Part 2
Morning Lesson November 14, 2021, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences from audio
Baal HaSulam - Shamati 60. A Mitzva that Comes through Transgression
1. R. (03:36) I truly didn't ask Rabash why it ends this way but this is how it ends. Let's read it again as we can still receive something.
Reading Shamati 60 again (03:58 - 07:11)
2. S. (07:14) What does it mean to ‘raise Divinity from the dust’? How is that related to the work in the 10?
R. When something is unimportant, we say. “It is like dust,” “dust'' meaning something that is everywhere, whether it is in the field or the desert, anywhere. Dust is just dust or ashes, there is nothing important about it, it's value is zero because it is everywhere, anyone can take as much as they want from it. That is called “dust''. Even just the Earth, soil which has no importance, just means something that is worthless, that is how we call it.
3. S. (08:49) The reward is what you get in return?
R. That is a reward, yes.
S. Meaning reward and punishment is before spirituality?
R. No, whenever we do something, we imagine to ourselves what the reward will be, and it is either we escaped something bad – that we escaped punishment – or we want to reach something which we call a reward but both cases are actually a reward. If I run away from punishment, that is actually a reward, not getting punishment, if I'm going to get something then of course that is a reward.
S. Not translated
R. It depends on what kind of reward and punishment you want because without some calculation, we can't work. And the calculation is in regard to and in accordance with the purpose of creation: what the Creator thinks and what I think, and what is the difference between what He thinks and I think. What He wants and intends and what I.
4. S. (10:13) How to correctly build intention before the action or during the action? Do we need to check it, also, after the action?
R. I would recommend thinking all of the time about how I do something for the Creator, towards Him – it doesn't matter if it's more or less corporeal, it's just opposite to me. Just think about it as we always think about me, me, me. A person always thinks about himself in any state, any movement or any thought it is all to himself. Let us transform it, invert it. How can we see – this is called “I saw an upside-down world,” the Kabbalists refer to the spiritual world this way. What does it mean that “I saw an opposite world”? That everything is opposite to bestowal, to the group, to the Creator – for the group, for the Creator – so let us try in all states even if they are the tiniest things, it doesn't matter what, something happens in me, let's try – whatever crosses your mind or your heart – try to direct it toward outside of you, the group and the Creator, that’s it, simple. For the group and for the Creator. To invert it and then we will see an opposite world.
5. S. (12:14) We can perform a commandment without a transgression, if we aim ourselves correctly to the Creator?
R. How can that be? When I invert my intention from myself to the others, meaning for the group and for the Creator, then I was already in a transgression when I thought about myself. We always start there.
S. We change this throughout the process, through the prayer?
R. Yes
S. It turns out that each time I start from the reward and then during the work, I understand I have to do it for the friend?
R. Right.
S. So what does it mean that during this work I come to a state of shame?
R. Because you want to connect with everyone, you want to bestow to everyone, you want that everyone will receive through you the light of Correction, the light of AB SAG that will connect and correct the vessels – that’s what you want to happen and by that you become a messenger from the Creator to the created beings. And so, in such a way, the Creator can correct them according to your request, as per your prayer and then fulfill them, and it all happens through you. This is what each and every one must do because in all of this spherical vessel, everyone has to be connected to the Creator with respect to the rest of the Kli. Each and every one has a unique point of contact with the Creator that only he can make and thus pass on the light from the Creator to the rest of the Kli, each and every one.
6. S. (14:56) In this stage, we work in one place and we receive the filling in another place, it is possible it is the right work but
R. You can say that, if it is convenient for you to visualize it this way, you can do it that way for now. We just have to understand one thing: that in the connection between us, it is like when we make a fishing net to catch the fish so if we make such a net between us, we catch the Creator, He appears between us. It is not for no reason that all of the new technology is all networks because in them, we can come to a higher perception than the previous one. That is how a network becomes more complex each time which means the connections between the components of the vessel become more intricate, and accordingly we come to – just like it happens in computers, in all of these newly emerging technologies that take us to a higher intensity, a higher power of the vessel. So each and every one, let's say for now, I connect to 9 other friends and each of them connects to 9 other friends, and so then the Creator appears to us as the light of Nefesh where we begin to expand our circles to connect with more and more, then we begin to feel how we rise to a whole other level. So that it is no longer a 10, two or three or a thousand 10s. Each time, it jumps the intensity of light that appears in the Kli to the power 10. And so we very quickly achieve such an intensity that we haven't even considered. And it is all specifically due to the shattering of the Kli. That's why it is to begin with, “the end result is in the initial thought;” that if we assemble the Kli out of the shattering then each and every little action that we make jumps us a few levels ahead.
7. S. (17:59) What does it mean that the Creator’s thought is a complete reality and has no need for action?
R. The Creator works with the power of light and we work with the power of the vessel; we have to build systems in which we capture the influence of the Creator on us. And if we don't build these systems, we won't know how He can be revealed and what or who He is, and we can't study Him at all. Our whole work is to build a network so as to discover His presence and all of our work is in the network. We don't make any change happen in the Creator. It is like there is a radio or television tower that emits frequencies and to the extent that we build the receiver – a receiving device – then we can capture it. So this is our work to build the device to reveal the Creator.
