Morning Lesson July 3, 2022 Transcription

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

Baal HaSulam. The Love of God and the Love of Man (One Mitzva [Commandment])

Reading One Commandment (00:15)

1. R. (00:46) Baal HaSulam explains to us here this distinction between the different discernments that exist between people regarding the keeping of the Mitzva love your friend as yourself. How each and every one is actually obligated. What is he trying to say? That we are all obligated to keep it, there is no difference between anybody, but each one according to the will to receive that is in him must take care of his correction and must reach connection with everybody until we are all connected under this commandment, love your friend as yourself.

Reading continues: (02:33)

2. R. (05:05) This is the adhesion to the Creator, this is called from love of the created beings to love of the Creator.

Reading continues: (05:13)

3. R. (05:41) So don't get lost in the details, don’t get into all kinds of philosophizing, don’t leave the straight road to the goal. Rather if there are things that are not complete yet we have to understand that the path is like a tree and if we didn’t conclude something then it will be addressed later. Do not worry, everything will be added up and will complete one another. Our work is only in being drawn through different forms and in every moment to keep ‘love your friend is yourself’ and from that to reach ‘love the Lord your god.’ We talked about it, we learned about it, we read it many times. Nevertheless you see that every opportunity Baal HaSulam writes about it and he doesn’t let us run away from it.

4. S. (06:53) Is there no graduality? He writes here about the closest ones, Israel, the world, etc.?

R. Yes, he writes about it in other places. There is a gradient here but society changes, changes in connections between people between nations, bestowal and so on. Everything changes and accordingly we need to ensure that we are moving from connection between us to a state where the Creator fills the connection between us and in this He is revealed and He connects us to Him.

5. S. (07:41) Love thy friend as yourself is the first spiritual degree or the final degree?

R. There are only two commandments, two forms of commandments, love your friend as yourself then love the Lord your God. These are two degrees and that's it. This is how we say we rise from Malchut to Bina and from Bina to Keter.

6. S. (08:31) Should we understand that all of reality outside of us is in balance and we are the only ones out of balance?

R. Other than us I don’t even think there is anything. Everything that appears to us is what the upper providence projects for us on the outside according to our state on the inside, how we are incorporated on the inside, that’s what we see on the outside. It’s what we also learn from the perception of reality. He writes about it in the forward to the book of Zohar.

S. So how can a person judge the world to the scale of merit?

R. To the extent that he corrects his attitude to the world, justifies the world, justifies the Creator he connects the Creator to the world, and in this way he justifies the world.

S. Meaning when he justifies then the whole world is in justification?

R. Yes, in relation to him because he cannot tell what happens to others.

7. S. (10:01) What is the reason that the goal of the Torah each time is lost and people fall into all kinds of things outside ‘love thy friend as yourself?’

R. Because we are advancing. Rabash loved to give this example, if you go to the hospital, the one who knows the best all the answers in the hospital is the janitor. He knows what is happening with everybody what kind of medication they’re getting and everything else. But if you speak to the doctor he is full of doubts and if you speak to the professor he's absolutely full of doubts.

Meaning that the more knowledge, the more data or intellect the person acquires the more doubts he has and this is the correct form of advancement, and the same is true for the wisdom of Kabbalah. The more we discover there will always be doubts, questions, gray areas and in spite of that we are advancing. We scrutinize them and in place of those scrutinies we get new gray areas, that’s the form of our advancement. A long time ago it was clear that there was a sun and a moon and stars that were all glued to a sphere and we were in the middle. Now it’s a big mess, where are the stars, where is the sun and the moon? Does it exist or not exist, in what way, what shape or form?

Talk to them and you’ll see how it’s all complicated. This is the correct form of advancement until the Creator starts to scrutinize for us, to shine for us, to explain to us where we are. In total we are seeing our will to receive. Everything that is outside of us is our will to receive that exists inside of us. But it is presented to us in such a way that it is everything that appears before us. So we gradually get to know it, we ascribe ourselves to it, and all that’s left is man’s will to receive and the Creator and later even that kind of closes down.

