The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Morning Lesson: September 5, 2025 

Part 1: Recorded lesson – Nov 15, 2021

Baal HaSulam. Shamati 59. Concerning the Staff and the Serpent

Reader: Hello friends, on the first part of the lesson, we'll watch a recorded lesson from the 15th of November 2021, Shamati, Article Number 59, Concerning the Staff and the Serpent. 

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Question (ITA 4): (00:41) What does it mean that the shell is the basis of the will to receive? 

M. Laitman: The will to receive is the basis for the Klipa, the shell, and it's also the basis for Kedusha, holiness. The will to receive is us, and it depends on how we work with it. If we want to receive our whole perception inside of the will to receive in our life; or we want to come out of the will to receive to rise above it to the quality of the Creator, the will to bestow. So this is what it's all about: Either we stay within our nature or we want to rise above it. When we want to rise, if we want to emerge from our nature, then this nature of the will to receive starts to inflate. It starts to grow, and then it says that, one who is greater than his friend, his inclination is greater. And therefore the one who goes above reason, he always has more reason. He becomes smarter, he understands more, he feels more, he attains more, because seemingly they want to hold him inside of the will to receive. So he's given a greater will to receive, and inside the will to receive he understands more and more what is happening and where he is. However, those who agree with it, so then they have what everyone has in this world. A little bit more, a little bit less, but it's still in the framework of this world. This is what happens.

But we have no choice, we must implement that same desire, those Reshimot, records, that the Creator awakens in us which draw us, pull us to the attainment of the Creator, to the attainment of the degree of faith. And it seems to us now that while we're in the will to receive, that the degree of faith is an easy, naive level. It's not something serious. Because we all exist in a quality of reception, and whatever we get in the will to receive, that's what we have. But, on the other hand, we need to check –even with corporeal eyes – how much the will to receive is limited, how much it is limited. It cannot be any more than the degrees of the still, vegetative, and animate. That is, it cannot be more than merely existing in the connection between these small parts of nature, but not any more than that. This is why here we need to learn how do we nevertheless acquire the spiritual degree, and this is what this article talks about. 

Question (ITA 4): (04:49) It is written that, there is no intermediary state between the staff and the serpent. What does it mean? 

M. Laitman: Yes, that you exist either in this or in that. It may seem to you that sometimes you're in the middle on some stitching line between these two states, but that's incorrect, it does not exist as a will to receive. And it's either in order to receive or in order to bestow, and that's it. This is the only way we can see reality, and therefore each time when we don't make an effort to rise above reason, we fall into the will to receive, into within reason. 

Student: In the beginning of the lesson, you gave an example of the transition between being immersed totally in the perception of reception and the perception of bestowal, it's like putting on glasses, where everything changes completely. It really feels like we're so immersed in reception that it's not clear how to make that transition from reception immediately into bestowal – how do we do it?

M. Laitman: We, indeed, immediately shift from reception to bestowal, and it's through the influence of the upper force, what we call, the upper light. It influences us as a result of our efforts, if we put in sufficient efforts in quantity and quality, then the upper light influences and influences us. And later on, this action is done suddenly; there is an accumulative process. And after it has accumulated into a certain measure, then the slip occurs in us, and we come out of in order to receive and reach in order to bestow. This is why we have to strengthen ourselves, so as not to run away from this work. Because all in all, each and everything that we do, it is called, a penny, and a penny adds up to a large amount. And then we emerge from the vessels of reception to the vessels of bestowal. This is why patience, that is, keep going and keep going and keep going. 

Question (Moscow 7): (08:26) Baal HaSulam writes here in the article that a person needs much preparation in order for him to have the forces. Because otherwise, because the body refuses to do this work?

M. Laitman: It's our whole work now that we try, through the connection between us, through dissemination, through all kinds of activities we do, to draw more and more light, upper light. And when it influences us, we come into this accumulation of its influences. That altogether, afterwards they shift us from reception to bestowal. And the second question is?

Student: Baal HaSulam writes here that, a person, each and every day as he rises from his bed he has to check himself, where is he? And according to his ability to cleanse himself from the filth of the Klipot, the shells, and this would be a perpetual examination. When you get up, you're usually not in the state of holiness, you don't feel any closeness. So how to make this transition quickly from the serpent to the staff? 

M. Laitman: I don't think it's a problem. We need to first of all, during the day, we have to try – those who are still not used to it – we have to awaken, to check where am I, what am I thinking about. A few lessons ago, I said that what we need is to invert, to imagine that just as I'm thinking about me now, in the end, how I invert my will to receive, my intention, my disposition to benefit the Creator, for the sake of the Creator. And then it's not important for me what I feel now and what I will have. I depict to myself that what is important in what I'm doing, now, is that it will be good for the Creator, for the Upper Force, for the higher degree. And this is how I need to renew my relation to reality, my approach to reality. We have to try to do it at least several times a day, and especially in the morning or before the lesson, when I calibrate myself to be ready to receive the lesson. In the lesson, a great surrounding light shines on us from the whole world. If I'm ready for it, I feel that I am totally under this very powerful, intense influence. And if I don't prepare myself, what I get from it is a very limited influence. 

Question (Belarus): (12:04) What does it mean that he instilled his divinity on trees and rocks? 

