Chile Congress 2006, Lesson 1,

Shamati 22: Torah Lishma

Lesson by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD

San Tiago, Chile, August 4, 2006

Bold and indented: Original text of Baal HaSulam
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized Italics: transliteration from Hebrew

First and foremost, what is Torah? Torah is all the laws that we have in this world, and if we are careful to observe them, we will ascend to the spiritual level. You can approach these laws the same way that we usually approach all the laws in this world, observing them, and in the end, feeling dissatisfied. We know a lot about this world but we don't enjoy it. We build all kinds of machines, technologies, and means of enjoyment, but ultimately they do not provide us with any enjoyment, not to mention eternal life after we dispose of the body.

We are in quite a reversed state—the more we know the laws of the world, they are more to our detriment than to our benefit. Because the more we advance, the less joyful we are, and even sadder than we previously were. Even though the Torah, the Light that fills reality, has been given to us, it’s important for us to study it in Lishma. Lishma means to use it in a right way so we’ll receive a good response from our study efforts. How? Baal HaSulam writes:

Torah is called Lishma primarily when one learns in order to know with utter certainty, within reason, without any doubts of discriminating the truth, that there is a judge, and there is a judgment.

What do we need to think about when we study Kabbalah? According to Baal HaSulam, we need "to know with utter certainty." The same way we know about everything in our world, through our five senses: taste, smell, vision, hearing, and the tactile sensations, through our brain which examines our senses.

This knowing does not come through one's faith or any kind of sensation and inspiration, because that can change from day to day. To acquire this knowledge without having any doubt, to the extent and depth that a person is capable of, is to know one true fact— "that there is a judge and there is a judgment." There are laws in nature, and there is someone above nature that conveys these laws, and this in essence is the desirable result in the study of Kabbalah.

There is nature with all its laws and there is someone above nature that created all the worlds and ourselves within it, guarding it from the outside. What exists outside of us is called the Upper Force. We become familiar with it by knowing all of the laws in nature and from within these laws we come to know Him. It’s not by chance that Baal HaSulam says that there is a judge and a court. A judgment means the law and the judge means the one who decides.

Say, someone issued a law. I don’t know the person who did it, but if I know the laws themselves, then gradually through the examination of these laws, I become acquainted with Him. Who is He? What is He? What’s His character? What does He want from me? Why did He put me in this world with these laws? Why did He create me with this character and all these conditions around me? Why do I live and die? What is our purpose in life?

If I examine His actions, I eventually come to a state where I truly know Him. This means that “From Your actions I will know You,” i.e., from His laws we will know Him. This is the path in the science of Kabbalah. This is why it is a science and not religion; it has nothing to do with faith at all. And, as Baal HaSulam says, "…with utter certainty, within reason, without any doubts of discriminating the truth, that there is a judge, and there is a judgment."

This is what a person needs to arrive at—to relinquish all doubts, and to never take anything on faith. This allows one to know about reality, to know what connections there are between things, and what our life depends upon. How we can influence our reality and receive feedback from it, how to organize our life at present and thousands of years after, in this life and when we die. It is all incorporated within nature and its laws. That’s why when a person becomes familiar with these laws he turns into the same judge as the Creator who created them. Thus, ultimately, a person comes to the degree of the Creator, and to eternity and perfection.

All in all, our task is to open our eyes and to see the world as transparent, what’s behind the things that we see in this world, to know the laws and to be in them above time and place in eternity. Then Baal HaSulam says:

There is a judgment [that is, the laws] means that one sees reality as it appears to our eyes [It isn't that anything changes. We see everything that surrounds us.] when we work in faith and bestowal. At that time we grow and rise from day to day because we always see a change for the better.

If we penetrate through matter we shall see behind the material laws, and when it is revealed to us we’ll begin to see that if we do good things in the world, it comes back to us in a good way. We don’t see the connection between things, so it seems that the more one takes, the better off he is. If you penetrate through matter, however, you begin to understand that only bestowal brings a good response.

Conversely, when we work in a form of reception and knowledge, we see that we decline every day down to the ultimate lowness in reality.

It means that in as much as one uses his vessels of reception in order to take advantage of someone else, one becomes like a cancerous cell in a body, which eats the others and eventually dies itself because the whole body dies. It eats its surroundings and since the surroundings cease to provide it with its existence, it too, dies.

This is precisely the reason for all our troubles and even death itself. If we gave to the world, provided it with good, then the world would bring us back the spiritual vitality, and we wouldn't feel ourselves as living inside the body, but rather in the soul, in spirituality. In giving, we wouldn't experience life and death. This passage wouldn’t even be felt and we would be so uplifted in such an uprising above this beastliness, above this body.

