Morning Lesson February 3, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Faith Above Reason - Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #63
1.Rav’s Introduction: Yes, we have been learning it for a long time, and we will learn it until the end of Correction. We get into it, feel it, and work according to it. There are only two degrees where we can be. A degree that is below, at the bottom, now our first degree within reason or below reason. The next degree, which is the desire to bestow, the degree of the Creator, spirituality, which is faith above reason, the degree of Bina and all our work is to come from the current level to the level of Bina, the level of bestowal. This is what is ahead of us basically. Let us try to understand and know and be incorporated in this more and more. To see how our studies and the things that we do between us influence it, that it is all only in order to strengthen ourselves in rising above reason. Meaning, in being on the level of bestowal or the level of love instead of the level of our ego where we are. In this way we will try to cause through various activities, corporeal ones, studies, intentions and mainly prayers to rise from reason to faith above reason. From Malchut to Bina.
Excerpt 63 (02:23) RABASH, Article No. 68, “The Order of the Work”
2. R. (03:15) That's the main thing we need to understand and feel and agree and know that all the bad in us that we feel, and in general that exist in the world, are impressions from our senses because we live in our senses. So the more we rise above these senses into the degree of bestowal, faith, Bina, the more we will feel the world as good and only our will to receive, which is in all of those forms in us, prevents us from feeling the world is good.
Reader continues: (04:17) “It follows that faith above reason…”
3. R. (04:48) Right, meaning to the extent that we say that spirituality, the Creator, the quality of bestowal it’s all in above reason, the opposite from our ego, and to the extent that we also feel that we have to rise to it, although we don't feel it in practice yet, to the extent that we pray together, to the upper force, the force of Bina, the force of the Creator, to influence us and help us, to pull us up to that degree, so to that extent we will rise. In this way we will reach the goal and after we are incorporated in the faith above reason in the feeling of bestowal, from this we begin to understand in practice what we can do. Then we will try to clearly, in our senses, thoughts, desires, and intentions, to carry out the connection between us, and in it, in that connection, to build more and more of the form of the Creator. From each of us, to the extent that we gather, become more established, we build more and more of the form, the complete form of bestowal which is called the Creator. BoReh, come and see, do it and discover.
Reader continues: (06:52) “Later sensing the bad…”
4. R. (07:32) Right and then according to these vessels that exist in the created beings the created being reveals the Creator openly within it according to the equivalence between the vessels of the created being and the light of the Creator and in this way, they come to increasing adhesion.
5. S. (7:51) There are a few questions about this excerpt. It says that he believes in the delight and pleasure and accordingly he gets this recognition. What is this delight and pleasure?
R. Any bad that can be in him, now in his feelings, thoughts, and intention, all of it is only forces that bring it, that push him, to achieve the degree of faith, the degree of bestowal, the degree of love. This is why all the bad, all the evil has a very important role. Without it we would not be able to be cured from evil, from the ego. In other words there is the matter of the evil in itself and there is the matter of the recognition of the evil.
As we see in people, some people can be very bad, very mean, but they do not feel they are like that. So to the extent that one feels what he contains within him in his thoughts and desires that it is all bad, bad to whom? First of all to him, to himself because the person is close to himself and maybe to his kin and larger circles and then maybe to humanity, maybe then to all of creation. So to the extent that a person begins to recognize the evil in his own nature, he needs to start thinking about how he resists this evil, how he moves away from it and here he discovers that by himself there is no way he can do it. This bad is in him, it is in his own nature, it is his own nature, so how can he move away from it? Somehow push it away from himself, or stand against it? It is impossible. This evil is within him, within a person. You cannot pull it out, eject it, and push it away from yourself but only through very special actions. Where we can unite among ourselves and use the vessels that are within our ego, which are envy, lust, and honor and then accordingly we can push ourselves away from the bad, from the ego. Establish it as bad and approach the good bestowal, love, connection.
This is not simple, we have to switch our values, we have to get closer to each other above the forces that reject us from each other that tell us, keep away, do not get too close. Each one needs to have a circle around him into which he does not let anyone enter and we have to detect that circle and see if that circle pushes the friends away from us or not. This is to the extent that we feel that these friends are friends on the path, our partners on the path and without them, I cannot achieve the goal otherwise my life is worthless. So there are many calculations here that a person needs to do. Until he determines that he has no choice but to annul before the environment. In this annulment there are also degrees. Emotional ones, corporeal ones, or more internal ones etc. but whatever the case may be, detecting the bad, the good, and using these two terms is really the way to achieve the goal.
