Morning Lesson January 21, 2024

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.

Part 1:

Rabash. Article No. 14, 1990. What Is True Hesed in the Work?

Reading Article. (00:30) “RASHI interprets the verse that Jacob said…”

1. Rav intro: (32:58) Are there questions? Alright very well.

2. S. (33:09) I can't understand how it is possible to receive and be in bestowal upon the Creator so absolutely. If I receive and feel that I should enjoy completely so that the Creator enjoys my pleasure?

R. Yes.

S. How can a person be in bestowal upon the Creator while receiving flavors and enjoy 100% as you would enjoy completely?

R. Yes.

S. If he were a conduit, it would be understandable. I'm receiving not for myself, I'm passing it on so that it would be understandable but receiving and enjoying myself, how can we be in bestowal at the same time?

R. Anyone has an answer? It is actually very simple; it doesn't matter the action whether I give, or I receive the question is what do I enjoy? If I enjoy receiving from the Creator or giving to the Creator then this work is in one direction, whereas if I make a reception that is in order to bestow that is no longer in a single direction. I receive and I enjoy in all my vessels, and I have no other feeling but joy, and with that this joy I give it, I send, it to the Creator.

S. Okay, I will listen to it, thank you. 

3. S. (35:49) There's one thing I don't understand. Are we the Creator’s employees or His guests? There’s a difference between working for someone and being his guest?

R. You have to receive from Him?

S. Yes.

R. You have to? If you have to, then you as if work for Him.

S. So the thing is I need to be both, like His guest, so is that in the intention?

R. Everything is the intention.

S. How do I change my relation to the Creator and that on the one hand, I have to serve Him and on the other hand, I have to feel that I am like His guest, like a part of Him? It's a different approach. How do I bring those two things into the same relation?

R. This is called making a Tzimtzum restriction and above the restriction you no longer do it for yourself rather to receive in order to bestow.

S. Yes, it is really so as you said before. Is to take from the Creator everything that He gives but to change the relation and not to the gift but the giver of the gift, so that is the correction basically?

R. Yes.

4. S. (37:40) What do we do if we feel that we are not getting pleasure, but we are feeling suffering, or we don't feel well?

R. We have not yet reached the right action.

S. What is the work there or maybe it is not related to the article?

R. Where is there, I didn't understand?

S. In order to work with this article you have to feel pleasure and then you can understand what you need to do but how do we feel pleasure if there's a feeling of suffering, which doesn't dress in the vessels like pleasure?

R. You want to receive something from the Creator?

S. First I want to see that I'm getting pleasure from Him and then I will be able to understand if I'm working in order to receive or in order to bestow?

R. There is still more to do. You still have to correct the intention.

S. Is this also a matter of intention?

R. Yes, what am I receiving for?

S. If there is a feeling of suffering and I ask this question, what am I receiving for?

R. How can you receive if it's suffering?

S. Let’s say there's the influence of the environment and I can invert the sensation of suffering and above reason believe that it is the Creator and that He Is Good Who Does Good. What should I do with it, that is the question?

R. Nothing to do just to continue scrutinizing.

S. After I scrutinize it, I come to have the right intention? What then is the work in order to receive or in order to bestow?

R. You have to reach a state where you do it only for His sake.

S. Do what?

R. Receiving in order to bestow only for the Creator and then you ask Him for strength to realize this intention.

S. What does it mean to receive for Him?

R. You want to bring Him contentment?

S. Yes, but what does it mean to receive for Him when what I feel is not pleasure? How can I turn this feeling into something that is not pleasant? How can I receive it for the Creator?

R. Meaning that you are relating to the Creator and not what you get from Him.

S. Meaning, I relate to a different vessel altogether?

R. Yes.

S. Within that vessel a pleasure dresses on where I have to put the intention to bestow as well?

R. Let us say that there are two hosts in front of you, you received from one to bestow Him pleasure and you don't receive from the other one because you have no relation, no such relation to him that you want to bestow pleasure on to him.

5. S. (41:00) Why two landlords to bosses?

R. Because that is how you can imagine the Creator.

S. Meaning, desires I can receive in order to bestow and desires I can't receive them in order to bestow?

R. Yes let us say so, yes.

6. S. (41:30) If the correction of creation and the purpose of creation come together does a person receive it since you received the correction does he reach the goal or is this a phase followed by another phase?

R. It could be another one.

S. Because the minute that he's receiving the light in Hassadim so he knows what the light of Hassadim is and then he already has connection with the host, he understands the purpose of creation too within it and then he can receive in order to bestow as well?