8. S. (13:11) He says here that love thy friend as thyself is a practical Mitzva and only then can you achieve adhesions. But what is a practical Mitzva, some Mitzvot are not practical?

R. Love your friend as yourself is a practical commandment that you have to attain in practise, in your matter.

S. This is the condition to achieve Dvekut?

R. Yes.

Reading continues: And to Adhere to Him (13:44)

9. R. (14:20) The question is why do we need what the Creator gave us, created for us? Why do we have to attain this through our sweat, our labor and by the hard work over decades of our lives, and thousands of lifetimes, and in the middle to die and being reborn throughout these incarnations? Why do we have to labor so much and give ourselves, dedicate our lives in order to reach the goal that He has set up for us? If He has given us a goal then at least let us advance towards it comfortably, or maybe He has put us in the goal already.

Reading continues: (15:18)

10. S. (16:35) Baal HaSulam writes here that only good comes from the Creator and we have to justify Him in all of His actions but we see that it is very difficult to justify some tyrants and so on. Now you said that you don’t see bad in the world, all you see in the world is good but when you speak that way do you mean that you transcend the evil, that it’s great work as Baal HaSulam writes? How to work on this everyday? How to, as if, use all of the tyrants in the world in order to advance?

R. You are correct it is very hard to justify everything that is happening on the world on the one hand. On the other hand in order to see this true form we also need to understand that all of it is happening in us, in us and to the extent that we correct ourselves we will see this projection from our internality on the outside and we’ll see the corrected world. What we see outside of us is our internality. Do you understand? That everything you see and suffer, all of it is happening inside each and everyone in general, in groups of people, and all over the world. We project these things from within us to the outside and this is what we are seeing.

So it turns out that a person is fighting with himself in such a corporeal way, very slow, very painful. He is correcting himself although he could have created this evil differently, in thought, as it is written that everything will be clarified in the thought and that is the problem, that people still do not understand and I'm not capable of accepting this. Meaning the evil that I see outside of me, it is a sign that this evil is actually taking a place inside of me and I have to correct it wherever it is inside of me until it disappears outside of me. Then outside of me I see only the upper light that fills all of reality. We have no choice, we have to gradually come to accept it and correct our view of reality. Look what the Kabbalists are writing in many places.

S. To what extent do we need to scrutinize the evil and how much should we engage with that to understand what is happening in the world? Or should we just touch upon it and immediately turn to the Creator? When you start scrutinizing it it is unclear whether it can take us to some negative places.

R. There is a rule that love covers all transgressions. As much as we wish to cover all the crimes, all those things with corrections, with closeness, with love, to that extent that we are making corrections and great corrections in all of reality. There is no other way to correct the evil except by revealing the good and if we don’t reveal the good then the evil is revealed by the evil more and more. Then the wars keep going. What can you do?

11. S. (22:01) The answer that you just gave is the reason that the Creator created the word in such a lowly state?

R. The Creator created the world in a quality that is opposite to Him so from a thing and it's opposite the created beings will be able to attain Him fully.

12. S. (22:45) When I look at the world there are two things there. There are the friends around me and the sun and the moon and so on. There’s my attitude to them. What is my will to receive, these facts or my attitude to them or both?

R. There are no facts, it’s what the will to receive determines. So by drawing the reforming light we have to make it so that all of our initial conditions will be corrected. All of these initial conditions come to us from the shattering of Adam HaRishon and that is why we have to draw the reforming light over them and then all these beginnings, all of our qualities will change and we will see the true world, not through the distortion of our broken will to receive but in the will to bestow that was corrected in us by the reforming light.

S. What exactly am I drawing the reforming light onto, the picture of reality?

R. Over your corrupt qualities. They are all corrupt because you are a product of the shattering like all of us.

13. S. (24:32) Following the previous answer it sounds very simple, you sit on the couch, relax and imagine that the world is great and beautiful but it is not that way in practice.

