Morning Lesson August 14, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Baal HaSulam. The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence (The Language of Kabbalah Is Like Any Spoken Language, and Its Advantage Is in the Meaning Contained within a Single Word)
Reading (00:18) “The language of Kabbalah is like any spoken language and its advantage is in the meaning contained within a single world”
1 R. (03:29) Meaning that the wisdom of Kabbalah has a special language the language of branches and through it we can talk about the spiritual forces that do not appear in our earthly desires hence we cannot describe them with what we do in our world according to purple real feelings and hence this language is truly a different form of language, it’s descriptions to phenomena that are felt by people who are in exalted spiritual qualities. Therefore these qualities are given and what appears in them they’re given appellations that are different, strange, sometimes they’re called the different the language of branches, there are four languages in the language of Kabbalah, the language of the angels, of the prophets there are all kinds of such because the truth is that our problem is that we cannot talk and connect between us in concepts of this world and talk about what is being revealed in the higher upper world, here the problem is, this is where the main problem is.
2. S. (05:38) We feel that in our congress that through our connection we are giving the whole world force. Can we support each other all over the world Kli by having congresses, local congresses, in all kinds of countries? In this congress here we feel that through this force of connection we're giving force to the whole world Kli. The question is can the whole world Kli support each other this way if we have throughout the whole world local congresses and this way we can awaken this force?
R. Certainly yes certainly through such conventions we can awaken the force of connection all over the world but also in your convention there are representatives from all kinds of countries, all kinds of languages, and nations, so therefore certainly if you work on advertising it and exit this small framework of the convention to the more broader circles then by that you can expand the wisdom of Kabbalah to the world and advance the world to its correction for a world that is suffering and that is expecting it even though the world doesn't know that there is a solution to all these problems in this world.
3. S. (08:03) Ordinary languages that people talk with are a result of some prominent agreement about concepts. People agree that this is called this and that but that’s it, but that’s not the wisdom of Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes that that’is the most precise language. How was this language born and what is the mutual agreement here?
R. Our regular earthly languages, we know how they were discovered by us tasting, feeling, stumbling upon all kinds of phenomena and feeling them, and therefore we have a certain common responses appear to us to the same phenomena and from that words were said and different responses appear to us from what we were receive in our world. In the wisdom of Kabbalah the Kabbalists when they reach different spiritual phenomena they also feel the same phenomenon each of them even though it is somewhat different than the other. Just like in our world we cannot compare who feels how bitter it is or how sweet it is but rather there’s an agreement that this is in general bitter and this is in general sweet, that’s also in the wisdom of Kabbalah. There's an agreement between the Kabbalists that this is like this and this is like that, and therefore they found from their connection and understanding in the upper world, in these upper phenomena, they found for themselves also the language of branches in our world and this is how this language developed.
Therefore later we have the language of the Sefirot and more precise things that we cannot yet talk about because we don’t feel them but when we reach these phenomena, these matters, we will understand them, talk about them, and we will have many additional possibilities to connect and understand one another in a way that we are truly connecting as one man in one heart without any external word and some necessity from within to talk with one another but rather we will feel and understand that everything is in one heart.
4. S. (11:04) For years we have been developing the language of the integral education. What’s the place of that language and how to connect it to language of Kabbalah?
R. In this we want to bring people closer to the wisdom of Kabbalah and to bring them closer to connection between them so that from that they will also enter into the study of the languages that are in the spiritual perception hence this whole integral language that we’re talking about is as a preparation for the languages of Kabbalah. Okay?
Reading (12:08) “Forgetting the Wisdom”: “Since the concealment…”
5. R. (13:49) Meaning there’s a cessation between what the Kabbalists knew at one point and managed to clarify to one another about it until Rabbi Moshe De Leon who was a great Kabbalist that lived in France and Spain back then it was not so clear yet, not certain yet, but in the 12th century in those times and he was a great Kabbalist but when he passed all of his writings remained with his widow and amongst them was also the Book of Zohar therefore she didn't have what to live from and she didn't know that these books are prohibited from being sold, that they are not for everyone, so she's sold them, and this is how the Book of Zohar was revealed in the world from the 12th century from Rabbi Moshe De Leon and therefore everyone thinks, mostly while many people think that Rabbi Moshe De Leon is the one that wrote the Book of Zohar and not 1,200 years prior to him, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his students. This is how it also came to us.