R. Yes.

S. They come as one together as soon as one is received the reception comes as it is given?

R. No it could all be in two actions, could be two.

7. S. (42:28) Is it possible to enjoy laziness without shame?

R. Can you enjoy laziness without shame?

S. Without shame?

R. Laziness being what, not doing anything?

S. Yes, no effort towards something.

R. There is an effort or there's no effort that depends on the greatness of the Creator in your eyes. If the Creator is great, you feel no effort.

S. I want to work for the Creator, and I feel that the quality he gave me is laziness to sit and do nothing, but I see all my friends they are constantly making efforts for each other and I constantly disappoint them, but I want to make them happy through my efforts, but what does the Creator give me, again, again, and again, I fail. How can we not be ashamed of it? How can I enjoy it without shame?

R. First of all whatever happens you will reach a state where the Creator begins to take care of you more clearly you will feel it, it happens, and it will happen. That is one, two, you have to as much as possible come closer to the friends, closer to the Creator and see how you really fulfill an action bestowal.

S. I forgot the previous thing. You told me there are two things, one I don't remember, two get closer to the friends, see how you bestow, what was the other thing, please? When you told him that soon that Creator will start taking care of him more clearly that was the first thing?

R. Right.

S. Yes, and I’ll feel the Creator's treatment, so first of all when, and second, how will this feel, how will it be felt?

R. I think that you will begin to feel it through action, in action.

S. Not only to good ideas but also how to implement them in action, in practice?

R. Yes, you will understand that, how to do it in action. 

8. S. (47:14) I didn't understand the answer to his question. What is the suffering, how does the suffering of the creative beings help the correction of creation?

R. The suffering of the creative being is from the will to receive in them, and to the extent that they have suffering they get away from the will to receive until they decide they do not want to use it, and that already enters correction.

S. Does that mean those who study Kabbalah or everyone?

R. Everyone too, to an extent somewhat.

S. I can't see that.

R. They just don't cross through the barrier and the restrictions they don't know why and what for, who puts before them such obstacles, who counts their suffering, they don't know that, but we understand that all that we do is entering the Creator and he counts all our states.

S. I'll think about it some more.

R. What did you ask?

S. We can divide it into two, there as we who study, it is not clear to me how am I suffering or the suffering of others leads to correction in order to bestow and thinking only about the Creator only think about the giver and not what he gives, but to really come to a state that is described in the first restriction. What is certainly not clear is those who don't study Kabbalah and who don't understand the suffering?

R. Them, I don't want to think about them now because we are confusing this and that, it is a totally different level. It is a different approach; these are two galaxies apart.

S. Right, correct. So, let’s talk about us. How about a person us a student, how by suffering, here too there are several galaxies just in me. There is corporeal suffering in my life. There is no pleasure, work, relationships, everything. There is suffering even in the ego in the Ten. For example, I could be hurt by someone and that can cause me suffering too and I can't see how to correct it, how it leads me to correction? The description of the correction, the first restriction and all that?

R. When you are in pain you want to know why you are in pain and this is what advances you to understand the cause and to the Creator, to understand why you feel suffering in such actions.

S. In other words, if I manage to implement what is written in the books to be concentrated only on bestowal, the suffering will stop and that is what I have to focus on all the time? Every time I suffer to go back to the basics and be in bestowal as hard as I can, I don't want to receive anything only to enjoy or what?

R. It can't be all at once and in such a decisive manner like you say but basically yes.

S. But if not at once then how?

R. You can't just now immediately make an action in order to bestow.

S. When I suffer do I have to demand it?

R. Being in order to bestow?

S. Yes.

R. Yes, being in order to bestow you need to ask for that, demand it.

S. Every time I suffer that is the work?

R. Also when you don't suffer.

9. S. (51:47) To continue the question from the friend, how practically can we turn suffering into the correction of the soul?

R. Well that is a question for everyone. How to change the suffering, invert the suffering so that it causes the correction of the soul. We see from our life that in many actions we do where we want these actions, we want to stay away from certain actions, we want to not do certain things. That means we have to link to these actions, some sort of pain or suffering, like something is too warm or something could electrocute you, so in that case we already pay attention and next time we don't come too close, right? How can we make it so that there are such mechanisms with regards to in order to receive? That wherever I have done something in order to receive and I saw that I am damaged by it in some ways, how do I make for myself some sort of protection system to not do it anymore? Well how? You don't know? That is what our whole Torah and Mitzvot is about. All of Torah and Mitzvot is that. If I make actions only in order to bestow, only for the sake of others, then I will certainly not be harmed at all. Ok ask. I don't really feel the question here.