But since we are the opposite of giving, we constantly want to receive from the environment whatever we possibly can. It turns out that each of us eats the environment like a cancerous cell and therefore, we die. Since we can’t receive from the environment, the environment does not provide us with what we ultimately need. We’ve also learned that if a vessel is an egoistic vessel, it can never be filled because the filling immediately nullifies the sensation of pleasure. Baal HaSulam says that:

When examining these two situations, [i.e., giving and the environment's reaction to it as to good, and receiving and the reaction to it as to bad, we would see all this, but for that we need to open the eyes and see] we see that there is a judgment and there is a judge. [That is, we would see that there are obvious laws in nature.]

Today, we can believe that it exists but at the same time we don’t want to believe it because it’s against our current egoistic nature. We do not like to hear about being in this state because it doesn't seem real to us. All kinds of doubts come to our mind, and we are repelled by this to such an extent that we don't even want to come near it.

But if we opened our eyes and saw the network of forces and how all of nature exists within this net, we would see that only bestowal, not reception, exists between the cells, and between all people. Even scientists today explain the nature of these forces and how the body exists, how each and every cell receives only as much as it needs to live and all the rest of its actions are to provide for the rest of the body. Each cell lives for the whole body because if the whole body does not receive vitality by such cooperation and connection between all the cells, it dies and all the cells die too.

This is what is meant today by the notion of globalization when such a connection is revealed between us, that we seem to exist in one small world tied to one another whether we realize it or not. It's becoming apparent that if each and every one of us does not provide the world with what it needs, the world will eat itself up and everyone will die. This is what we are moving towards.

We are faced with a choice: either we move toward being properly connected with one another or each one lives only for oneself, which will eventually cause death. Baal HaSulam says that:

When examining these two situations we see that there is a judgment and there is a judge.

If we could only see this rule, it wouldn’t be hard to implement it, because who wants to bring harm upon oneself? Obviously, we would fulfill it with pleasure…

… because while we do not follow the laws of the Torah of truth, we are instantly punished. In that state we see that there is a just judgment. In other words, we see that this is precisely the best and most capable way to reach the truth.

If we saw how much it benefits us in life, no one would do anything otherwise.

This is called that the judgment is just, that only in this manner can we come to the ultimate goal, meaning to understand within reason, with a complete and absolute understanding of which there is no higher, that only by way of faith and bestowal can we reach the purpose.

It means that it is only through bestowing, obtained through the quality of Bina, that we can give to all in such a way that we come to the cause. The cause is to be like the judge, to be like the Creator who has created these laws. It is only through the laws of bestowal that we perceive our body, our society, our globe, and the whole universe to be like the Creator.

This world was created as a laboratory, as an example, and as a game. Human society is something outside of me, but if I look at the Creator and I refer to human society like He does, I implement the law and begin to carry it out this way. I look to Him like a child who learns from his father, and by this I come to a state where I am like Him, at His level. There is a saying: “the Creator is sitting and playing with the world.”

What does it mean when we say “game?” This "game" means that I can relate to society, to humans, and to the group, and by this, I can learn how to be like Him. I learn how to improve myself, to resemble the Creator more and more, and to bring myself to adhesion with Him. When I come to such a state, I no longer need this world because a person feels that it disappears. This is why it’s called “world” Olam in Hebrew, stemming from the word “disappearing.” Baal HaSulam says, that to the extent a person resembles the Creator, he rises through all of the worlds upwards towards the world Ein Sof, meaning that he no longer needs the corporeality of this world.

Therefore, we learn the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to obtain this goal, to see the laws, to carry them out and resemble the Creator. When we truly understand that there is a judge and there is a court, that there are laws and the one who carries them out, we come to learn Torah Lishma, to resemble the Creator. There is a difference between an egoistic learning, Lo Lishma, and the learning of Lishma. I don’t learn these laws merely in order to gain and profit something with my ego. Rather, I learn them in order to be precisely like Him, i.e., to come to the level of the Creator. This is what is written in the Kabbalah, “Great is the learning, which brings one to an action.”

Learning is not simply the theoretical knowledge of written laws that I use for my own benefit, or perhaps even run from, Rather, I learn in order to implement these laws by the deeds I do. In doing so, I truly rise, to resemble the Creator more and more. This is called “that I open our world and our life and begin to see and feel beyond matter.” We begin to ask ourselves: Where am I? Where am I from? What’s with me? How do I bestow to everyone and everyone towards me? What is the reason for my suffering? And so on.

Question: When we learn the laws of nature in the world, does each one understand something different or does everyone understand the same way?

