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

Daily Lesson (Morning) June 23, 2024.

Part 2: Rabash. Letter 38

Reader: We're reading in the writings of Rabash, Letter number 38.

Reading Letter 38-1 (00:25) “Who is Self.” 

We should explain who is the person that we say must be a servant of the Creator, and in return for which he will receive reward. After all, man consists of 248 organs and the soul of life, which sustains the entire body. The question is, “Who is the operator, the mind, the heart, or the soul of life that sustains them? And what is the self, which was promised to receive a good reward in the future through good deeds?

The verse says, “And God created the man in His own image.” The term creation applies specifically to something new, meaning a reality existence from absence, where the Creator has created something new that did not exist before He has created it. Our sages interpreted that this reality is called “desire to receive pleasure.” This is a lack and emptiness that must now be filled. There was no lack before He has created it, as before this creation there was only wholeness because it cannot be said that the Creator contains a lack. Therefore, this is the only thing that is new, meaning the will to receive.

M. Laitman: (02:51) Questions? No questions, okay continue.

Reading Continues: (02:54) “Creation of the Will to Receive.” 

The need to create the will to receive is because they interpreted that the purpose of creation was to do good to His creations. The Creator wishes to impart His goodness in order to delight the creatures, and consequently, creation must contain be a Kli (vessel) for reception of pleasure. It is impossible to receive pleasure if there is no need and lack for it, for then we do not feel any pleasure.

This is similar to a person treating his friend to a good meal, but he has no appetite and therefore cannot enjoy the meal, for only the craving for the food determines the measure of pleasure in the meal. For this reason, in order for the creatures to enjoy His gifts, He has imprinted in the creatures a nature of always wanting to receive pleasure.

This discernment that exists in a person, namely the desire to receive pleasure, is the whole of man which the Creator has created. Everything we speak of with regard to man is nothing more than the desire to receive. It was said about him that he must engage in Torah and Mitzvot (commandment), and in the future he will be granted eternal pleasure. That is, the desire to receive pleasure will be rewarded, at the end of its work, with receiving all the pleasure that the Creator contemplated giving to it.

The desire to receive was given organs to serve it, and through which it is to receive pleasure. That is, they bring it pleasure. These are the hands, legs, sight, hearing, and so forth. They are all servants, meaning that they all serve man. In other words, the will to receive is regarded as the master, and all the organs are its servants. It also has a butler, appointed over his servants, monitoring and making sure that they all work only toward the desired purpose of bringing pleasure, for it is the wish of the landlord, called the “will to receive.”

Should one of the servants be missing, the pleasure associated with that servant will be missing, too. Thus, if a person is deaf, he cannot enjoy the sound of singing. If he is anosmic (lacking the sense of smell), he cannot enjoy the fragrance of perfumes. And should he lack the intellect, which is appointed over all the servants, like the manager of the business watching over all the servants, the whole business will go awry and could inflict losses.

This is like a business owner who has many employees but a poor manager. Instead of profiting, he might lose. But the owner remains even when he has no manager, as though the manager is sick and cannot run the business, but the owner of the business is still alive.

It is likewise here. If a person has no intellect, called “servant,” but the owner is present, meaning that the desire to receive pleasure is not lost because of it, and the aspiration to enjoy remains—but lacks the ability to scrutinize—then he might sell a big pleasure in return for a small one. For example, if this mindless one is craving a sweet, and the shopkeeper tells him, “Give me ten pounds and I’ll give you the sweet,” if he is mindless, he might give him ten pounds for the sweet because he cannot evaluate the price of the sweet he wants.

Similarly, he could cause harm, break tools, and tear clothes because he thinks it will give him some sort of pleasure. Do not be surprised that there can be pleasure in harming. It is said about Aristotle, the great philosopher, that he burned a big and expensive house because he wanted to commemorate his name, meaning that his name would remain for posterity. He thought that because the mansion was a valuable thing, his name would be remembered because everyone would remember the big mansion that Aristotle burnt.

Thus, we see that people find pleasure in harming, too. Also, any deed that a mindless person does must give him pleasure, and that pleasure compels him to do some things even though they are bad, since he cannot weigh if it is worthwhile to cause great harm in return for a small pleasure.

It follows from all the above that the essence of man is the will to receive pleasure, and nothing else. That is, the mind, too, is not man’s body, but as was said above.

Reading Continues: “Concerning Work.”

The will to receive, which is man’s essence, is opposite from the Creator, namely that the Creator is the giver. In order to have equivalence of form, meaning that man’s actions will also be only to bestow—or the pleasures he will receive from the Creator will not be whole because he will experience shame in them, since one who receives a gift from another is ashamed to look at his face and feels torment upon the reception of the pleasure—for this reason we were given the Torah and Mitzvot, by which we acquire a new power of wanting to bestow contentment upon the Creator. At that time he will be fit to receive all the pleasures from the Creator without any shame because he will not receive all those pleasures because he wants to enjoy, but because he is doing the Creator’s will by accepting the pleasure, as the purpose of creation was for the creatures to receive pleasure in the world. Indeed, the whole work is about achieving this degree of wanting to receive pleasure only for the purpose of a Mitzva (commandment/good deed).

I repeated the words that I said verbally so that you can remember them, for these are the very basics.

From your friend who wishes you and your family all the best,

Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag

 

M. Laitman: Questions? None? Good, it’s actually clear what he’s writing. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:08) He starts his letter with a question, who is the self? And then he says the will to receive, but he also says that there's the intellect, the mind, the heart, and the soul that gives vitality. So, what's the role of each of them in the service of the will to receive? 

