Morning Lesson February 06, 2024

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

Part 3:

Baal HaSulam. The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah (The Actuality in the Wisdom of Kabbalah)

Reading (00:15) “The Actuality in the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

1. S. (04:58) It is not clear if he writes here that the Wisdom of Kabbalah too only describes the connection between the light and the vessel called impression from that connection so what leads to what we call attainment? Why is there another rise of degree compared to the rest of the sciences? What is the addition that is in the Wisdom of Kabbalah?

R. In science there is not even a relation between light and vessel.

S. What signs describe is what a person is in order to understand what is happening in nature. You press a button and the light turns on, so what's the difference from the Wisdom of Kabbalah? We understand that if we do something the Wisdom of Kabbalah describes how it operates. So what leads us to attainment, what is the difference, why is it called attainment?

R. Because we also attain what we cause in nature.

S. Do we change nature?

R. I didn't say we change; we cause.

S. What does it mean we cause?

R. Nature changes in all kinds of directions and in all kinds of ways through our actions.

S. Meaning how do we actively operate within this field?

R. Yes.

S. This is called that there is attainment, is this part of attainment?

R. Yes, there is a lot to add on this but and get confused. This is actually a place that it's worth it at some point to go deep into this.

2. S. (07:07) What does it mean when Baal HaSulam writes that no demand for a sixth finger would awaken in a person?

R. That he doesn't feel a deficiency in what he's made of except for what he already has. The way the Creator created and gave, you feel that it is sufficient.

S. So what is this sixth finger?

R. That if you have a sixth finger you won't feel the deficiency that you can attain anything by that finger.

3. S. (07:47) In this whole excerpt he's talking about the actuality of the Wisdom of Kabbalah. What is actual, factual about the Wisdom of Kabbalah?

R. Actual but it really exists and if not imagination.

S. But how do I really know what exists and what doesn't exist?

R. Gradually we attain it, we attain the true perception.

S. What distinguishes something imaginary, that is really imaginary and from something that is actual, real?

R. So he says real is real and imaginary is imaginary.

S. He says we live in the world that we speak to even teach it and maybe be in a bed in the hospital and it's completely real to you?

R. Of course and you have no proof.

S. Exactly but in our study we want to move toward the real? Is that it? 

R. Yes.

S. So what will be the proof, the indication that we are approaching something real?

R. When we know the whole complete world.

S. Sounds abstract.

R. I understand but for now you're lacking vessels, that's what you're saying.

S. I understand it's my limitation. The question is at what point can a Kabbalist say that something is real?

R. Everything is relative. Everything is relative.

S. Is there anything real?

R. Until the Gamar Tikkun no, the end of correction. Until then, no, what do they want me to tell you?

S. I understand the problem. I'm just trying to understand because we want to talk about the wisdom as a science, something you can engage with, work with and in the part of the process you feel that it's really so but in another part you feel that you are in some imaginary cloud.

R. Yes, it's vague and that's true, and it's right.

S. Should we in our work in the process are we approaching a place where things become more real?

R. Yes.

S. As much as you can point to and say this point is connected to the truth, to the actual reality?

R. Yes.

S. Should we look for such points?

R. Soon. 

4. S. (10:46) What does it mean that he writes the perception in the subject itself or the essence of it? What is the essence, how do we describe it?

R. The essence is what we do not obtain, it is the internality of what gets revealed. 

S. But if he writes about it, it's something that exists. Will we ever attain it at some point?

R. Yes.

S. How can I depict the essence myself or without senses or with senses? Because he says what I perceive today is an impression of something outside of me and this is how my senses are impressed and the essence is something that so what, I'm impressed without senses they will be no senses?

R. No, I can't explain it, I can't explain it.

5. S. (11:58) On the same subject, all our acquaintance with our friends and relatives are only an impression because of the meeting between our senses and them. But we have no perception of the subject itself. So is it always like that, is it always my impression from a connection with something?

R. Yes.

S. And the more we are corrected and attain, the more the subject itself?

R. I don't think we will know the essence.

S. Why are there parts that we will not attain?

R. Because we only attain in our vessels.

S. When we begin to connect, I don't know, to come out of our vessels. We're always limited so where is the attainment?

R. Attainment is on the border of where we attain.

S. The attainment is on the border of where we attain? What is that border between what?

R. As much as it is possible to attain in the vessels of the created being.

S. Where is that attainment of the Creator attaining something that is not only the created being, the vessels of the created being?

R. Attainment of the Creator is also partial, it is external, what we can attain and no more than that.

S. Why? It turns out that the person is imprisoned in himself. When does he come out of himself and get to know the whole of reality? Is there such a stage?