10. S. (54:28) Maybe we should clarify more what it means in order to bestow?

R. In order to bestow, is that I feel whom is in front of me and I wish to bestow to him some kind of pleasure.

S. Basically, it means that at that time I have no consideration of receiving?

R. Then I move away from receiving and I prepare the action that is in order to bestow and then I do it.

S. Because I think that this is where we can get stuck, because this is the vessel with which I can receive from Him, from the Creator, the bestowal, all the vessels of bestowal with which I can receive from Him. When I come to work on this there seems like there's this constant drop of reception that enters it.  Maybe this is what causes us to feel it, to feel stuck because I want to advance but there is this drop?

R. More time is needed but we are already there, yet we just cannot attribute things and differentiate but it is already there, there is something.

11. S. (56:35) Concerning his question from the friend. If we in the Ten get a bad feeling, let’s say we got hurt, offended, I have something to work with, I can be in order to bestow. I can try to accept him as a friend and bestow upon him because we are connected group, we work together towards the same goal?

R. Yes.

S. Toward a bad feeling we are getting let’s say, at work, from our neighbors, we are not in Arvut in mutual responsibility with them. If all the corrections are to be in order to bestow and we don't feel the problem but we can't be in connection in such connection with external elements like my boss at work or my neighbor, I cannot be in order to bestow with him. I cannot perform this action with him or maybe I can somehow in some sort of way, in a clandestine way?

R. In a clandestine way is possible.

S. Toward people like our students or us that experience these difficulties on a day-to-day basis, what should we do there?

R. With your neighbors you mean?

S. Yes, with the neighbors, someone who is not in Arvut mutual responsibility with me.

R. Still through the Creator, through the Creator you have to depict your connection to them through the Creator and do actions that whether they feel it or not, it doesn't matter right now. What matters to you is that you do it because you are aimed that way by the Creator.

12. S. (58:30) When we are with the friends with the Ten, they feel that there is an awareness that the Creator is leading us in life every step of the way better than what it was, what it could be. What can we add to it, so it comes out of joy, I don't know how to put it?

R. You are asking what you can add?

S. Yes, so it will be out of agreement with these actions, out of a feeling of joy because you know what is the best possible?

R. You have to awaken the joy.

S.  In practice how do we do it, do we talk about it or what?

R.  No, no, it is unrelated, only that you want to feel the joy even when you suffer blows. 

13. S. (59:39) What should we as created beings gain from the suffering? Using the example of the friend, what does one gain by suffering, why not get closer only with good to the Creator?

R. Because you want to forcefully awaken your connection to the Creator.

S. Why can't I be adhered to the Creator if you built a system without any suffering, there were only pleasures, and we would somehow adhere to the Creator through pleasures. What is this additional thing that suffering enables us without which we wouldn’t be able to adhere to the Creator?

R. Suffering, pain helps you detach from your own system and adhere to the Creator's system.

S. Maybe this is connected to free choice or what?

R. Well of course there's free choice here.

S. Without free choice I can't adhere to the Creator?

R. Yes.

14. S. (01:01:13) Usually there’s a reward opposite to suffering?

R. Reward is when suffering disappears, that’s already a reward or there’s more than that but even just the absence of suffering.

S. Only when the suffering disappears it's already a reward? It's as if here the reward is hidden, there’s suffering where you don't see the reward, and it's also written you have to work without reward, so...?

R. It depends on what you mean, with reward, without a reward, who are you in contact with.

S. What do you mean?

R. No, no, no forget it.

R. If you all want to go a bit deeper into our relationship with the Creator, you should ask more but not like those who ask when they always have their hands up. But rather ask yourselves and when you ask yourselves, you have to be certain that the Creator feels these questions too. They immediately enter the system and thus you advance.

15. S. (01:04:31) We read the article yesterday, the whole Ten together, and at least for me through mercy as Rabbash says it means that it’s what you do with dead people. This matter jumps to us about many friends who were with us on the path but are no longer there. Just as in life you meet those people here and there, they're just living life, they feel their death, but shame probably prevents them from returning. What can we do as a society, especially now before a Congress, when there will be such great forces so that these parts of ours will return?

R. This is not our work, it's not our work.

16. S. (01:05:41) Concerning true mercy, it seems like the purpose of creation obstructs us from being in a true mercy, a person has to forget about the purpose of creation?

R. Well you can think this way for now.

S. What does it mean to perform a true mercy all the way?

R. All the way meaning to always think of mercy, Hesed.

17. S. (01:06:43) Pain and suffering, let's put suffering aside; the pain that awakens is because suffering is how you feel the pain. When a pain awakens and you feel that it came to tell you something, how do you direct yourself?