M. Laitman: I think that there is no problem other than the brain, the heart, the liver, and all the other parts of the body, because you can replace all of them today, and the person remains alive. Just the brain is not able to do it yet. So over time, we'll see that also the brain. So, when he speaks about brain, heart, liver, and down to the simplest organs, all those things are parts of the body, and not more than that.

Student: He says a man is made of the 248 organs, and the living soul vitalizes everything. 

M. Laitman: It's a light and vessel. Vessels are all the organs, and the light that passes through them, that fills them, and connects them from one to another, this is the light of life. The moment it stops, a person dies. 

Student: Are we talking about the corporeal, the body? 

M. Laitman: Let’s say the living body, it doesn't matter. A corporeal, let's say corporeal. And if the conduct, the connection between the organs is not well, a person is called sick.

Student: So, where does this thing called the desire to receive take place in this whole system? 

M. Laitman: The will to receive is the general desire that activates the parts of the body. 

Student: So that's not in the physical body, that's something else?

M. Laitman: We can't distinguish that yet, we can't, but we try. You have many articles by doctors and physiologists who write about it.

Student: So if so, there is the desire to receive, there's the light that fills it, which is the vitalizing source, and there's the mind and the heart, which are the tools that serve this will to receive?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikvah Center): (18:24) What is this soul that gives life? If I artificially manage to create a body, like a man, with all the parts in it, and all the aspects of it, how do..? 

M. Laitman: Where do you know all the parts of the connection between them? That's the whole wisdom.

Student: This soul that gives life, is it in the parts, or is it something external that enters this body and operates it? 

M. Laitman: The soul of life exists in the connection between the parts. The wisdom of the connection between the parts brings you to know the method, the power, the goal, how to attain it, how to keep it. 

Question (Petah Tikvah Center): (19:28) He brings a verse at the beginning where the Creator created man in his image. What does it mean the will to receive was created? But in his image, it's similar to him, no? And then at the end, he says that what will compel a person to come to this repentance is shame.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, we learn what it is in his image and what it is in the wisdom of Kabbalah, but how to explain to people that there is something that develops in a person and goes through the entire pyramid of these desires of a person, eventually he does come to that feeling? Of shame, of a feeling that he needs to correct himself. In a natural development, if he goes through the degree of the desire. 

M. Laitman: I don't think so. I don't think that according to Maslow’s pyramid, it's going to do something that will correct him.

Student: We also explain it. When we explain in our intro lectures the development and desire we come from the desire of knowledge. From that we can come to the desire, to the question, what is the meaning of life and that. So, seemingly there is this process that eventually in each person there is that point that the Creator created him in His image. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: There is a certain form of development here?

M. Laitman: A certain.

Student: So why am I asking? Because we learned in the first part about the last generation, and everyone remembers that in the Nation he writes that it is possible to make an incubator, that this natural development you can kind of taste in with the help of building this society.

M. Laitman: Yes, that’s what is written. Try and good luck.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:43) It is written in the verse before the work that the result of all this is that man's main desire is to receive pleasure, and nothing else. Meaning also the mind is not man’s body but the same. What does it mean that the intellect is not the body of man?

M. Laitman: It does not belong to the development of a person. The mind is an internal force that connects all the organs in the chambers of the brain, so on and so forth and that’s it. Well, you’re not full yet?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:50) There’s the body, the mind, the heart, and the spirit and he writes the mind, the intellect is like a manager. My question is where does this yearning of a person for spirituality come from? Is it in his mind? 

M. Laitman: It’s the point in the heart. 

Student: Where is it? 

M. Laitman: Let’s say it exists in the heart. It doesn’t exist really.

Student: When a person has a drive for spirituality to that point in the heart still it’s operated in the mind, in the heart.

M. Laitman: All his organs.

Student: So, is it a kind of desire, that point in the heart? 

M. Laitman: Desire. Only desire.

Student: How does this desire cause feelings? 

M. Laitman: The desire awakens the feeling because it wants to feel something.

Student: When a person wants to feel it’s an action of his body.

M. Laitman: Seemingly.

Student: Like this magnet, he’s trying to reach, he’s looking, a certain search. A person that for example has this problematic manager, can he come to the implementation to the point in the heart?

M. Laitman: Not only can we get there, we're obligated to reach the realization of that point. We’re obligated and that’s why such people gather and advance. 

Student: How to take certain points that you can hold onto so that you can understand that what you're doing in the body is really correct towards the point in the heart?

M. Laitman: As much as you try to exit the body and see it from the outside. By that, you can measure your advancement.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:11) So we can try to understand this mechanism that changes the desire. Because when we talk about the reforming light, it works out of us reading the writings, when we do certain actions with the friends. In the end, it works with the intellect and the feeling. When we read something, and think about it, we're drawn to it. The friends talk about how through this mechanism, which is the mind and feeling, which is where the will to receive, how does it make an inversion that changes it?

M. Laitman: It passes through the upper system, which turns it, inverts those forces, the mind and the heart, and the feeling.

Student: When Baal HaSulam talks about a psychological change, so that makes a certain change in one's perception, in his mind, in his awareness? 

M. Laitman: That happens too, yes. 

M. Laitman: Friends, when do you want to go home? 

Reader: When we make the announcements. 

M. Laitman: Ah, that's what they're waiting for? Okay.

M. Laitman: Who's reading it? 

Announcements: (26:42)