R. Where did you read that this is what you have to do?

S. Well we hear that it’s all in our thoughts.

R. You do not understand me correctly. For everything that is revealed in the world I have to sit on my couch, comfortably, think about the good and the world will be corrected, no, measure for measure. If someone jumps on you you have to repay him so to speak otherwise he won’t be able to stop that action. You understand? It is written about it, there are plenty of examples in the Torah.

14. S. (25:53) How do I identify the bad within me before it appears outside of me?

R. You detect the bad when you wish to connect with the friends and then all the disturbances that appear, that’s your bad, your evil.

S. How can I make the correction in the thought before it appears on the outside?

R. Try, try to do it. If you cannot do it, start with the actions. But you have to do it, otherwise you will not know what kind of bad you have in you and how to work with it.

15. S. (26:26) I look at my own behavior and I notice that there is no drop of concern for being in the will to receive for itself. I cannot understand how is it possible to understand that the will to receive for yourself is really the evil?

R. If you could see how much you lose by being an egoist then you would have wanted to get rid of your ego very much. But in truth you cannot see it, you cannot feel it, so what do you have to do? You have to draw the reforming light for it to influence us and for it to give us the feeling of how distant we are from the good source. Then we will want to reach that good source and we will feel how we can approach the good source only if our ego stays out of the way, if it’s annulled, canceled or if it wants to pull us to the good, if it can be inverted. That is how we advance.

16. S. (28:29) He writes here in the second to last paragraph that the last degree of cleansing the body is to love your friend as yourself and right after comes Dvekut. What Dvekut are we talking about here?

R. Adhesion between us and the friends and within that adhesion between all of us and the Creator.

S. What is adhesion with the Creator through the friends?

R. That together with the friends each one annuls his self and adheres to the friends and if we are incorporated with the friends, by that establish this quality that can include in it the Creator.

S. What is this quality?

R. This quality is a mutual bestowal that we arrange between us.

S. It’s not clear how this mutual bestowal, how does it include the Creator in it?

R. It's the same quality, the quality of bestowal. If I bestow to everyone, to the others, to the ten then by that I acquaint myself with the Creator. As much as I come out of myself toward the friends, the more I approach the Creator. I feel Him more, I become more equal to Him.

17. S. (30:30) At first I look at the ten or the world Kli and everything looks okay. Then suddenly all kinds of broken weird pictures, phenomenon begin to appear. What I see on the outside is actually inside of me, so the question is until I see that it is in me it usually takes time and work and scrutinies and different prayers and efforts to come out of these states. Sometimes it takes less time, sometimes more. So what happens here that sometimes it takes less time and sometimes more?

R. It all depends on the upper light and how it appears over us. When it does, we have to simply agree that it appears in the right time. Because the upper degree includes the degree you are in, the lower degree and it knows how to take care of you.

S. How does it depend on my efforts, my efforts and how much I went deep into that bad?

R. The recognition of evil is very important but what is even more important is how much you wish to annul towards the upper one, when you trust all that He will do in you.

18. S. (32:30) I quote “And the work is by Torah and Mitzvot that raises us from the lowness of creation and by that we attain our greatness by ourselves” - what does it mean?

R. It means by our exertion.

Reading (32:59) “However we must still understand the source of the baseness….”

19. S. (38:04) What does it mean that the created being develops in degrees of egoistic love until the form of egoistic love will disappear and become bestowal. What does it mean any form of self-love?

R. The light that is in creation influences the broken will to receive and the will to receive is then obligated to develop up the degrees that we call evolution and in greater degrees higher until the will to receive begins to feel that it is unable to live, to exist in order to receive, and he tries to go after in order to bestow. We are in a process that is just starting. We wish to leave in order to receive and go to in order to bestow. We're not even aware of it but this is the degree that we are in with little or no understanding and no awareness.

But nevertheless this is already a degree that brings us to spirituality and there are many other people in the world, billions who are not in this degree. They are also drawn forward but they lack those discernments that we have and that’s how we develop, develop with the help of the reforming light that works on everyone, on some more and on others less. If we come to a certain special stage in our development then they’ll also bring before us new means by which we can find out where we are, where we have to get to, by what we can accelerate our development and that is why we are here, in the framework of Bnei Baruch, that’s it.