R. To aim yourself towards connection which is where you can receive strength from and then to the purpose of creation, that you have to be aimed at that, and that's what you need to get closer to.

18. S. (01:07:36) I want us not to miss it, you said you have to ask yourself; you have to feel to be certain that the Creator feels your questions, and this is how you enter the system. Can you elaborate on this process, when a question comes to a person and what he does with it?

R. When a question comes to the person, he needs to realize it's coming from the Creator, None Else Besides Him. Then he needs to try and answer it, this takes him another step forward.

S. Is he supposed to look for the answer in the lesson, in the Ten, in the book, where will he find the answer?

R. In whatever he has, everything that is in him, the Creator can answer him in various ways.

S. And how not to forget the question, sometimes the questions come and go?

R. Not to worry about forgetting or not forgetting, don't worry, so it will be forgotten.

S. When a person brings a question to the lesson and he asks in public before Rav and everyone, why ask there, why not wait for an answer inside and that's it?

R. What do you mean, an answer within?

S. You talked about a process of finding an answer to a question and getting into the system, so why bring a question to the lesson, why ask a question in the lesson?

R. What can you ask? When can one ask, of course in the lesson.

S. Asking a question in the lesson is to ask the teacher in front of everyone, asking inside is to ask within and wait for the answer.

R. Or in the Ten.

S. Or in the Ten, so what's the difference between a question that a person leaves within him and a question that a person brings into the lesson?

R. It’s still a different kind of scrutiny, stronger, broader.

S. Which is stronger and broader?

R. When he asks the friends and when his small group, his Ten discusses it and gives him an answer, either they have an answer, or they don't.

S. In other words we shouldn't keep the question within and wait for an answer to come but bring it to the Ten and talk about it?

R. Preferably yes. 

19. S. (01:10:58) Who decides that a person has suffered enough at every stage?

R. That's the mechanism, the system which is embedded in one’s soul.

S. In his soul?

R. Yes.

S. Is there something one can do in order to accelerate the passing through the suffering?

R. We’re given that, this is by connecting to others, by asking and praying, we’ve discussed it.

S. Should we want it?

R. To receive an answer?

S. To come out of the suffering?

R. No, to come out of the suffering he wants that naturally.

S. Sometimes you see that people get some sort of satisfaction from it, from this feeling, so how not to get stuck there?

R. That’s only by working in the group.

S. Is it something he needs to ask for help or maybe the friends can help him, is it a process, it has to...?

R. Yes, to the extent that he is adhered with them he will advance.

S. Is it like a clock that turns and has to go all the way?

R. No it doesn't have to go all the way, it all depends on his intensity.

S. A person can decide that he’s felt what he needs to feel, and he can start moving towards bestowal and being in the friends and put the suffering aside?

R. Yes, yes, in the friends, among the friends he can always do that.

20. S. (01:12:48) Which prayer is more pleasant to the Creator, when there is suffering or when there isn't suffering?

R. It depends on the contents of the prayer, what is he asking for.

S. The prayer is my correction?

R. The prayer is your correction, yes.

S. Is a prayer for my correction?

R. Of course, the prayer is for the correction otherwise what are you praying for?

S. Without suffering it’s difficult to have a prayer.

R. Of course, without suffering there’s no prayer. Prayer is always out of pressure, yes. From the depths have I called upon you the Creator.

21. S. (01:14:07) Is it correct to think that mercy is to bestow in order to bestow and truth is to receive in order to bestow?

R. It's not important here.

22. S. (01:14:25) You just said to our dear friend that the outcry is the prayer that comes from the heart like the children of Israel who sighed. There’s this thing that you hear words of Torah in pleasantness, in contentment. Does this contentment eventually lead to an outcry, is this how it works?

R. Yes.

23. S. (01:14:56) Is there a difference between shame and suffering, are they the same?

R. It's not the same thing, I could be ashamed, but I don't suffer, and suffering is a feeling and that feeling can come from all kinds of actions and states. Therefore, we can’t say what's more, what's less. You can’t say these are things that can be not together whatsoever.

S. I heard from you today that suffering is when you stop receiving pleasure, shame is in order to keep us from receiving?

R. From receiving pleasure, well?

S. Right, so are they not the same thing?

R. Suffering is a feeling yes, which comes as a result of.

S. Shame is not a feeling?

R. Shame is also a feeling due to a different reason.

S. Suffering is not a feeling that comes when changes?

R. Yes, you can say but I can’t get into this with you, into this scrutiny because there are many words here and with each and every word we will be stuck and lost in translation.