6. S. (15:44) So he tells us that in the Book of Zohar there’s no way to understand even one word even Moshe De Leon I didn't understand what’s written here only one hand, on the other hand we read a few minutes ago that he writes that only the combination of a few words, even portions sometimes, you can understand them. How can we understand that on the one hand he says you have to understand and on the other hand we learned we have to feel so what comes first?
R. Not this and not that you need to use all of the writings of the wisdom of Kabbalah like a special force that helps according to your inclination to bring you closer to spirituality to the fact that your heart will be refined and be able to feel what it’s talking about and it’s not that your intellect will suddenly understand what it’s written about.
S. So when will we be able to understand the Book of Zohar? What is the Book of Zohar about what he writes here?
R. It’s not important, it's not what he talks about because you won’t understand any word in it anyway.
S. My question is will we be able to understand it in order to reach the feeling?
R. You won’t understand or reach a feeling but rather it is a Segula a virtue just like all the writings of Kabbalah. All the writings of Kabbalah you’re reading about what is happening in a world above you what you don’t understand anything about but you read it and learn it as a virtue, a virtue, read what Baal HaSulam writes in all kinds of places, a virtue, what’s a Segula, virtue, that it will help you open your heart and you will start to feel what they’re really writing about.
S. Does a Kabbalist feel the Zohar?
R. A Kabbalist does feel.
S. Also TES is the same you can also understand?
R. Also yes and the Study of the Ten Sefirot it’s even greater problem there because there it seems you can understand everything according to a person’s intellect and I saw many people that understand seemingly what’s written there that’s it, but it’s truly it’s like Baal HaSulam says it’s similar to counting letters.
S. When he came from Europe he saw the group he started being angry, what are you doing are you reading the Zohar or the Study of the Ten Sefirot, I don’t remember.
R. Yes.
7. S.(18:43) How could we know and understand that there are moments when the Zohar where there’s like an implementation of the text in a literal way and sometimes to see it as something that’s like an allegory. What’s the principle that works here? When to read the Zohar as something that’s talking about something real and when to see it as an allegory or a parable?
R. We can’t make these discernments about the Zohar the main thing we learn is for it to affect our heart no more than that to affect our heart so that our heart will soften a bit will be closer to the to the feeling of the force of bestowal because the Creator is the force of bestowal and we want to discover Him so we ourselves need to be the force of bestow so when we read the Book of Zohar we expect our heart to soften and to advance toward the force of bestowal, so according to the equivalence of ours with the Creator to a certain extent we’ll be able to feel Him but to the extent that I am myself am in the force of bestowal and not any other way.
S. If so Rav it’s like a code or a vessel for connecting the souls seemingly, connect to the soul.
R. Yes yes it is like a remedy we do not know how it works but Kabbalists tell us like a physician tells his patient take that and you will see how it will work, that’s how we take it as a remedy, the Book of Zohar, and in general all of the writings of Kabbalah we try to adhere to them because that’s considered that we’re getting a remedy and it should help.
8. S. (21:24) With your permission the first thing I want to bless the convention in Berlin and say that this causes us great envy and it’s advancing the Kli already, that’s one of the great virtues and the second thing, a question about the text. This article talks about the language of Kabbalah it’s talking about such as exalted matters, did Baal HaSulam want to build for us the deficiency to work only in intention and not to relate to the Song of Songs or the Zohar or anything that’s detailed and for it all to be expressed in the end of correction?
R. End of correction I don’t know but this will certainly help us advance.
The Kabbalah of the ARI (23:21) “This was so until the arrival…”
9. R. (24:04) There is something very strange here on the one hand it’s the revelation of the Creator to the created beings a very very big thing and how is it that it goes through all kinds of incidents seemingly, some fellow comes he was only 37 when he passed away and he wasn’t from some family a sages we don't even know where he learned it from some uncle he had that sold cloth in Egypt and he used to work with him and he moved to Israel he grew up here and he taught a few people and that’s the origin of all the modern wisdom of Kabbalah, what we say this is correct to them.