6. S. (13:13) In this excerpt it seems like faith above reason becomes the place where bestowal itself is felt. To what extent faith above reason remains in this place when you begin to feel bestowal in practice?
R. The quality of bestowal, meaning how much we can bestow, we do not feel it right away. You already understand it. What is the quality of bestowal? What does it mean to bestow? How do you measure bestowal versus reception? We see that it is not simple. Only when the special force, the special light shines on us from above, it shines anyway, but in a way that we do not feel it. When it begins to shine in a way that we begin to feel its influence and the results of its influence then we will be able to detect the force of reception opposite the force of bestowal, measure them one opposite the other and begin to work with both of them in a way that at one time we will fall into the force of reception and another time we will rise above it to the force of bestowal. Then this way, as it is written, a thousand times does the righteous fall and rise. Then we will also be able to measure it and come to the states as it is written in the wisdom of Kabbalah, on these degrees, root, one, two, three, four and the coarseness and the screen on top of it. In the coarseness I discover the will to receive in me and then the screen, the power of resistance to the will to receive, and accordingly I discover the upper force above the screen, meaning the revelation of the Creator.
S. You say that right now we are still going on the right side we cannot see the left?
R. No, no, no. We cannot say that we are walking on the right line. You have no right without the left. We are just sometimes in this, sometimes in that, according to how it shines on us through the group, through the whole world Kli, how the light shines on us a little bit.
7. S. (15:57) I cannot quite understand. What is the meaning that a person believes in the joy that is above reason and he comes to feel it consciously and also to feel the bad in him?
R. This we will be able to detect only after the upper light shines on us through the friends, through the connection among all of us. Where we, through all kinds of efforts, we will draw such a powerful illumination from him that we will begin to feel his operation and the benefit, the result from his operations. It should come.
S. When you opened the lesson you talked about this difficult state where someone is facing an insurmountable obstacle. I was in such a state, I could not overcome it, I could not overcome my nature. I asked, but I could not triumph over my nature and also after asking nothing changed. Where did I make any mistakes, where was I wrong?
R. You did not make a mistake, if you made all the efforts according to what you understand but you did not succeed, maybe that state was perhaps given to you from above so you would feel that you are still not with the power to succeed. This too requires help from above. Anything we went through, we have to learn from it and move on, keep going because all of those states accumulate. Bad, good, it does not matter which. They all accumulate and without them we will not be able to feel the purpose of creation.
S. What's happening is that the fact that I do not succeed is part of the answer, part of advancing?
R. Yes.
8. S. (18:48) It turns out that with my wife I have more qualitative work because in the ten the sensation of the revelation of the Creator is not developed enough.
R. Try to feel your friends, that they are as close to you as your family. They should be even closer but at least as close as your family, and then ask.
9. S. (19:29) In the excerpts you said, and the excerpts also say, that, they suggest that we have a choice, that we reach a very high state to be able to discern or have the ability to go above the will to receive. How does a person reach such a state Rav? To come to this recognition of evil, where he begins to feel this delight and pleasure in going above reason? How do we reach that state?
R. Throughout the day and night he tries, besides the necessary things he needs to do in order to sustain himself and his family, but the rest of the time he tries to feel, to dedicate it to learning and to prayer. That is it. I have nothing more to say. You know it yourself. There are no possibilities here to detour the conditions, to go around them.
10. S (20:56) It says mostly through prayer, to ask the Creator to give him everything in bestowal. Can you explain what it means to ask for everything in bestowal?
R. Ask as much as possible. Turn to the Creator and constantly ask of him but you do not do only this, you also have to do things that help, that contribute to connection and to understanding the wisdom of Kabbalah itself; Meaning, understanding the text that we are learning. Then along with the prayer, it should all end with a prayer, then this is the right form. When we turn to the Creator, and then in the end we awaken Him and force Him to be revealed and teach us clearly, openly, how to come to his degree.
11. S. (22:09) It seems like we are talking about the work in faith above reason as individual work. How, as a ten, can we practice this work of faith above reason?
R. We still cannot do it in practice because no one knows how to do it himself yet and therefore we are only approaching it. We are on the way towards it. This is why our prayer, as much as we may talk about it, our prayers are also basically of each of us individually. Not of all of us all together. We still do not have a common vessel where all of our desires can connect through a common screen into one single Creator, a single common Creator. We still do not have that power in our relation from us to the Creator.
