that it's good to perform this act of humiliation before the friends in practice, in practice. I'm willing to do anything that they want for my friends and I'm willing to serve them. And I think of what I can do for them: what have I done for them today, what do I intend to do for them tomorrow? And in this way, we will do it. If we are meeting physically, I can bring them a cake, for example or something that's customary in society – and if we're not reading, I can come up with some ‘spiritual cake’ for them, a special excerpt from the Zohar or something very emotional, something that awakens us all and I send that to them. In this way we nevertheless come closer to one another.
35. S. (01:10:29) Why are the friends more important than I or in what?
R. The friends are more important than me because they are the upper nine of my soul, the first nine Sefirot of my soul and I am the Malchut of my soul; and therefore they are certainly more important, first. Second, only by incorporating in them and connecting with them, I can correct myself, that's two. And number three, only by being connected with them to that extent in this way I can turn to the Creator because the Creator does not exist. Rather the sum total of my connection with the friends establishes the Creator. From Ein Sof I bring that force, that image if you can say it, called the Creator, I bring it closer. Without the friends there is no Creator because the Creator is called Bo Reh, Come and See. How would you assemble the friends relative to your will to receive, relative to your will to bestow, to your Consciousness but the friends, that web of connection between you. So in general, the general force operating in them is called Bo Reh, Come and See. So how can I approach the Creator if I have no group and I'm not connected to them? Nothing will happen to me, very easy simple, it will absolutely not exist. We need the group just like Rabash arranges the groups, Baal HaSulam had a group, all the Kabbalists had groups of students and without that you cannot do it. I'm asking, listen to it, don't think this is some form of a kindergarten where you have to be arranged in groups. The group is the structure, the skeleton of the soul. To the extent that this skeleton is connected, there in all its organs, it begins to be filled with the upper inner light, inner light, this is called the revelation of the Creator. But where do we discover Him? Between us because each one of us is an egoist and to the extent He arranges the connections between Himself and the others, in those connections between us, there we discover according to the law of equivalence of form the Creator. That's why the Creator is called, “Bo Re” Come and See.
36. S. (01:03:53) Am I always Malchut in the ten?
R. Correct, I am Malchut and the friends are the upper nine of my soul.
37. S. (01:14:06) When a person in the ten succeeds in annulling himself and doing things with the right intention, the ten can feel it. How is it felt and how does it contribute to the ten?
R. It’s felt and it’s not felt, it depends on the ten, but each one has to check how much he works towards the connection of the friends and how much he is concerned with fulfilling the connection between them.
38. S. (01:14:39) What is the difference between lowering myself before the ten or asking to see them as higher, as the height of the Creator?
R. Both, it should be. Usually in the beginning of the work we pray for diminishing ourselves and enlarging the society as well, but it depends on what state we are talking about. Depends on the state; and also, it depends on the person, on his state, the state a person is in. Yes, a good question. We will have to reach that.
39. S. (01:15:30) What does it mean to be organized in a group?
R. When each of us in each and every moment during the day really doesn't forget about his role in the ten. That this is the main thing he has in life and everyone, all the friends, depend on him and he depends on them. And even though we don't connect during the day because it would just bring confusion but still, we have to hold the connection between us, to hold this connection between us internally. When we understand that this is what we are doing, that is what my friends are doing – having all kinds of signs for ourselves to remind us that I should think about the connection between us, to ask the Creator to renew the connection between us more and more – this is very important.
41. S. (01:16:58) Can we say that passing the Machsom is comprised of stages like starting with conception and ending at birth?
R. It's not exactly that way but there is something to it. Crossing the Machsom, the barrier is considered to enter spiritual advancement in practice. That is when you discover your soul inside the upper womb, inside Bina, inside the force bestowal. Then you examine your actions more and more: how much as a result of these actions you go inside more, you connect more to Bina through the friends. You start feeling the friends as though – like a placenta – you start feeling them. When a person is attached to Bina through the group like the womb is attached to the womb through the placenta, and this is how we grow.
42. S. (01:18:40) What is the difference between a person annulling himself in awareness or lowering himself when going through unbearable states?
R. To the extent that he advances more, he becomes bigger and bigger, greater and greater, more serious and he understands and feels – and feels and understands how much his advancement is a matter of laws. He is within nature and he has to accept everything that is in this system and this is how we advance. The main thing for him it's to annul himself to the group. And in that bind, himself with the Creator, that is called “I dwell within my people.” The Creator is in the group, He is in nature, He is in humanity and the more we advance through connection from one degree to another, we attain the Creator more and more. That's why when the Kabbalists reach the greatest corrections, they feel the entire humanity as an inseparable part of them, yes.