20. S. (40:57) How can I internalize what Baal HaSulam wrote in this article?

R. Think about it more and talk with the friends, and you will see the extent in which you will feel with what is happening, the internality of the things, the force that is operating, the light that is working and that is how it will be closer and closer for you and you will gradually start entering these actions yourself. We need to invest more in this, more forces, more interest, more thoughts and the main thing is together with several other friends in the ten and then you will see how you're coming closer, you are nearing between you and you’re nearing to understand the flow of the reality, the force that is operating in reality and the extent in which it operates upon you and influences you.

21. S. (42:32) The search for the right intention in the work in order to come to Lishma, the work in Lishma for His sake, that is what is going to bring the correction of creation?

R. If your work, like in the form of spiritual vessels, where it's not in order to receive but in order to bestow then you will be in their place you will feel the Creator. You will rise to the degree of the upper world, what do we need for that? To resemble the spiritual vessels, there is nothing else here to do, that is the condition.

22. S. (43:37) Something I don't understand is if the root, my root, is in the Creator and I only receive from Him, so why should I be ashamed of receiving from Him?

R. Why should you be ashamed to receive from Him? If you receive from Him in order to grow then you are not ashamed; if you will receive from Him in order to be opposite the Creator then you will not receive, that is how the system is arranged. Children in our world are not ashamed to receive from their parents because they grow to be like their parents, this does not breach the process of correction.

S. The Creator will always be greater than me.

R. So what is the question?

S. If He is always greater so I will always be smaller and I will always feel that it's okay to receive from Him, no?

R. No, why are receiving it for? He's giving you everything you need in order to live in this world, now there comes the question: what are you taking it for and growing for? If you're taking it in order to exist corporeally then that is called it's not too much or too little it's the necessities for existing but if you're making calculations that you want to grow from this and acquire the upper world and something else then you won't receive a thing, you won't receive. Because, there, in order to come to the actions like the Creator to see, to know the upper system, that’s called to be in the upper world. You can do so only on the conditions that you're performing actions in accordance with the upper world and they are actions of bestowal.

S. So is there a state that the created being is disconnected from the Creator, from the root?

R. We are disconnected just now from the root, itself, but in our awareness we are disconnected.

S. But I mean if disconnected in order to not be a receiver, will I be able to do an opposite action of bestowing?

R. That is called ‘to do a restriction’, that is what we need to reach.

S. Restriction is disconnecting from receiving?

R. It’s disconnection from receiving, not from the root, disconnection from receiving.

23. S. (47:02) What is “educating through Torah and Mitzvot”?

R. “Education in Torah and Mitzvot” is the education we're trying to go through which means I'm trying to do all kinds of acts of bestowal and I learn from those results, these acts of bestowal are called commandments and what I learned from this process is called Torah. As I advance by the upper light that illuminates upon us and it’s all called Torah.

S. And how does the principle work of coming from Lo Lishma to Lishma?

R. The upper influences where the light bestows more and more. I attempt to do actions against my egoistic desire, by that I awakened the upper light to bestow upon me. It bestows upon me and corrects in me the qualities of bestowal by which I want even more to be in actions that are above my ego and this way we work together. I through carrying out acts of bestowal even though they are not real against my desire and then the upper light that then bestows upon me and shines on these actions which are above my egoistic desire, and this is how we work.

S. It seems like it's very active that if a person doesn't activate this education it doesn't work on him?

R. No, he operates in a very prolonged way and a very weak way, it all depends on the person; therefore if a person is incorporated in a society that awakens him then he truly hastens his development.

24. S. (49:13) Could I look at the path in a way that the first part of it takes place in Lo Lishma, not for Her sake, and the second for Lishma?

R. Yes, those two parts are there even though the first part in which I suffer from not receiving, cannot receive, is the smaller, the shorter part and in order to receive that a person is still in this world, in the attainment of this world, and after that comes the second stage in which a person enters into actions of bestowal and then already receives forces and abilities that are spiritual, and begins to perform actions with the forces of bestowal.