S. When will we get to that stage?
R. When you want it.
S. No, as a ten.
R. When you want it in each and every ten. To connect in such a way that from the connection between you, you will come to a connection with the Creator. When necessity to connect to the Creator will determine the necessity to connect among you.
S. Does this happen when every friend makes efforts in faith above reason, tries, exerts?
R. Tries, yes.
12. S. (23:55) I heard many times that evil is what is revealed in the connection between us and not who I am by myself, so which evil is purposeful? How to turn it into good?
R. There is no such thing as bad within a person. It is within a person but in collision, with connection with others, with the friends; Otherwise, there is no bad. There is no bad besides what is revealed out of the shattering of the vessel of Adam HaRishon, and this is the bad, the evil that was revealed as remoteness between everyone. So everything that opposes our reconnection is called bad. There is no other bad, none. All the other forms are not bad according to what we distinguish. That is it. The only evil is what does not let us connect among us and with the Creator.
S. Only in the connection between us?
R. Only, only. Give me another example, give me another example. What else could be bad besides this? It is not the wise who learns. Meaning, if I am more intelligent or less, it does not matter if I have all kinds of desires that are considered egoistic. When I do something with myself, it is also not regarded as ego. The ego that we need to correct is only the force of repulsion from between us.
13. S. (26:04) Is the recognition of evil the revelation of the next degree?
R. Yes. The recognition of evil in every state is the lack of connection between us, the rejection between us, the repulsion. It is the posterior of the next degree and if we overcome it, we come to the anterior.
14. S. (26:35) What to do when I recognize the enemy? The ego that is holding on to me, how to get rid of it?
R. Pray.
15. S. (26:46) I have a lustful character that seems like interrupting constantly. How can I use it in a valuable way towards the ten? What to do with it?
R. How does it interfere? If my character really interferes with my connection with the friends, and with turning to the Creator, then it is an interference, it is a disturbance. If I just like to dress nicely or do other things, that is not an interference. It is not an interference. You can dress however you want. It will gradually become revealed as unnecessary and you will just let it go but that will come later. It is not hindering whatsoever. The only thing that hinders or interferes is one thing, it is lack of connection among the friends and between you and the Creator. The bad is only what is revealed between us.
16. S (27:55) What is the importance of studying, specifically now, about faith above reason?
R. I did not understand.
S. What's the importance of studying, specifically now, about faith above reason?
R. We have come to the center point of the wisdom of Kabbalah and from here, to the end of correction, we will be only in obtaining faith above reason but now, it is still in such a way that we cannot quite detect it. Afterwards we will discover how to detect it better, how by this to begin to establish our spiritual form, the Sefirot, Partzufim, the actual worlds and this is how we will advance but faith above reason is our entire path.
17. S (28:49) Are the vessels the Creator gives us new vessels or corrected vessels of reception?
R. The creator does not give us vessels. Maybe the question is what does He awaken in us? He awakens in us broken vessels and when we pray, we get the power to scrutinize these broken vessels, and put a screen on them, and then use the broken vessels with the corrected screen that is already working in order to bestow.
18.S. (29:29) You spoke before about a circle around me. I do not let anyone enter.
R. yes
S. The more I approach the friends there is always a point where I begin to feel the friend’s ego as a boundary. What is that boundary, that border, how to overcome it?
R. Talk about these boundaries we have between us and try to help one another. Try to help each other to rise a little higher than the body and in this way advance.
Excerpt 64 (30:20). RABASH, Article No. 572, “Two Labors” Twice
19. R. (33:38) It means that as many questions as we may have, they are all coming from the Creator, and they are coming only so we would rise above these questions. Even without answering them. Just to rise above them. I cannot answer them with my intellect, afterwards I will receive the upper light on it and then I will know how, why, and where it comes from. So what is important for me now is to go above the questions. So that despite the questions I continue with bestowal and connection. This is what we do and therefore we have to be happy that we are getting obstructions and we should see in these obstructions that we can come to a state which is above the obstruction. Not go against the obstruction head-on and fight against it and struggle with it but rise above it. Meaning there is something I do not understand, something I cannot do, very good. It is an opportunity for me to rise above it. Above it means I go for an act of bestowal above the act of reception which I understand with my intellect that I would like to do. It is unnecessary, there is no need. I Rise Above the intellect, above reason and in this way, I force myself and I also force the Creator to help me. To raise me, to raise me from corporeality to spirituality more and more each time.