43. S. (01:20:19) Can we feel the action in the light upon us or only in the results? In what vessels is the light felt?
R. We cannot feel the light as it acts upon us yet sometimes there is some sense but usually you cannot but we do feel the results. Try to pay attention, try to notice – how should I say it – repeat the question.
S. Can we feel the actions of the work upon us or only results?
R. We do feel the action of the light on us as a result; we can never feel the light, we feel the vessels. When our vessels change, this is how we call the lights, also, when we want to register these lights, to write them down, what we write is the means, the appellations of the vessels. The light itself is something we cannot name, we can say: upper light, surrounding light, inner light, direct light, reflected light – there are twenty different kinds of lights – that you can explain to the beginner but all it is one upper light acting in different manners and ways on the vessels, and when it is being discovered, being felt and responded to.
44. S. (01:22:29) Why does the advancement in the ten-feel slowed? How to strengthen the speed?
R. It all depends on the intensity of the connection between you.
Excerpt 5 (01:23:00 - ) Twice
R. (01:24:48) Here, Rabash comes to one more important point. That it's not enough for me to annul myself before the friends, I must also aim myself through annulment to the friends to annul myself to the Creator. The Creator is the sum total. If I make my calculation with the whole group, then all in all I annul myself to the group; this means that I am annulling myself to the Creator. That is how it happens in practice, and this is very important not to forget. I cannot be connected to one friend and not to another, where with the other I'm in some dispute. I have to be, in order to advance spiritually, I have to be connected with everyone in a way that I annul to all, and in this way, I bring myself closer to the Creator. We have practical work as a result of the shattering of the vessels of Adam Ha Rishon.
45. S. (01:25:59) In relation to which desire do we need to reach despair?
R. In our own force. That we have no strength to attain anything neither for correction nor attainment.
46. S. (01:26:33) What is the action of that inversion inside us that lets us be as one man with one heart?
R. Action? Prayer. Ultimately, we have no action except praying, to ask. It is only in that work that we are connected between us to the extent that we demand more. Demanding means something that we need in order to reach equivalence with the Creator, that is our whole path. That is how we advance.
47. S. (01:27:15) What about if I feel that I annul myself only because I get pride from it, and the more I annul myself, there is even more pride?
R. Great, it is a sign you are growing, and you are walking on both feet. You make the right step with your right and you're added the left, making another advancement with your right and you'll be brought more heaviness in your left. This is how it works until you reach what is called Sea, a ‘quota;’ and then you are advancing.
S. If this pride bothers me?
R. So, it bothers you. So what? You want to not be bothered? Take a pill and go to sleep.
48. S. (01:28:18) You said that there's a difference between my annulment towards our friends and my annulment towards the Creator. Can you elaborate on that? Where does the annulment before the Creator begin in the work before the ten?
R. The moment you start annulling yourself to the ten, not one by one but to the whole ten, you start feeling that your work is more abstract. Then you'll start feeling accordingly how the surrounding light works on you; and that's how you will advance. Try and ask, but this is how we will advance.
49. S. (01:29:17) When the process of passing to the other side starts, I have to go on all desires that I put on the side before?
R. Everything will be revealed in time, don't worry about that, we are inside a system, in a matrix and it works on us the system it is called Malchut. However, from the final state called “the action is in the preliminary thought,” from there the final correction forces work on us, affect us, bestow on us and they pass us from one state to another, but only as much as we respond to them. Our whole work is to increase our sensitivity to the system. The more we are connected to each other that’s how we invite more light that reforms, and it promotes us. The one who is yearning for connection is called the “one who is hastening times” because he is drawing on himself more upper light.
50. S. (01:30:53) I want to continue the question, what is annulment towards all of the ten and not each friend individually?
R. I cannot really explain. With respect to each and every one you have relations, and also with respect to the whole ten, we should be caring about everyone. Because all in all, that is the general vessel that I depend on, and what I'm responsible for, both about receiving from them and bestowing upon them; we have to be connected to them here and there.
S. That is clear because a friend has a certain character or certain kind of connection between us and it is before my eyes, I don't have to imagine it. But what does it mean towards the whole ten? What is this image I am building towards the whole ten?
R. That this is the vessel, the family, something complete that you are in, you grow in that, you are the result of that. I actually don't want to say it in order not to be confusing but this is Malchut and Bina, this is the womb, this is everything; the ten is everything and there is nothing beyond that. Ultimately, when you go to work more and more, you'll see that there is no more than a ten. Ten parts connected between themselves in mutual bestowal and between them lies the Creator, that is the ten.