R. I'm not in that, I can't tell you. The words are written and you can understand in this way or that way.

S. He writes that you have no perception or attainment even in your own essence. Does the person eventually come to know his own essence?

R. It seems to me that yes, that we receive these vessels.

S. What does he discover?

R. I didn't get there, I don't know, I don't know if a person reaches a state of know the Lord your God and work for Him. What does that mean, in which vessels and which conditions through who, what? There are many more questions here that the more you come closer to them they seem even more complicated. 

S. According to The Wisdom of Kabbalah why are the things that feel very tangible, palpable? I can feel the desk, I can feel the friend and something within this world I can't point to them, and I can say this feels real. I stumbled upon it, and this is not. What gives some things that sense of they are real and to some things there's some things they are not?

R. I still cannot explain these things to you. Even if I understand a bit of it, but to pass it onward I can't. We will keep going and we will come closer to it.

6. S. (16:17) Maybe we can connect something to practical work. In the beginning of the lesson you said that I need an adapter in order to connect to the Creator, like a friend or a Ten. Now in this session with the friend you just said that in the end a person has no feeling he's locked within himself. I need an adapter for the Creator but also to connect to the friend to something  outside of me, I have no ability to do that, so there is a loop here. What practical work can we do? All the work with saying the Wisdom of Kabbalah has to come out of your vessels, feel the vessels of your friend and ask for him but what if I'm locked in the bubble of the will to receive and I can see outside of it, what can I do?

R. You can come closer to the friend as much as you can. By this you will learn how to connect to the Creator.

S. Again at that point you discover your inability?

R. Why is that important? That you find a limit or a border that's already something you attained.

S. Is this where we stop, at the boundary?

R. Yes.

S. I see how far I can approach and by that?

R. By seeing those boundaries you make a depiction of the Creator.

7. S. (18:07) You said to the friend that it is difficult to explain, and I thought concerning education how to make a comparison. When children grow up to learn all kinds of things, science and things. This is a bug, this is this, so they have experiences and through it they get more  knowledge. We do the work in our Ten like that. This way we can experience more and more things and be ready and able to feel and even receive the explanations you can give us. The question is, in this work with the friends, how deep is it permitted to go in the Ten? Like asking them what do you think and receive from the information and to feel them?

R. As much as you can ask.

S. But is it correct to feel?

R. Yes, that's called “one man with one heart”. Let them open their hearts and speak directly to you.

S. But in such questions like how to explain what Baal HaSulam says here and they give me their explanation?

R. Yes, yes, it is possible.

8. S. (20:03) He writes something that sounds like a definition, about the final wholeness?

R. Put the book down and see.

S. Right, complete awareness of the final completeness it's only acquaintance of operations that are operated by the association of the upper light of  those who attain it. Can we say about feeling the upper light that it's something real that we feel it?

R. So you don't feel it, but you feel how your vessels feel it?

S. The impression?

R. The Impression.

S. Is that something real?

R. That's what we call the upper light. Meaning it is all towards the one attaining.

9. S. (21:21) What does it mean by creating boundaries in the end it depicts the Creator?

R. We always need to define some revelation that we get and what boundaries that it exists in.

S. How is this expressed emotionally in a person? How is the Creator depicted in a person? To what boundaries?

R. I will give you an example. You attain some beautiful form of nature; how do you see it in colors that are in you? That is the way you get inspired by the way you hear all kinds of birds, also because this is how you receive them. Meaning all these things are completely subjective.

S. Right, so what are the boundaries here?

R. Those are the boundaries, you are making those boundaries and in them you attain the Creator.

S. What do I negate, what do I not attain by creating the boundary?

R. That whatever is beyond the boundary you don't even know what it is. You negate it, it's outside of your perception completely. Even now that's obvious and also, I don't know, also for the future maybe.

S. And in knowing the Creator what do I negate in order to perceive Him?

R. I don't know what you are trying to say.

S. What boundaries do I set in order to grasp the Creator to perceive Him?

R. The boundaries of the good who does good, it has to be the good that does good towards your desires.

S. What am I limiting in order to perceive the good who does good?

R. That whatever you don't feel good who does good, you don't define it as the Creator. Only pleasant bestowals.

S. I say that's not the Creator, that's not the Creator, that's not the Creator, and then in this way discover the Creator?

R. Yes.

S. By saying what's not the Creator? Can you elaborate on this a little bit?

R. No, that gradually a man receives this. We talked about it once.

10. S. (24:20) What are the bad influences?

R. Bad influences? That is towards the man attaining, so it's called bad influences or good influences only towards someone’s own vessels that are prepared for a meeting with the Creator.