20. S. (35:55) We talk about executing, meaning to practice, and there is another state where we have to go through all the states, not in practice but in potential, to rise above them. What is the difference?
R. For us right now there is no difference. Any obstruction between us, we just try to rise above it. Above it and any obstructions are just an obstruction in our connection, we have to detect it as such. Then whatever is revealed, we just have to connect more and more each time and not forget that by this we detect the real obstructor. Otherwise we are just deviating, veering off the path, and we are going in directions that only prolong the time and the search. All our problems are problems in connection between us. This is why we need to see, in this way, what is happening before us. Every moment where the Creator is failing us, where he is moving us, what he does to us so that, what needs to happen is only that we get closer every step of the way, among us. Then we will feel the operations of the Creator on us. Through these operations we will come into mutual connection between us, I to my beloved and my beloved to me, and in this way, we will overcome and connect, and connect to Him. This is basically our work.
21. S. (38:12) As it happens, sometimes the Ego also works above reason? I am asking because my reason tells me that it is convenient for me to connect and do what I can for the friends and connect with them. That is what my reason is telling me, but I cannot attain it. So the Ego and the rejection compels me to continue the same action but above reason?
R. You need to keep going all the time. It does not matter if it is above reason within reason but continue with connection with the friends and direct that connection with them to connection with the Creator. What does it mean connection with the Creator? So that the connection between us will happen entirely in mutual bestowal between us. From the love of people, as it is called, to the love of the Creator and if we determine our path in this way, then do not worry, you will reach the goal for sure.
22. S. (39:34) It turns out that in the definition of faith above reason, the place of receiving reason changes. Not in the usual form within reason but what we call faith above reason, there we need to receive the reason from.
R. I will tell you differently. Basically, it seems to me that you are right. We want to constantly go towards connection and constantly see how we connect and all of our intellect, all of the science that we want to extract, the wisdom of Kabbalah, is only from the form of connection between us. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the wisdom of connection between the broken pieces of Adam HaRishon. This is what we do, so we want to go together. We agreed on it, we signed on it so to speak, the Arvut, mutual responsibility. So now we are going, and we are connecting among us more and more and we are learning how these connections between us operate. How from within us we want to approach one another, how we turn to the Creator and ask of him to connect us, and we become witnesses, eyewitnesses, to what the Creator is doing. This is why we engage in the work of the Creator, he works, and we learn from it. What is the work? From his shattering to his correction and how we experience it emotionally, intellectually, and this is called the work of the Creator. A king who puts to death and brings to life and brings forth salvation. This is how we have to study it. Through all those operations, these states, we discover the Creator, we understand him, feel him, until we become identical to Him, and this is the end of our correction. To be incorporated in the Creator in all the operations we experienced.
23. S. (42:10) I wanted to ask about how you said you do not need to go against the disturbance face-to-face but rise above it. What is this action of rising above? Is this an action in thought, in action, in prayer?
R. Mainly in prayer because I do not correct the shattering myself. I can correct it only if I am at a higher degree and I am certainly not there, I am under the shattering. So what I need to do is to try to reveal the shattering, the lack of connection between us, and together with the friends when we together discover how disconnected we are, we need to raise this deficiency to the Creator, and he corrects. This is called raising MAN.
S. I am not asking to cancel the disturbance, so what am I asking? To relate to it correctly, and for it to stay?
R. I ask that instead of remoteness we will have closeness between us. Until we discover him with the force that puts to death and brings to life and brings forth salvation.
S. But how does it belong to the disturbance? Do I relate to it?
R. But who created the obstruction? The Creator. There is none else besides Him. He broke the vessels, He created the obstruction, He sent us apart, put us afar, He does not give us the power unless we ask of Him, so by connecting to Him, to the degree of Bina, you receive from there the powers and these powers correct everything between us.
S. What am I asking for?
R. We ask Him that through the connection between us we will bring him contentment to such an extent that He will be revealed between us.
24. S. (44:33) So after raising a prayer as you just discussed. There is an obstruction in connection, and we raise a prayer and then what do we do, do we wait for an answer? What is the next action?
R. What's the next action we do? We achieve connection.
S. The obstruction is still there.
R. All the obstructions remain and above them come corrections and then between the obstructions and corrections, between the coarseness, the restriction, the screen and the reflected light, direct light comes and dresses in it and this will be the revelation of the Creator to the created being.