S. When we studied Matan Torah, we also saw that if you resemble the root you start suffering from the egoistic expressions and become cruel and disgusting. When I see all kinds of egoistic expressions through the friends but if it's in me and I'm suffering from it?

R. Therefore you don't see, therefore you don't see that they are in you because this brings you suffering; and therefore to begin with you don't want to see this in you. But in others, yes, but in me, no, even though we learn and many times hear that the whole world we see outside is a reflection of what we are within us but we only hear that, no more than that. Because we don't want to feel it really inside because it truly embitters our heart.

S. But we still we're animals and through suffering the Creator is working on us and even if I'm in Lishma I run from suffering?

R. But the participation on our behalf is demanded so that we will get wiser, understanding, for us to feel for us to somewhat go together with the Creator at least one percent, twp percent, ten percent, twenty percent together with Him, gradually.

S. This point where the transition takes place, that’s what always happens when it seems to me that my problems that, in me, that there is something else but the Creator, so how to strengthen, how to ask for that from the Creator?

R. Here we really need to perform a daily scrutiny, critique, criticism on it daily to see if it's something that appears to me that is outside of me, it is all in me and therefore I need to ask the Creator to give me the correct observation, to correct discernments and the strength to correct these things. Since only due to the ego I see that which is outside of me, yes, and not in me, not myself, because I don't want to see anything bad inside of me. But if I were to see this bad and how it's inside of me then certainly I will want with all my might to exit this bad, to take it away from me.

Reading (53:54 - 57:41) “ Two parts to the Torah between man and the Creator and between man and man.”

25. S. (57:46) I just want to ask about what you answer the friend: if you see someone guilty of your suffering you have to cover with love, that is what I heard from you. But if I know you and the organization I see people, true people that always relate to others in a certain way, so what are we covering with love, something that is happening in the ten?

R. Certainly we cannot yet relate to the whole world with absolute love, to embrace, to hug the whole world because the whole world is not ready for it. Therefore we're doing this in the ten, well between tens could be, but no more than that, no more than that. Slowly, slowly this will spread also in the whole world, there are still a few stages that the world has to go through in order to be ready to receive this idea that connection between everyone is a necessary thing that we must attain.

26. S. (59:25) In the first paragraph It's said that “from birth the created being sees that everything comes from the others is unrealistic”. Is that because the will to receive or because I was not educated?

R. Because you’re in the will to receive then what's in the other you're not impressed by. You are impressed only by what happens in your will to receive.

S. So the correction is in the force of bestowal that I understand the essence of our connection?

R. Yes.

27. S. (01:04:00) According to the article, what does it mean ‘the Hebrew slave’?

R. ‘Hebrew slave’, there were several types of slaves in the past but for us in the wisdom of Kabbalah it means that there are people that are already in connection somewhat but are still under the level of slaves to their will to receive, that is called a ‘Hebrew slave’.

28. S. (01:04:46) What promises that the transition will take place from wanting reward to bestowing contentment to our Maker? How can we promise that the light that reforms will affect us?

R. By us connecting ourselves and then the upper light bestows upon us according to our connection.

29. S. (01:05:19) Should a person know in what form of egoistic state he's in?

R. He doesn't know until we enter into spiritual degrees and then he begins to feel on himself the measures of coarseness, the measures of refinement, the bestowal of the upper light, the screen, etc. Before that he doesn't know.

30. S. (01:05:48) How to correct inside me what I see in the others?

R. That which you see the others is actually something you are seeing inside of you, and correct it's only through love. Where despite what you are seeing in them and repulses you from them, you need to try and be in connection, in nearing towards them and that is how you correct it.

31. S. (01:06:36) What is the connection between prayer and the correction of evil we see in the world?

R. If we pray, if we pray for the bad to be corrected then by that we and we appeal to the Creator this way for Him to correct the evil, this operates the most powerfully. It is the most beneficial and then the Creator corrects the evil and in such a way we correct both of the bad, also the bad in us and also the bad in the whole world, and our attitude towards the Creator, our connection between us. Meaning everything gets corrected through the prayer where we ask to correct the bad that’s in all the world, that which we see because the whole world is actually me seeing my Kli, my vessel, so this is how we come to the correction.