The same. The general law, which is called the law of love, the Creator's law of giving, is divided into 613 parts, as if in each of our desires we feel that same giving, that same love differently. By us, it turns into our ego. His desire to give is divided into 613 parts, and against His giving I want to receive in 613 different ways. This means that I am included in 613 desires, as opposed to 613 Lights or pleasures, which come from Him since He loves me.

I need to make a correction upon all of my 613 desire, so I now turn my desires around and use them not in order to receive, but in giving, like Him. It is called carrying out of a Mitzva (commandment), an order, it’s like learning rules. A rule says we must do this and this and when I carry out the law it means that I make a precept. How can I do this? I can only do it by studying about my higher state from the books the Kabbalists have given to us: Pticha (Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah), TES (Talmud Eser Sefirot), the articles and the Letters. This is how I learn about myself but in a more corrected state.

Perhaps I don’t understand exactly what it is about but, it speaks to me nevertheless. When I learn about this higher state, it's as if I am tied up to it, although, maybe not in consciousness, nor in my senses I can’t feel it, since I am not yet corrected. But by this, I draw upon myself certain energy from that state, which begins to change me, and makes me more corrected, more suitable to that level. Therefore, learning Kabbalah helps as a means of change but, like Baal HaSulam says, the condition is that you learn that there are laws, that there is a judge and a rule, and that by carrying them out you come to resemble the Creator.

If someone doesn’t learn this way, it means that he doesn’t learn Lishma, because he doesn't learn the purpose for which the Kabbalah was given. Now, one may ask, “What are these laws and how can each and every person feel them the same way?” Of course each and everyone has the same 613 laws, but each and every one receives them in an individual way, which is the different way one perceives the world. Each and everyone perceives and senses the world a little bit differently than others so we can’t even compare and determine this difference, but it exists.

Where does this difference stem from? It stems from the fact that where we used to be one soul, we were separated into six point five or seven billion people in the world, little individual souls, and each and every one is not connected to the other, as they once were. There was a fission, and from this fission, one is a little bit different from the others. If we work together, all of us can unite back to the same soul, to the same single structure.

It is written, "faces are different the same way the souls are different," and each and everyone receives from the world and senses it in a different fashion. Each individual has the same 613 desires, but each desire is a little bit different from the other, so despite the fact that we have a common perception of reality, each and everyone is a little bit different from the other.

That’s why we cannot check, or verify the way another feels. Even though each and everyone has a common sensation of what is sweet and what is salty there is always a little bit of difference. We cannot measure exactly what that difference is, since the degree of inspiration or impression from the same thing comes from the Creator, and therein lies the difference.

However, the differences are not an obstacle for us because we have the same structure, the souls are alike and with the help of the senses, we perceive the laws and connections between things. Each one of us attains that in a little bit different fashion but, according to the books it’s the same perception and each one perceives the Creator a little bit differently, like children, attain who their father is, according to the nature of each one. They know the father in a little bit different way but when they come together, it all turns into one.

When the science of Kabbalah develops a person it doesn’t make a person just like everyone else. His individuality continues even if he’s connected with all the rest, united in harmony in one soul. Despite that, he remains an individual soul. This is even better because all these parts are united yet remain individual, at the same time. This creates an even greater impression, a greater feeling of awe and the sensation of the same Creator is multiplied by the number of the souls there are. If we reunited the way we used to be united in the Adam ha Rishon, we wouldn’t be sensing the Creator more than He was felt at first.

We are all separated, divided into six billion parts and each one unites with his ego, and despite his ego, but because of that we are sensing the Creator times billions more than Adam ha Rishon (that First Man). That’s why this Adam ha Rishon is as a drop of semen that is placed within the mother's womb, compared to us now. When a person just begins to develop, he doesn’t really have anything, he’s nothing. We cannot even say that he is someone, for he's not someone. He's a mere drop of semen. However, what’s the difference between that drop of semen and the grown-up person that he'll be in fifty years?

The difference is in the development, and in the sensation. That drop of semen gradually develops into and becomes someone who senses. It is the same way for us, when we used to be as Adam ha Rishon, we didn’t feel anything. We were like a drop of semen and we didn’t really remember nor did we sense anything. But in returning to that same state, to what is called the point in the heart that is in each and every one of us, we begin to grow toward equivalence, to truly resembling Him, and each and everyone begins to perceive the entire greatness of the Creator.

Despite our difficult life and its hard corrections, there is great importance in this whole cycle. We experience a lot of suffering throughout our life cycles, but all in all, the benefit is enormous. From within the ego that is given to us, we slowly begin to attain the degree of the Creator. We’re not annulling the ego but because of it, and thanks to it, we can reach adhesion and attain the status of the Creator, becoming equal to Him. We are no longer like that seed, we have grown-up, into adult people, equal to Him.

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