S. We're trying to understand, not me, but if there is a certain situation and obstruction in the connection between us in the ten and the ten tries to perform a certain action of connection above it, a prayer. How to feel that we are not running ahead of the Creator's answer?
R. I do not understand your language, your terminology. Are you discovering that you are broken among you?
S. Yes.
R. That there is no connection between you?
S. Yes.
R. So pray, pray to have connection, you do not need anything else. Ask the Creator to arrange a connection between you so you can be as one man in one heart in order to please him. Everything else you will discover later.
25. S. (46:29) If the prayer works on one hand, does it work on others?
R. What do you mean on the one hand?
S. Let us say a friend prays to the Creator for connection in the ten.
R. So?
S. Does it influence others? They are not in it.
R. It influences everyone. If a person prays to have a connection among everyone, even if he is the only one who is praying from the ten, the whole ten benefits and will feel that the Creator really does promote them, advances them
26. S. (47:26) Do we need to speak about the obstructions or is it something that is felt in each one and then each one prays?
R. Each one prays and besides, you can also scrutinize among you as to which obstruction you think is common to everyone, clear to everyone, felt in everyone and that obstruction, you make it as the center of turning to the Creator and you ask Him to work with this obstruction, yes. Maybe it is an obstruction that hinders you and stops you from connecting among you, reaching the degree of Arvut, where Arvut is the vessel where the Creator is revealed to the ten. Are you discovering such a connection between you, such a relation between you, which is really called the Arvut, this is something very high, very special? Then you will discover, try.
S. It feels like sometimes it is hard to admit the obstruction is there. It is felt perhaps but it is hard to admit it and raise it.
R. This you need to talk about among yourselves and alone as well.
27. S. (49:04) We read about the fear of Heaven, why is everything in the hands of Heaven except for the fear of Heaven? What does that mean?
R. That the Creator can do anything besides doing it only according to the willingness, to the preparation, to your plea to Him. That is it
28. S. (49:43) When the descent comes and with that the feeling that I refuse to work in connection, how to work with the friends without bringing them down, bringing down their mood, their spirits?
R. You have to act as much as possible that you have high spirits, and you want to give everything to be connected to the others. Even superficially. It is a lie, but you understand that through this lie you awaken the friends. To awaken, and in their awakening, they will also awaken you, shake you up, and you too will be awakened. This is why we need to work in acting, yes. Acting is something very important because we always go from not wanting to wanting. These are the two degrees that we always rise on. The first degree is when I do not want to, I do not want to perform acts of bestowal, acts of connection, nothing, and the next state that I am in it and do attain it. So there is a matter of acting here and work through the friends, this is why there was the breaking of the vessels, so we would be able to perform acts of bestowal by bestowing egotistically. We influence something outside of us and then through them we receive the real power of bestowal, the spiritual one. This is what happens. Just look at why it happened this way, why there is a benefit, there is necessity in the breaking of the vessels in order to bring them to correction.
29. S. (52:14) You mentioned that the connection between us will happen mutually in mutual bestowal. What can the ten do to generate mutuality?
R. Perform all kinds of actions. Perform all kinds of actions that awaken us to connection. Importance of connection. The main thing is to explain that everything is revealed only in the connection between us. All of humanity must be connected and we are in the state of connection, the end of correction, the final stage of the correction of everyone. This is why all the work of the Kabbalists who have prepared for us this whole method and explained it to us, should now be revealed to everyone. So there is no way to escape it here, on the contrary, the more we run, by this we only prolong the time. So we need to try against the force of rejection, repulsion, prolonging, we need to understand that this is the only enemy that really creates the rejection between us, the repulsion, so how can we stand up to it?
30. S. (54:05) It says that the wicked one asks questions, so the righteous do not have questions because they are in attainment? So how to advance without questions?
R. Wicked and righteous happen in every single person, he has questions. Why does he have to do it? He does not want to do it. He is completely against the plan of creation, the correction of Creation. It exists in each and every one and anyone who is greater than his friend his inclination is greater than him, but at the same time we have to overcome and help each other, give each other examples, and remind each other about the purpose of creation, the correction of creation. That we have no choice, not only we, but all created beings, except we have the opportunity to achieve it first, the purpose of creation. To really receive the upper light and through us that it will spread to all created beings. This is our goal, and this is our role. We have to be proud of it and realize it. Implement it.