32. S. (01:07:53) Is seeing all the evil inside me and not in the world, is it a talent or it is a quality the Creator gives you?

R. It's not a quality, it's something we need to develop, no one sees it and say, “oh, this it’s happening in me”, rather we need to try to get to it and to see that all that I see, I see my qualities and everything that is outside of me I'm seeing as a reflection of me, a copy of me and therefore that's how I need to relate to reality.

33. S. (01:08:41) Why don't we always feel the help of the upper light in working against my ego? Why many times there is a feeling that I don't have any forces to work against the ego?

R. This is to give us discernments’ for and against’, the correct discernments where we need to to measure things, weight things, that is how it is. Before we weigh something we need to kind of zreo out, resets the scales and that is what happens.

34. S. (01:09:26) In our tens, can we already implement the commandant of ‘love your friend as yourself’?

R. We need to try and define such relations between us, at least somewhat, at least in some cases, but to try to come closer to one another this way and to that extent we will begin to feel the Creator in between us.

35. S. (01:09:57) If only the Creator has the control over my heart, so it means that all the attempts to turn from the Creator are from the mind, so how can I turn to the Creator with prayer from our mutual heart?

R. No, we need to understand that the Creator sorts us, arranges us, spins us and really wants closeness from our behalf, from our sides and He is working with us behind the scene and He's pushing us and making it so that we will be in such relations, in those kind of relations between us, but eventually from the connection between us to come closer to Him.

36. S. (01:10:47) If ‘bitter and sweet’ and’ truth and false come from the Creator. So is our duty to just look at it without criticism and just find better ways to work in the ten?

R. In truth all our work is to demand from the closeness between us for the light to appear and explain to us and illuminate for us, shine for us and for us to see the true things.

37. S. (01:11:32) Can we say that what is sweet in my will to receive is a lie and what is bitter in my will to receive is the truth?

R. No, not always, not always bitter in the will to receive is the truth, no.

38. S. (01:11:57) Why should we know this division between the mind and heart, how can it help us build a system of relationships in the ten?

R. Because that is how it is also in corporeality and also in spirituality. That we have the light of Hochma and the light of Hassadim, vessels of reception and vessels of bestowal, and we need to work in both.

39. S. (01:12:29) What does it mean: the scrutiny of bitter and sweet in the quality of bestowal?

R. That bestowal is sweet and reception is bitter.

S. Because you were saying that there is a scrutiny of bitter and sweet in the egoistic vessels and bitter and sweet in vessels of bestowal so what is the essence of that scrutiny?

R. That's bestowal will be sweet for me, wherever I taste something sweet I go because I am corrected in that already, I am in bestowal therefore I taste according to the sweetness and advance according to sweetness.

40. S. (01:13:23) I heard you saying that our heart is in the control of the Creator so the question is why is the heart not happy in what the Creator is giving me, and how can we give gratitude to everything the Creator is sending us?

R. The heart does not want to agree with acts of the bestowal until we ourselves begin to want and control our heart and demand from the Creator to correct our hearts.

41. S. (01:14:02) From what dirt should we protect our soul, what cleansing are we speaking about?

R. We mostly need to be cautious from indifference, for us to want. It does not matter what we will want as long as our desire will constantly grow and correct, incorrect, as it is written that “a righteous will fall a thousand times and rise again”. The main thing is the advancement in all kinds of states and this is how we will come to corrections. I just want to add, do not worry, one way or another we will reach the corrections; anyway we are all advancing. The main thing is not to fall from this train that we are traveling on to the end of correction. And a little more and a little bit more, we get to states in which you will start to feel these things in practice. If you feel it now it is not good because it will stop you, you will start to think how you are advancing this way or that way, more or less, until our vessels will at least be somewhat in order to bestow, somewhat in the form of the group where we will here together for our advancement. Then we will begin to feel spiritual discernments.

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