It’s also true about Rashbi and his friends ten people sitting in a cave, learning in writing the Book of Zohar the entire wisdom of Kabbalah which is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings has gone through such states that we do not really understand in our modern intellect, healthy intellect, we understand how languages develop how science develops but how does it happen that knowledge about Godliness about the systems of heaven, what happens, how does that come to our world by chance or in a way that we don’t really respect or understand there are many questions here but the truth is it cannot be revealed in any other way. only through a few people, certain incidents between all kinds of things that are opposite, they’re different, they cover the truth, and that is how it works. Why?
Because we can’t grasp how, the way that it’s revealed, how the wisdom, the path that has to go through this wisdom it has to go through certain people with the right approach is developed a new perception how much it comes to us in our days and here too all kinds of different seemingly incidental people, foreigners, not students and sages or simply, sorry for saying, but simple people, ordinary people, no one is excellent in something and so what happens that the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed specifically this way and the truth is that’s how it’s written that only those may feel a tendency towards it and to reach the realization. We are yet to discover that but what I want to say is do not be impressed because we’re drawing the simple people and they’re going through all kinds of events and that’s how even though it’s not according to our logic or mind and emotions but specifically this way we reach the revelation of Godliness just as the Creator is concealed, that’s how we discover Him in a way that is concealed from us.
10. S. (28:31) What do we need to be able control the language of prayer, do we need to learn it?
R. If we will advance as we are advancing now, you will start feeling in your heart a tendency for the Creator, a demand for the Creator and that will be called a prayer.
11. S. (29:04) From the beginning when we started to study the article, I have a question about the fact that we are learning that in spirituality nothing changes, right? On the other hand, how to understand that Kabbalists in different times used different languages to explain the same system, the spiritual system. Baal HaSulam, I do not remember which article, but there was a nice example where he describes where he attains, it is like she sees in London the store fronts and the lights, and there is some kind of lack of understanding, if you could explain.
R. They're a spirituality that does not depend on us but rather each and every one as much as he equalizes it, himself with it and to the extent that he does, accordingly he discovers, and he has a problem how to express his revelation, to picture it, to tell about it, to sing it, but that has nothing to do with spirituality itself. It exists outside of a person’s attainment, it is of itself, it is the Creator ready for the perception of the created being, that is how we should proceed it and depict it.
12. S. (30:44) Is The Zohar a narrow bridge for us, how do we get to this, do we need to read constantly about that?
R. No, we can read The Zohar, especially the first volume of all of our books, the first volume, that is called, The Introduction to the Book of Zohar, and that is important. It incorporates this introduction, the whole Book of Zohar, that is what Rabash told me, this is why, well, we will learn that, I hope we will we are about to learn it soon.
Continues “Yet, you must understand the reason why all the great…”
13. R. (32:15) This means that anyone who came after the ARI, it is as if he got an instruction from the Sages, not to engage in anything but The Zohar by the ARI, meaning what the ARI prepared.
Continues “This was not because they did not believe…”
14. S. (34:32) To the best of my knowledge, the ARI I did not take The Book of Zohar, like Baal HaSulam and interpret it, he uses from time to time, he relates to it, brings, here and there excerpts, from there.
R. The thing is, he did not interpret the whole book as Baal HaSulam did. The thing is the approach to the Book of Zohar. The others could not reveal this correct or true approach, that’s it.
15. S. (35:09) It is not quite clear what the language of Kabbalah is, is this a language that a person who has a connection with Creator uses?
R. I did not understand repeat, please.
S. Thus far, it’s not quite clear what the language of Kabbalah is, is it what’s written in the initial sources or is it something that someone who has connection with the upper force uses?
R. The language of Kabbalah is the language of branches, that is something we have learned but we will learn again, the language of branches, which is, we have a problem to connect the upper world with our lower one, so Kabbalists explain and invented a language called, “the language branches” because they knew this language of ‘root and branch’: the root is the Creator and we are the branches, and how through the bestowal of the Creator comes to us bestowal and how can we call this language, this bestowal in the right way, in the right language. That is what Kabbalists invented for us and so what they invented they called, the language of branches.
S. How can we be certain that this is the correct language because there are many Kabbalists in the world?
R. No, but after the ARI, we already have a clear path how we should develop ourselves in order to receive bestowal from the Creator and you understand it. The main thing is what we are doing now, it’s in order to open up our vessels as root and branch to resemble the root in order to bestow, as He does and accordingly, we will be able to understand what he says. We will get from Him all of the bestowals in our vessel to the extent that our vessel is in the form of bestowal to Him, that is the main thing about the ‘language of branches’. Later we will learn with you what the ‘language of branches’ is in all the five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch but first of all, this, we have to be in the same form of bestowal to Him just like He is for us, then we will start feeling each other like a baby feeling his mother.