S. How can we advance without questions?
R. If there are no questions we should listen to others, listen to what they say. It is written about it I learned from all my students. I understand more and feel more when I hear your questions. Specifically through your questions I advance. I simply hear things that I would not ask myself and it helps me. I raised those questions of others and I get answers to them from above, and then both the questions and the answers I acquired through others. That is it. This is called that he gets his provision, his sustenance from others. That I get the deficiencies from others and the results, the answers, the feelings I also get them for the others. So I gain two-fold and it shortens the time of correction tremendously.
31. S. (56:50) What is fear of Heaven, fear before the Creator? Why is this feeling so absent and how to create it?
R. Fear of heaven, it depends on us knowing how dependent we are on the Creator and the fact that I still do not feel that I am dependent on him, does not let me be afraid of Heaven, my ego is not afraid. It likes the concealment. In the concealment, it can imagine whatever it wants but when we come to a state where the Creator becomes revealed a little bit, we come to the right the discernments, to fear, but I do not need to wait for it, we can ask for it, for the Creators to give us fear of Heaven. It starts with beginning to be afraid, when I look at the friends, I begin to be afraid, can I really come to bestow like them? Or not? Then I come to a state where I am afraid. This is the fear of Heaven. You can read about the fear of heaven in the Book of Zohar about the three manners of fear.
32. S. (58:52) When a friend shuts in on himself, because he felt rejection from the ten and he asks for time to perform additional scrutiny before the Creator, should the ten let go of the friend and let him do the scrutiny? It is a very purposeful friend.
R. Yes, we need this as well.
33. S. (59:19) It says that the world was only created for this meaning, fear of Heaven, on the other hand we learn that the purpose of creation was to feel joy, feel pleasure. Are these two consecutive stages? Fear of Heaven and pleasure?
R. I do not think that in spirituality, in the end, when we come to being in order to bestow, there is nothing that obstructs or interferes with another thing. Nothing obstructs. It is just that they become Incorporated in one another.
S. In what do we reveal the pleasure in the ten?
R. Pleasure in the ten becomes revealed in becoming like a support for the Creator, a vessel for the revelation of the Creator.
34. S. (01:00:37) Is it necessary for the created being to ensure that with his acts of bestowal he awakens the Creator system and by that he is increasing his faith? Meaning do I need to check on this result each time?
R. Yes. We need to constantly check how connected we are to one another. We need to check how much we support one another and give each other mutual responsibility. Meaning to what extent we are one. We have to constantly check it. This is the reason for all of our actions and the result from all our actions.
35. S. (01:01:21) About acting for the friends, how can you envy the friends who are mostly acting?
R. They are acting in such a way that they seem to me like they are not acting but they really are operating for real, genuinely. I do not think that they are acting. I do not think that, so what they show me is the truth.
36. S. (01:02:00) How is the vessel constructed from the ten?
R. The ten is the vessel. If a number of people, it does not matter what number, less than ten more than ten, ten. If they unite among them and want to come to a state where the Creator is revealed among them because he cannot be revealed in one person, so the more people there are, there is more power of the revelation of the Creator on the one hand. On the other hand, you can say that it is more difficult for many people to connect. So Kabbalists say that the ideal is ten. That is it. You do not need to add. Two people that are drawn to it or more than that, but it can also be two or three or four, does not matter. As long as they are alert to revealing such qualities among them and which the Creator is revealed according to the equivalence of qualities meaning there has to be connection, concessions. Mutual connections among you to the point of love and then the Creator will be revealed accordingly. According to the equivalence between the light and the vessel.
37. S. (01:03:35) Oftentimes pride causes separation and distance. How to go with faith above reason to triumph over pride?
R. Pride is our entire problem. We have to learn a lot and understand that subjugation before the ten is first and foremost. As Rabash writes, zero before one.
Excerpt 65 (01:04:25) RABASH, Article No. 12 (1989), “What Is a Groom’s Meal?” Twice
38. R. (01:06:26) That condition is pretty simple but realizing it and checking it is sometimes not so simple. Here it spoke about unconditional surrender. What is unconditional surrender? It means that I do not care, in what operations, what conditions or what intentions the Creator makes me go through. Whatever he makes me go through I accept gladly because this is really always, whatever it is, it always brings me closer to the goal. Either from the right side, from the left side or whatever side but in this way, I am certain that I am advancing. So whatever state I am in, my goal in the end will be to bless the Creator for what he did to me. OK?
