Part 3
Morning Lesson February 7, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Faith Above Reason - Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #76
1. R. I thought that it is better if we finished the lesson with faith above reason that that will be with what we take into our day. We will remain with this impression on this topic as much as possible as actually each and everything in life we will need to determine our attitude and faith above reason.
Reading Excerpt 76 (00:50)
2. R. (02:16) That means that each and everything in life we need to accept it as a correct form of behavior towards us from the Creator. That is specifically only from the Creator because there is None Else Besides Him and the right behavior from now from each and every one of us because by this, he is teaching us how we need to come closer to Him, to understand Him, to know Him, to be like Him. That is why there is nothing in a person's life that he can criticize in any way except for what he himself needs to want to ascribe himself to the Creator working upon him. The Creator taking care of him only. That is why all of providence, all of our life has to be accepted in us as the good that does good. It was very difficult for me to understand it too, I remember how Rabash used to tell me in the evening how it was very cold at home, there was no heating.
He fell asleep and his little daughter came up to him and stood beside his bed and said “Father” and he said, “what do you want” and she said, “I want to eat” and there is nothing in the house to eat. So he told her, you go to sleep and tomorrow there will be food. Literally nothing to eat and not even a piece of bread and then in such a way you need to accept the Creator’s providence as a good that does good. That we are already speaking about the little daughter, it is very difficult and also that we need to, we are not even talking about us anymore, also that we need to raise above reason. It is not simple but why am I saying this? Because what is he saying?
That the restriction and concealment were made for benefits of lower one. Thus, there is no point in asking about Providence or why the Creator is treating us as it seems to us. If we do not see the good and we suffer exile, poverty and so on. In other words everyone complains about why the Creator behaves with an undisclosed guidance towards us that is only good for this reason it is forbidden to slander his guidance the way he behaves with the creatures instead we must believe with faith above reason that it should be precisely as we see it. Concerning what we feel we should walk in the ways of the Torah as the sages have instructed us how to behave with all of these feelings that we feel and to say about them with faith above reason that they have eyes and see not.
R. That is still very far from us to understand and to behave in such a way but still we will listen and gradually it will get into us, and we will understand and feel it.
Reading Excerpt 77 (07:00)
3. S. (08:21) So there is a difference between our life in this world with all of our emotions and what we will need to raise to a higher degree. Then we are incorporated in the good that does good and there is none else beside him and so on. For that reason in order to prepare us for it we need all kinds of exercises that the Creator is doing on us and the souls that are closer or further away and that we will need to correct ourselves in order to see ourselves in order to see the good that does good through all of those problems that we see. From this we come to an ability to understand the upper Providence and to connect to it.
4. S. (09:23) With respect to the example that you just gave about the child of Rabash that has no food and his answer to the child, what does in their work that the Kabbalist does here?
R. I cannot tell you anything. You heard it and let it be an example for you. That is it. I cannot interpret this gradually; we will understand how we need to understand except the Providence of the Creator with all the terrible things in this world that we do not even want to remember them and think about or feel them. We will also need to justify the Creator upon all of these things according to the way we correct ourselves. It is not for now, but you read it, good now forget about it as much as possible and we will keep going.
Reading excerpt 78 (10:46)
5. S. (11:58) Meaning when do we need to work with our ego? One specifically people come and say that you cannot work above reason. that is called and his ways will be more exalted in the path of the Creator that we raise our heart and say, 'no we are walking this path and we do not want to remain and you and, in your desires, and thoughts as beast. That is called the degree of beasts, the animate agree, that whatever a person has that is what he is in. We do not agree to remain on such a degree that we feel and see according to our eyes and heart and mind. We want every time to rise to another degree above this world and we have no choice but to rise towards the upper force which is the good that does good and that it does control everything.
6. S. (13:13) If alien thoughts come to you and they tell you look, you have been learning Kabbalah for 20 years, we have succeeded in our life and corporality and spirituality, and you are just staying in the same spot. These are desires or places where a person should be proud and say no, I am proud that I am truly walking on the path.
R. I am not talking about that. You see how I live. I isolate myself from the whole world and I do not get into any arguments with them. But to explain a bit of Kabbalah the way the observation to the wisdom of Kabbalah, I can but to start arguing? No, For what?
S. Not to argue Rav but sometimes their thoughts penetrate into, and you tell yourself, what a poor guy I am so how can I guard myself with my pride. To say to myself that I am on the right path and that they can stay in their path? Does pride guard a person?
R. I do not need to argue with them even in my head. You do not understand what I am saying. Also, in my head I do not want to have any thoughts of theirs because you can never be right or not right, or for what? If you would argue with something that is important on the path, but it is not important on the path on the path I have to walk according to my truth. For me to start arguing who is right or not or within reason or above reason nobody can decide. That is why I choose the path to rise above and the degrees of man to rise above man, to rise above man in this world, to a higher degree and the more exalted and more exalted and that is how I keep going. Then I started seeing that the world is not built according to the human mind but according to the godly minds, according to the quality of bestowal, the force of bestowal not the force of reception.