16. S. (38:46) We know that the ARI, himself, didn’t write books but Malchut wrote them. However, nevertheless, did he manage to pass this language to his students in this manner, like for Chaim Vitale who wrote this because there was a very interesting structure there?
R. The language is not to the extent that it was written, the language is to the extent that there is adhesion between the teacher and the student. It has nothing to do with time, even today. Now when you are five hundred years after the ARI, you can by your work, you can reach a state where you are attached to the ARI, and you hear from him and you can speak with him like someone who speaks to his friend.
S. What is that degree of adhesion of a Kabbalist that we can hear him?
R. There are two degrees: from heart according to the brain, and according to the heart, we can call them.
S. What is it, it’s adhesion with what, with his spiritual degree?
R. A connection between the vessels, a connection between the vessels; and it has nothing to do with if someone is alive or dead, it has nothing to do with anything at all. As it is written, “when the ARI passed away, how he talked to Cohan, to his student, “if you will merit, I will come and teach you, and it does not matter if I'm alive now or dead”.
S. It is like at a certain stage you start to feel the vessels of the teacher?
R. You will come to that and you will see how it happens, you cannot deal in these concealed things, yet.
17. S. (41:17) With time the way that the wisdom of Kabbalah was passed changed through all kinds of languages. Through what language will the last generation attain the spiritual system? Will the language of Kabbalah change and become clearer?
R. First of all it does not go according to generations just like you count generations. Within a few years the generation will change. Human development was in a way that it received spiritual shapes, spiritual bestowal in the form of a Bible for instance, and people used to understand and be impressed with that.
Now it’s the shape, it’s impressed through Kabbalah, the language of Kabbalah. Also this is not clear, it’s not yet revealed to everyone but still. During the time of the ARI, from the time of the ARI and on these languages were already there, ready for everyone whose heart is ready to perceive the language and to feel it. Beyond that there is nothing to say and it will only confuse you. Okay?
S. Meaning this language will remain with all of humanity, yes?
R. Yes, the one of roots and branches as we are now. We're generally in the last generation it won’t change.
18. S. (43:19) When we talked about the language of Kabbalah we talk first of all about the Zohar. Is Psalms also written in the language of Kabbalah?
R. It has nothing to do with the corporeal expression it’s about the vessels that are at a certain height. So our generation is ready to proceed with the revelation of godliness in His way, and this shape is called the language. It’s not what you now think, it’s not the same direction, it’s not a style, it’s not a difference between English and French.
19. S. (44:09) A person who has already attained spirituality when he studies the Ten Sefirot and he learns about the Partzuf of Galgalta for example, so from this degree he draws upon himself light? What gives a person all together this study? Let’s say the study of the TES for someone who has attained something?
R. He wants to attain what he is learning and that's why he awakens in that the light that reforms, that shines on him and corrects his vessels, that’s all.
Continues “In light of the above said…” Twice (45:01)
20. R. (49:51) Yes, we will see how we will perceive this bit by bit. It will be revealed, it will be cleared even though it is not there now.
21. S. (50:02) Everything is understandable and can be felt fully in a lesson but everything is erased after the lesson. Why is that? How can the Creator and our friends be in our mind 24 hours a day?
R. Everything is erased from your head and everything is erased from your heart in order for us go forward and every time as it is written it will be new in your eyes. That’s why you should not be afraid if all of a sudden you are empty. I have nothing, I haven't learned anything, I don’t know, I don’t understand, I can’t feel, I’m amazed, how can that be?
I can’t look at my life, how can I look at my life without any memory, any discernment from yesterday to today? That’s the way it is. Why? So that you will be able like a baby to cling to the Creator in each and every state as a new state and only this way will you come to the truth. He who does not forget what he previously had doesn't go to according to the verse everyday they shall be new in your eyes. He will not be able to attain spirituality. That’s why don’t be afraid at all. It’s a very narrow bridge, we are walking this way as Kabbalists say and we attain. Good luck all the best.