39. S. (01:07:52) You said earlier that we can get help from envying the friends' bestowal, we can use it as help to come out of our ego, but we cannot see the friends’ bestowal.
R. They need to show us. We all need to show one another that we are in bestowal. They need to show that they are happy about how they are advancing, that you have to help each other. It must happen, it is written in many places
S. You mean externally show our uplifted spirits?
R. Yes of course, in practice.
S. And that is enough to evoke this envy? Because it is not so simple to evoke this envy. We try to give examples to one another. Maybe there is a need for another type of action that will force a person to envy? Because we cannot come to it.
R. I do not know what else you need to do. I think each one in the group can awaken the others and awaken envy in them or at least give an example from himself, of how he is advancing, and we have to do it and of course it needs to be diverse, and it should not be exaggerated too, but it must happen. Otherwise we will not advance the friends and we ourselves will not advance. We are all connected in one vessel, in the mutual responsibility we pledge to do this as well.
S. Is there an inner action that is accompanied with an example that the person shows the ten? Does he need to work with inner intention or rising above reason?
R. He needs to show everyone an example, a good example, that he is on the path in degrees, and he is not stopping but constantly moves forward. He has to awaken the Friends.
S. Thank you Rav, we will keep on trying.
R. Maybe I did not quite understand your question, what can you do?
40. S. (01:10:30) I heard you just say that everything a person goes through he should use it and rise above It. If it appears to a person that the origin of what he is going through appears as outside of the ten. Like for instance, a problem within his biological family, should he also use this to go and bless it as from the Creator and use it for faith above reason?
R. No. Everything that we talked about that has to do with spirituality we attributed to the group, only to the group, to the area where the group is. What happens to us and our families at work and everything that is called this world. it is outside of the group it is outside of spirituality, so there we have to behave the way people behave in corporeality.
S. I understand the behavior. I am not talking about the external behavior; I talk about the inner work because it can hurt you as a person what is happening to you. So I am not saying that I should annul myself outside. Externally, I just behave like normal people, but I can also see the Creator. I need to see the Creator, in everything, in the ten.
R. Yes and no. It might confuse us if we start relating to every group, society, to the world, where the Creator is revealed there, and He performs and He operates. The main thing for us is to focus on the ten, to concentrate on the ten and there bring ourselves to a state where we come in contact with the Creator.
S. I hear you very clearly and I understand. I am not speaking from the perspective that a person should look for it, you know, but if it is right in front of him each time, it is thrown at him, you can say. Should he then not work with it? Or should we regard it as a necessity that we first solve it because it also distracts him from perhaps working in the ten?
R. I understand that if you have problems at work or in your family and you want to know how to solve it through looking at it spiritually, but it seems to me like here there is more to lose than to gain. You need to relate to these things very clearly, rationally in a worldly way like every other person and only in the group we want to build a place for the revelation of the Creator, to be suitable for the nature of the Creator, the relationship between us. Only there should we relate to each other differently. This is what I recommend, otherwise you end up confused. I get a whole lot of questions from all over the world about all kinds of relationships, at work, in a family with the kids, young couples. I see in it only confusions and I cannot recommend putting spirituality into these systems, but only among the friends. With everyone else be courteous, calm and collected
41. S. (01:15:07) How does work above reason help us or prepares us to work with a screen and reflected light?
R. This precisely becomes the work with the screen and the reflected light because it draws the upper light that builds in us the restriction and the reflected light. Only in this way do we continue.
S. It like trains us to work with a screen and reflected light or does the light build something else?
R. No it does not build something else. We continue in the same direction.
S. Most of the excerpts in faith above reason are depicting states of descent of the left. Then a person recognizes it and says something opposite, that he does not agree with this state. So what does it say, ‘and then he says’, he always writes it ‘and then he says’ what is that inner action? Is it enough that I say a sentence? What does it mean?
R. Saying, meaning, you are saying it, in all of your internality.
S. But it is just words.
R. No. “Anyhow he agrees to this state, and he says that this is certainly the desire of the Creator”. Meaning he comes to that in his inner decision. This is the meaning of the saying “all my bones shall say”.
42. S. (01:16:49) Many times he writes that we have to work from our feelings, how can we express that?
R. If he passes all of his actions through the environment, meaning through the society, meaning he is about to correct the shattering that the Creator did before us, this means that he is engaging in spiritual work because our spiritual work is all along to connect all the broken pieces into one. That is what we should always have before us, to see it all the time. OK?