8. S. (19:44) Is a transgression the force of transition to working in spirituality?
R. You are correct. Without feeling the transgression we can't feel the Mitzvah. That is why first of all we have to discover the evil inclination, the will to receive, this form that is opposite the Creator, how egoistic and evil we are, all of us. And then, only after that, can we understand what the opposite form is and it is not simple. Until we discover that our state is the egoistic state, we are always thinking about ourselves, it takes many years, many years, twenty years, thirty years until we finally discover what the ego that the Creator has created is. The moment we start understanding that our ego is a terrible force, that we hate it and that we have to reach hatred towards it, and this hatred makes the separation between us and the ego, the correction becomes quick because, there, the Creator is working on us, we raised MAN to Him. But this part on the path when we discover the heaviness of our ego, we’re in – these states are very difficult and they take long and squash us in a way that we don't have patience to be in them, that is the main thing so anything that later becomes sanctity comes from the exile in Egypt. That we have to go into Egypt, we must be in it 400 years and the fact that we came out of Egypt as Baal HaSulam says, prior to the 400 years we are paying for it. I'm not talking about corporeality, about how long we were in Egypt – if we were at all – one day we will talk about all of these things. But the work is when later all of the things that we discover are a memory of the Exodus from Egypt, meaning we raised all of the broken vessels from the state that we discovered them, in the state that we called Egypt and then we correct them every time.
9. S. (23:18) When we work with the Shamati articles, I want, not that I will demand something, I just want to surrender. I want these articles to work on me.
R. So what can we do? I think that simply along with your friends to sit with each and every article and read it and talk about it and hear each and every one. Whatever you don't hear of yourself, you will hear it from the friends. If you don't hear it from one friend, you will hear it from another but only in this way. Even the Kabbalists say that “I have learned from all of my students,” that's what Kabbalists themselves say because what does learn mean? I, myself, cannot learn spirituality because where do I take it from? Spirituality is something you can only discover in relations between humans who are separated in a shattering, egotistically, pushing each other away; and, to the extent that we start changing the states, connecting and incorporating together in our heart and mind then we start learning the system of spirituality. This is why you can't be an expert in Kabbalah both in your mind and in your emotion if you don't connect to the friends as wholly and completely as possible, to be completely immersed there. And bit by bit you get up and you start adding and adding to the connection between them. Some parts in the system are passive, there are parts in the system that are active, and bit by bit you come from passive to active.
10. S. (26:37) How can we perform a commandment, a Mitzvah, without getting a reward?
R. it depends on what reward. Let's say I want to resemble the Creator and for me this is the reward. Suppose I want to be more connected to the friends, to bestowal, that also is a reward. So I want more to know the actions of the Creator and the structure of the spiritual world – this also is a reward. Anything that belongs to the system of bestowal, the vessel of Adam HaRishon, when I want to know and to work there, this can be my reward.
11. S. (27:46) The advice is that he works in any way to see nothing but the work and only for the glory of Heaven in the world. Do we keep the commandments through our sins or is there a better way?
R. This has already been asked today, certainly we are all coming from the broken vessel, from the sin.
S. A student previously asked but to continue the question, you mentioned we start with the sin but in the middle, you change the intention. So how do you change the intention during the action? What changes that you have the ability to aim correctly?
R. By the light that reforms. I start from the sin, I start with whatever I can – even if I have no good intentions – but I do like a child does. I look at the grown-ups, he doesn't know what they're doing, actions. He thinks that he is doing the same as a grown up and this is what we should do. All of the actions we see Kabbalists advise us to do.
12. S. (29:23) I wake up to the lesson for years, it’s a habit that became second nature and I feel it's for myself. How do I make sure that it will be for my 10?
R. Connect to your 10 the more, better, and pray to the Creator. We have nothing new in the meantime.
13. S. (29:56) What does it mean that each one has a personal contact with the Creator and through Him, He can fix the vessel?
R. Certainly each and every one of us is a desire in himself. Our ego guards us so that we won't disappear but rather that we feel ourselves, that we exist, and that is why, specifically, thanks to our ego we can above the ego of each and every one to connect between us. So the ego is inside each and every one and the connections that we build, that is called Shechina, Divinity. This is the place we prepare for the Creator – why, because to connect between ourselves each of us has to annul our ego and renounce ourselves, and that is in order to connect. Meaning the network of connections between us is the force of bestowal that we generate and that is how we build the place to reveal the Creator.
14. S. (31:24) How do you reach a state where I determine that I want to receive the “burden of the Kingdom of Heaven for eternity”?
R. Connection with the friends and within this connection, not in me, here, there has to be a very big correction. It is not in me that I want to receive the revelation of spirituality; it is between at least two, between one and another, there will be our revelation of spirituality. Where each one's intention is for the other and the Creator is revealed between us, spirituality is the Creator and He's only revealed between us.
15. S. (32:28) If in a descent a person can decide that he takes the burden of the Kingdom of Heaven for Eternity, so how?
R. Out of despair, when one cannot come out of the state, yes.
16. S. (32:49) What should we do if there is no happiness in the 10, how do we come out of such a state?
R. Happiness should be, first of all, internal. When I am in a world where I am about to get to know the upper Force that is governing the entire reality, so out of that, I have to be happy. To lower my nose and not demand too much but to accept the entire reality. But only whenever I am worthy for and not before. Because the Creator gives everything according to a person's exertion – according to the reward is something you will get according to your investment, not otherwise – then you will see and understand how just this is. Right now each one wants like a spoiled child to shout out and demand that he deserves everything. These two short articles I hope you're going to read them during the day. Except for the article you are preparing for tomorrow and that is how we will advance.