24. S. (01:17:24) How can the creature bestow to the Creator, what is it here that our eyes and heart cannot see?

R. What is there here that our eyes and heart don't see? I don't understand what he's asking.

S. How can we bestow to the Creator?

R. We can only bestow to the Creator through actions of bestowal.

S. What are we missing in the group that it’s not happening?

R. We're not performing actions of bestowal in a complete manner.

S. What does it mean complete action?

R. Meaning that we need to connect between us, in order to connect between us we need each annul himself, connect between us to one force, to one heart and in that one heart bestow to the Creator.

S. With which action can we say that this is Hesed, and this is in order to bestow in this way?

R. Can someone repeat that.

S. According to what you explained with which action that they just mentioned, is it Hesed, mercy and is bestowing in order to receive in our work?

R. In what action?

S. If I understood it correctly you described a process, so where in this process was an action of Hesed, of mercy?

R. What actions is he talking about?

S. When we annul ourselves in the group and we try to connect?

R. Yes?

S. Where is the Hesed, the mercy here? We annul toward the group, and we try to connect. Is that called Hesed, is there a quality or action of Hesed?

R. If we connect in the group, certainly there are acts of mercy there. I'm always doing these acts of concession for my friends in order to connect, yes. Therefore, in our connection there's a lot of force of Hesed, of mercy, of grace.

25. S. (01:21:04) It says that the Creator created the world not to give pleasure to the created beings, but God forbid for his own pleasure, so there are different forms of perceiving the Creator, one who benefits the creatures?

R. The Creator doesn't have different forms, there's one form which is to delight his creatures.

S. I mean how friends perceive the Creator, let’s say he becomes insulted, and he stops asking these questions. When I see such things how can I ascribe it to my correction?

R. That I don't know, I just can't depict inside myself how such questions arise in you. If there are so many books in the Russian language that you can read and constantly be immersed in, in order to wash your mind with.

26. S. (01:22:14) What does it mean that the Creator’s back and shoulder that was promised not to bury him in Egypt?

R. To do more spiritually for the sake of others, more than anyone.

27. S. (01:22:42) You said that you have to connect in one heart and from the one heart to bestow to the Creator, the Creator's bestowal is possible only through the common heart?

R. Yes, it's your heart, it's your desire and it's not a complete Kli.

S. It is written that in each action a person should try to bestow to the Creator so on the one hand, there are my thoughts or some actions, and on the other hand, there’s a common heart. How do you combine the two?

R. We combine it so that all of us together need to organize in such a way, so we connect in one heart.

S. It turns out that if in each action I wish to bestow to the Creator then each time I need to reach a complete, common connection?

R. Yes.

28. S. (01:23:52) The question that bothered us is the question that a friend asked, about how to work toward external people and you said to do everything through the Creator. The question is how to do it through the Creator?

R. We still can't do that, that's why I don't want to explain it. We cannot incorporate in the desires, in the sufferings of others through the Creator and in such a way correct something there.

S. It's truly distracting. With the friends the work is very clear, we work according to what Rabbash writes but with the family something happens, it truly distracts you.

R. Simply pray, simply ask.

29. S. (01:25:07) Is the stage before entering the spiritual world has to do with suffering?

R. No, it doesn't have to be intertwined with suffering ever, it all depends on a person who’s advancing.

30. S. (01:25:28) A friend is asking a question, what should we ask the Creator when I feel like I'm standing with my back to Him? I can’t do anything, I can't leave because there's no way to go but I'm also afraid to turn to Him because I'm afraid of the next descent, I don’t want to suffer more torments.

R. She can’t, she can’t help in anything. She needs to advance as it's written in our books and not to be afraid of anything. The main thing is to step on everything within her, come closer to the Creator, to hold onto Him with her thoughts and not let go.

31. S. (01:26:23) Does the true intention to bestow come to a person when the only think that what matters to him is the relationship with the Creator?

R. Yes, yes.

32. S. (01:26:45) It’s written here that the more a person tries to enjoy the abundance the Creator gives him then certainly there's more contentment up above, that the lower one is enjoying more. I was certain that either I'm enjoying it or I’m not enjoying my interaction with the Creator, here it says that I have to enjoy more. How does this trying depend on me?

R. It depends on you expanding your vessels of bestowal, your desires of giving. In the end you’ll be more like the Creator, and you will then enjoy more from bestowing.

S. For example in the Ten we made action of connection; I think we gave contentment to the Creator. How will it depend on me? I'm enjoying it already, but here it says I need to try to enjoy even more. How does this trying depend on me in each given moment?

R. Try to intensify, grow your vessels of bestowal.

S. How do you do it?

R. Teach yourself to bestow, incorporate in the friends more.