S. If that is the intention, to check my attention all the time?
R. Yes.
43. S. (1:17:59) When my friends speak with impression and want to uplift the ten, so I disregard it a lot of times and instead of being obvious I just do not listen to them. Is there also faith above reason in envy?
R. Try to make up what is required against that.
44. S. (1:18:26) It says in the excerpt, and he says that the will of the Creator that I work for him in such loneliness. When you say this state, you feel the state and go above reason and then you see that the Creator is stopping you again, so what is the true prayer that you do not feel like someone is trying to fail you after you say it?
R. That to you it does not matter what they are doing with you. The main thing is to hold on through the ten to the Creator. This is the meaning of unconditional surrender.
S. How do I show it to the Creator that I am holding on to the ten?
R. Do not worry about that, do that and you will see. You do not need to act out before him. The Creator is in you.
Excerpt 66 (01:19:27) RABASH, Article No. 4 (1991), “What Is, ‘The Saboteur Was in the Flood, and Was Putting to Death’, in the Work?” Twice
45. S. (01:23:22) Meaning this is about loneliness. How much everything, whatever feeling we have in life, we should ascribe it to none else besides Him, the Creator, and what we get, whatever we get from him is only good for he is the good that does good and if we do not feel that this means that we have eyes, but we do not see. We are not in the same direction with the Creator and that is why we do not agree, or we do not feel. That is also a lack of agreement. That is why we have to organize ourselves to such an extent that we will feel ourselves in each and every moment in our lives that we are only in the good that does good. Meaning that I am in the Creator. Inside this good that does good and more and more upon whatever happens to us, until we start practically revealing Him
46. S. (01:24:37) What is the difference between what is written in this excerpt and a religious approach? Because by being angry and accepting it?
R. It is a very big difference. When a religious person usually never criticizes, he does not receive disturbances from above and if he does it is only to cancel them and to feel that they are not there. We in the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is why it is called the wisdom of reception, of Kabbalah, we use the force of reception the will to receive and specifically by working with the will to receive we discovered the Creator. It is a difference between a religious person of all sorts, does not matter which one. Not revealing the Creator only accepting that he exists, and we work both with the will to receive and wanting the will to bestow to control it. So we discover the Creator. That is the difference, the result is the relation. The work itself, everything is different.
47. S. (01:26:20) The Lord is high, and the low will see. Does that mean that in my loneliness I see the greatness of the Creator?
R. Yes.
48. S. (01:26:44) Why is a person called proud if he understands that he is the will to receive?
R. No, that is wrong. A person is prideful when he agrees to work with his ego.
49. S. (01:27:18) Similar question, I understood that proud is someone who does not feel that it is the creator filling his desires, is that right?
R. Well of course but it is a result of him being proud.
50. S. (01:27:49) What type of bad are we supposed to reveal with the good who does good?
R. Along with the good that does good?
S. Yes, he is speaking about pride that me and him cannot be in the same abode.
R. If I understand, that in my pride, I am not close to the Creator in any way. I cannot be with him in the same territory, the same world, the same revelation, and that is it, that is my state. I cannot dwell with him in the same abode, yes. That is why I have to get rid of my pride in any way, lowliness is a quality that we have to acquire at any price.
51. S. (01:29:00) How to surrender without conditions? How to even overcome the hope that the Creator will give me some kind of inspiration, or should I have such hope?
R. Unconditional surrender means that I accept the conditions that the Creator set before me, and I agree to whatever condition he puts before me. However, there is only one thing I will not let go of and that is the connection with the Creator. Me, wanting, in my effort, in my action to give him contentment so he will feel good meaning do whatever you want with me. Only that he will get something good out of it, a good response.
52. S. (01:30:09) What indication do I have that I am really advancing to the right goal and giving Him contentment?
R. Basically with the ten I can get this indication on the spot. With the Creator I can only expect to get it when I will do it correctly, truly, then the Creator will be revealed in that same relation from me to him, I will discover his relation to me and because he is the good that does good, I also have to, through the ten, be the good that does good.
53. S. (01:30:58) What is the right way to lower myself before the friends? What do I annul and what do I not annul? Is it an active action I am doing, or something passive?
R. That is something that we need to learn more and more in the connection between us in the tens. How we do good to the friends. Out of that I will discover what to do to the Creator. There is nothing more than that. Let us move on to the Preface.