51. S. (01:38:07) In excerpt number one, it says when a person annuls all of his reality in essence, is that mean towards the friends or in general?
R. No, to the friends. Only to the friends, it will certainly affect his behavior with the whole world, but annulment is only to the friends. If you start annulling yourself in your workplace and in the street, in all sorts of places, people will think that something is wrong because you don't normally behave this way.
52. S. (01:28:55) What does it mean to annul before the friends during the lesson?
R. I would like us to be all as one body, one Guf, as one ear and as one heart, that all of us, everyone together will feel it, it doesn't matter in what language. And then, when all and all, the sum total of the vessel when we connect this way and we feel it; that is the same intensity I want everyone to have, each one and together. Try to imagine, if we connect our hearts and our intellect together, we will understand what we are talking about. What more do we need?
53. S. (01:39:50) I heard you say that it is not our world that changes but our attitude towards the world changes. I have been teaching at campus for years, could it be a state where a teacher feels rejection towards the student? How to work with that rejection correctly?
R. I don't really know how to connect the beginning and the end of your question. The world has no shape, the world is in concealment. It has no shape, the only shape it does have is the shape we give it. Meaning the upper light as it enters the vessel, it reforms as the vessel and the vessel receives it, accepts it, and that shape between the light and the vessel; a common shape is felt, it’s not a permanent shape it changes all the time. So with us it changes in the degree of this world, that is how it is, to promote it. That is all because our awareness, our intellect and our heart change and if it wouldn't be changing, we wouldn't feel anything happening and going through us and outside of us. It is the will to receive that changes either in an ordinary way like in the times of this world, that seemingly changes, or the more we climb up the ladder of degrees, our time gets shorter so the actions, the frequency of the actions increases. Like in mechanics, first we were talking about Hertz and then Megahertz and then Kilohertz now is Terahertz, the more we advance the frequency increases, it changes, the states increase. What the world's going through today within a year, it used to take a millennium. You understand what’s going on? Everything is accelerated so much because the will to receive is revealed as greater and greater, ready for big changes in quality and quantity; that is why we are in a time as Baal HaSulam writes of “the final correction.”
54. S. (01:43:03) Request from a student asking to have a workshop every so often.
R. Suggest questions for a workshop please. Go ahead, I myself I'm willing. I understand that our main work is in annulment and what I would like to learn from all our friends is: How they think we can in the fastest way, and the strongest, maybe, or more intense way to annul before the society, to the ten? Because annulment to the ten is basically the first action on which there is no question, everything else stems from that. Let's say I go to sleep at night, so my intention now is to rest and to sleep and to wake up in the right state of health and the right mood, with the right intellect, so I will be able to incorporate with my students so that I will be able to annul to them and to hand out everything I can to them. So I do that intentionally, even before I go to sleep. So during the day as I do all kinds of work, I also think about how that will affect the whole society, everyone. These are very important things. Have a Workshop: Each one recommends to his friend, how does each one recommend to the others how to be in a greater concern to the connection of the ten?
Rav’s Question repeated and condensed: How do we suggest being in greater concern for our society and for our ten?
R. (01:46:05) Not to be concerned more, to care about the connection more, these are different things, and it’s not the same thing. There is ordinary care or concern and there’s care about the connection exactly.
S. (01:46:21) Could you make the question precise again?
R. How should all of us care about additional connections in the ten, each one in his own ten? Because that is the straightforward action towards connection, towards correction. Not simple care or concern. That is my first question. The second question is: What does it mean to be connected? Where do I feel that? How can I be…, how do you feel that, where is this connection, how can I measure it? Suppose there's a ten, I'm looking at them, where's the connection between them? how can I measure it, how can I weigh it? How do I bring it out of the society so I can see what that is, what am I supposed to be attached to? I'm not supposed to be attached to each and every friend but rather to their connection. That is my second question. So workshop, I am silent now.
Workshop (01:47:44) - How do we all need to care for greater connection in my ten as the greatest action we can make? What does it even mean “connection,” “connected,” where do I feel this?
55. R. (01:51:15) Why is the thought of society can’t be without addressing the Creator? As we ourselves are not capable of doing any spiritual action, and the connection between us is very spiritual, it is only spirituality. That is why there cannot be a thought of our connection if we do not turn to the Creator, for it to happen, for it to take place. How do we connect the thought of connection in the group? That is the main thing, the central thing in our spiritual advancement with the address to the Creator, so it will go together. please.
Workshop (01:52:25) - How do we connect thoughts for connection in the group as the most central part of our development with a plea to the Creator?