M. Laitman: Just as trees and rocks are things we can find everywhere, meaning they are things that are relatively cheap. They're not gems, they're not special trees. So the Creator places His Shechina, His Divinity, meaning He wants to be revealed. In a very simple way, you don't need to be smart, you don't need to have special qualities. You just want to shift to a perception of giving rather than a perception of receiving. And this is why you practice on the friends, with them together. Helping one another, even when you build such a society, such a group. And then ask yourselves: Are we really becoming today more connected, closer to each other? Is what we're going to achieve in the connection between us, achieving a correct connection so we will begin to reveal the Creator? Because the Creator is our sum total, this is what we need to see as a result. Yes, 

Question (Baltia 3): (14:00) Why is it impossible to receive, even partially, if one's intention is in order to receive for oneself? What's missing here in order to invert the intention, in order to bestow? 

M. Laitman: A good question. I would even say it's a cunning question, a shrewd question. The problem is that if I begin to receive respect, it'll go into my will to receive. So I will go deeper and deeper into the will to receive, into my egoistic vessels. This is why it's not a good idea, I should be only in bestowal from me to the friends. The more I give to them, it is certain that I am adding to my spiritual box. There is no question about that, the more you help the ten, help the friends, arrange things for them, whatever you do. For the sake of the Ten, for the sake of the friends, for the sake of one friend, it is certain to go into your spiritual account and not become erased. That's all you can say here – we've read it in many places. 

Question (Baltia 3): (15:34) What is that intermediary state? If I don't have the intention to receive, why is that not called in order to bestow? 

M. Laitman: The fact that you are not receiving in order to receive does not mean that you are already in the intention to bestow. Maybe you have nothing to receive in front of you. Maybe you have no powers; maybe such powers are working on you from above that don't give you the chance. It still doesn't mean that you have the desire and the screen, and you are facing this spiritual filling and you're coping with it to receive only in order to bestow.  

Question (Almaty 1): (16:46) Is it correct that the state of faith is what does not exist inside reason? It was never there and above reason doesn't exist at all?

M. Laitman: Correct. Reason is what is accepted and felt in the will to receive. Faith is what is accepted and felt in the will to bestow. We have no desire to bestow, we only have a desire to receive. And what we receive from above is a special force to work with the will to receive in order to bestow. It's like an example of having a mother and a baby. She constantly thinks about the baby, that it will be happy. She thinks about what she can do to make it even better for the baby. So, of course, she's working with her vessels of reception because she has no other vessels, she has the will to receive. But this will to receive is directed entirely towards someone outside of her. Except the mother doesn't feel that it's outside of her. She feels that that baby, that little baby in her hands is even more within her – it is more important than her, herself. Likewise, we have to come to feel others, that what is outside of us will be more important to us than we. It seems unrealistic but precisely in this way we come to feel the upper world. This is called, I saw an opposite world. What does it mean to see an opposite world? To see what previously I couldn't even imagine. And all of a sudden, in this opposite manner, I see it. What does it mean in opposite manner? That it's impossible that what is outside of me becomes more important than me.

Normally, we are very egoistic, especially those who come to the wisdom of Kabbalah. You are the most egoistic out of the entire world, to such an extent that we don't feel what someone thinks, what someone feels. There are people who feel others, Kabbalists – in the beginning of the way, before they receive the quality of bestowal – they are very obtuse to the world and to others, very obtuse, they can't feel others. Seems to them that the other doesn't really exist, they're like statues, like objects. So are people, this is how they see it, but through all the work on themselves, when they draw a reforming light, through the Ten. When we come to states where we begin to awaken a little bit and feel the friends and the group, and suddenly we have some feeling toward them that they've become close, etc. But it is not, it doesn't come easy, so don't despair. And precisely those with more coarseness and more efforts, we come to a state that we obtain the opposite. In the greater coarseness, we obtain rising above this coarseness, and we enter into bestowal. But it's when on one hand you have the Klipa, the shell, on the other hand, you have a holiness, and we shift from one side to the other.

Question (Turkiye 5): (22:06) It is written, this is why they entice one to draw light to their degree. What is the meaning of this sentence? 

M. Laitman: That the will to receive, the shell, awakens a person to constantly be in states where she can receive greater fulfillment, greater filling, that's it. 

Question (Moscow 1): (22:55) It's very hard to simultaneously hold myself in the lesson, and also be in the lesson. How can we focus on the lesson? 

M. Laitman: I would recommend that during the lesson, you get into the lesson as much as possible. And don't really think about yourself, about your own situation, just dive into what the teacher says, into what the friends are saying and into the text as if you don't exist. Like diving into the sea and you just disappear there, so that the upper light will influence you as much as possible, and with it, you don't interfere with it. Afterwards, you'll have time to get into it with your intellect, to criticize and scrutinize. But in the meantime, as you're listening to the lesson with the group, annul before the group, annul now before the lesson. Open up all your channels, and just absorb what is there. This is why questions are good but here what counts as the essence of the question? You see, I'm letting you ask nevertheless because there has to be some sort of communication between us. And with the study material in between, but in truth, the right absorption is when a person becomes completely annulled and gets rid of all of his will to receive of himself, of his qualities. And wants to be like an embryo in the womb, as if he doesn't exist and everything operates on him from above.

In this way, we are certain we are certainly absorbing the material the best way. We don't install into the material our own will to receive, why is it like that, why is it like this? It's like this, it's like that, and then I don't drink it.

Student: So, if I disconnect myself, if I hold myself in that state where I'm saying the Creator is giving me the state and all the things that I hear, they come from Him, then my hearing disconnects in that state?

M. Laitman: So, try to do what I'm telling you. You will see new things.