7. S. (15:55) What is the meaning of there is no command to suffer, no Mitzvah to suffer?
R. No commitment to suffer means you have to rise to a degree where you do not suffer but enjoy. That even people that look at you and they will say how could it be that he is suffering so much but you have to bring yourself to a state where you do not suffer. That you are connected to the Creator to such an extent that all of these sufferings become, that is called that pain becomes pleasure.
8. S. (16:43) Is the purpose of the Mitzvah (commandments) speaking bad things about others is to bring a person to faith above reason?
R. Anything we feel in our life is only in order to help us ascend above reason. In this way to help us advance all the way to Maltikkun. Meaning to bring us to the degree of Bina when we will be on it and hold on to it and everything that we do will only be from that degree from the degree of Bina.
9. S. (17:27) It is written that is why you are not to say bad things about the Creator, how does that settle with a prayer. A prayer comes from a deficiency. Should we accept everything as the good that does good?
R. We start our prayer by giving gratitude to the Creator for creating us and giving us an opportunity to ascend to his degree. Specifically, in the gap between our state and the Creator's state we acquire all of creation, and all the results and everything, by this we fill ourselves with the attainment of creation. If you would create us on his degree, we would not feel anything. That is it.
why we thank Him for creating us the way He did in a low degree. From this low degree we gradually rise to his degree.
10. S. (18:46) These excerpts are very special. On the one hand, they talk about very high states. On the other hand, I am trying to understand our state, when we feel the Creator gives us pain. That is how a person feels. What can you do? What can you hold on to?
R. What can I tell you? I also went through something in my life. How to take the states that all in all the Creator's attitude is clothed in his mercy. We need to discover this clothing of mercy and not the state that the will to receive goes through. Our naked will to receive. That is what is happening if we look at the states through the will to receive so obviously our life it is better not to be born. If we look at our life from the opportunity to reach the degree of the Creator, the degree of bestowal, what can be of a greater gift than being born in such a low state and from it reaching such an exalted state. That is why, in that it is written he who shuts his mouth during an argument. Meaning to keep incorporating in the Arvut of the group and to keep going.
S. I shut my mouth or at least I say outwards, I say there is none else beside him and there is the good that does good but the heart what can I do when the heart feels shrunken?
R. Try to feel the heart as if it is already corrected even though that is also not good. Truthfully, we need to understand that every suffering is also a correction not that there is a commandment to suffer but when you go through this suffering, from lack of choice to understand that now the correction takes place by the suffering.
S. While suffering?
R. Think of corrections. That is why Rabash would say, He would point to himself and say, “Let It suffer.” Do it that way. It is very hard, also Baal HaSulam used to say many things he used to speak in such a harsh way. He said that man before death, that is dying he feels pain and that his whole life, he is leaving them in pain in such a force that is taking all his life away and he says but it is not worth giving up on it. Meaning if it was possible still you should not give up on it. There are a lot of things that we correct by pain even though we do not sanctify it. We sanctify rising above suffering in faith above reason to attain the Creator as the good who does good but without the suffering we cannot deal with our ego. These are things that we have to locate our own. Everyone who loves the Creator will prove him.
11. S. (23.02) All the life of one person does life start before death or after or does it all change all the time?
R. That is what you said. In the end our whole life is one flow that you cannot really divide it or slice into pieces. We still have to connect ourselves in the Arvut of all the souls to one soul. Then we will look at these things in a completely different way and everything is for the best. Everything for the best.
12. S. (23:58) What should we think about the correction while we suffer? What is the right way to think? How should we think about it?
R. That even though I could not justify the suffering, I would still be happier if it disappeared on the one hand. On the other hand I annul myself towards the Creator and ask and pray for only one thing. That in every opportunity I will be able to thank him and see him as the good that does good. It is not simple. But if the group is beside you, and you can incorporate in them, you can say it and feel it. In the group it is completely different. Try and see it.
S. Can we change the point of view? Let us say I feel bad, and I think about other people feeling bad. Can we incorporate others into my prayers at that moment or not?
R. Better for now, you.
13. S. (25:41) Why is the purpose of creation concealed from humanity? If humanity concealed can see why it is suffering it would get these things differently.
R. Of course, if you would run to the purpose of creation egotistically, how to grab the Creator and fill yourself with his light in order to receive that would be even worse, that would be even more difficult to reach the quality of the Creator. What was created here is that there are two systems, reception, and bestowal. In the connection between them and the shattering and mixture between them the path was built and stabilized. The good one, the short one, the secure one, from the opposite form of the Creator to the form that resembles Him. That is what we will learn about more and more and understand that this is how it happened.
14. S. (27:01) I have a request. If I may, can we learn about The Zohar? Especially the chapters about nature, it gives us more feeling and less in the intellect?
R. I do not know, find those parts that you are talking about and send them to our management and whatever they decide. That is it.
15. S. (27:37) About the suffering that Baal HaSulam said about corporeality and what do you mean about spiritual suffering?
R. Spiritual suffering is that I cannot give contentment to the Creator yet. That is the foundation to spiritual suffering.