Morning Lesson January 06, 2023, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Book of Zohar. #21
https://kabbalahmedia.info/sources/ALlyoveA
Reading item #21 (00:27) “Do not be led astray by the philosophers who say that..”
1. S. (04:52) In the beginning of this article he says he uses the concept of substance, spiritual substance, corporeal substance. Usually we use the word ‘forces’. Why is he using the word ‘substance’?
R. Substance is the will to receive and this is what the Creator created. Then in each and every degree, the will to receive presents itself differently, according to the essence of the substance in it.
S. Essentially, this is its material?
R. Yes.
2. S. (06:01) We know that the records from the breaking were made from the beginning. Were the records from the returning light also prepared from the beginning?
R. What do you mean by prepared from the beginning?
S. Why are they called clothing of reflected light and not just reflected light?
R. Because the reflected light comes as a clothing. If there was not a direct light and if there was not a response by the emanated, there wouldn't be a reflected light. That is why it is called reflected. It is secondary.
S. Is there renewal in the reflected light or is it something that..
R. Of course there is renewal in the reflected light. It comes from the creative being in order to come to be in equivalence of form with the Creator. That is why it is called reflected, returning.
S. And the act itself to reflect, to return, that is the act of equivalence?
R. Yes, yes, yes. But by reflecting, you equalize yourself with the giver. It is like in a shop when you pay for what you take. So you decided that what he gets and what you give to him are equal. Direct light equals reflected light.
3. S. (07:45) What is the secret of the magic of the philosophy in education that we come into contact with in our method?
R. The secret of this magic that we are being drawn to philosophy and knowledge is that it comes according to our logic. We haven't acquired the upper logic yet. But in the reason that we are in, they do act, they work. That is why we value them very much. You see we have read all kinds of, even today we read these verses and some we could not really attain, so we went over them in a kind of a concealed way. Some excerpts we do understand in our intellect, so we are happy about them. And we go over them and we feel some kind of anchor in them. This all depends on the depth of the attainment.
4. S. (09:22) It is written that the soul depends entirely on the extent of concepts that it acquired. What is this that the body depends solely on the extent of Concepts it has acquired?
R. You should go over the reason of the philosophers that say that the essence of the soul is intellectual and these ideas and the matter of the soul remaining after the body dies depends on these ideas, the concepts, that it received. That is what the philosophers think. Without this knowledge, these ideas, the soul does not remain. Meaning everything depends on how much a person acquired wisdom, simple wisdom. Knowledge that filled his cells in his brain. So accordingly he has some charge with which, or luggage, with which it can rise to the next world after the body dies. Whereas the wisdom of the Kabbalah does not talk about that at all. It says the opposite. That the soul remaining after the body dies doesn't depend on how much we understood, or how much a person understands the wisdom of Kabbalah has nothing to do with what he attains after he dies. Feeling this matter has nothing to do well, everything goes according to a different calculation of how much he tried to come out of himself and to cling with his soul emotionally.
And he continues [Rav reading] “It is not the view of Torah it is also not acceptable that anyone who would try to acquire knowledge knows and feels that the mind is a possession and not the actual possessor. As we have said, the whole substance of creation, both the substance of the spiritual objects and the substance of the corporeal objects is no more and no less than a desire to receive.” Meaning that to the extent that we acquire the correct will to receive, so in it we can acquire the soul. Although we said that the soul is entirely a desire to bestow, it is only through corrections of reflected light, and it is received from the upper worlds, from which it comes to us. “The meaning of this clothing is thoroughly explained in the wisdom of the Kabbalah, Yet the very essence of the soul is the will to receive as well.” Also a will to receive. Meaning it is a will to receive that works in a different way, in order to bestow. If we get strength from above, then we can work with our will to receive in order to bestow and this will be called Nefesh, soul.
S. How does a person reveal that in the forces of the soul that he feels an eternity?
R. Yes, the only difference we can tell between one object and another is only by its desire. The desire in any essence creates needs and the needs create thoughts, concepts, so as to obtain those needs, which the will to receive demands. As human desires differ from one another, so do their needs, thoughts and ideas. In this people grow further away from each other and differentiated.
5. S. (14:57) When I read Baal HaSulam I see that he is a person who plays the Kabbalah in this national sense compared to all these people who like wisdom. He says it is not connected to anything in the wisdom of Kabbalah start taking like a lollipop from a good kid we do not act this way in the summer because as much as we are not in this degree is it because it is risky for us
R. He is telling the truth, what else can you say? He is telling the truth that spirituality is not attained in the brain or intellect in our desire, we have states or spaces which are completely different where we attain spirituality. These spaces, these voids they project, they turn themselves to something that resembles spirituality. Then from them this quality that exist in spirituality meeting in me there voice is voice empty spaces that I should discover add to try to turn them to be to have the same quality as in spiritual the quality of bestowal and then I will feel in them spiritual states that is what is called in the will to receive that was created we need to perform a restriction, screen, and reflect the light, and then in theses desires we will feel spiritual qualities, the upper light the revelation of the Creator/
S. The question is that if we say the truth then everyone gets fired up.
R. It doesn't matter to me what response I get. I am saying, the truth. Is the truth worth something more than insulting, confused people? Of course. I don't understand your question. I'm talking about opening the universe as it is truly and you are talking about them being offended. I don't understand your approach.
6. S. (18:35 ) What is the difference between Nefesh and Neshama?
R. There is Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida. Nefesh is the smallest level of attainment and Neshama is the higher degree. It's the middle degree of spiritual attainment.
7. S. (19:14) I wanted to continue the previous question. It seems that people are ready and they want to hear the truth only if they like what you say to me. How is it possible to relate to them in love in their place in the system so that they will carry the out even unconsciously, so that is when the topic of the truth has a privilege to hear the truth but if they make the truth as a category of good and bad so it seems that it doesn't get along in the correct way and then is causes rejection. What do you say?
R. I will say that a child Is not insulted by grownups but rather if they don't give him something. He is insulted, but if you want to tell him something he will gladly accept it.
S. Exactly . In what stage do we become grownups? In the state of Nefesh?
R. We've become grown-ups when we want to show love to others.
S. Means we still have a way to grow?
R. Yes, we have to grow and develop.
8. S. (20:50) Can we tell people about the topic of intention, meaning why we perform the action will they understand the topic of intention and about why they do certain things? Would that enter them?
R. This is why we have to prepare very well to be able to explain to people who we are and with what intention we are coming with. We have to understand people, not to demand from them, to demand from ourselves.
9. S. (21:44) The desire comes to a person from the root of its soul?
R. Yes.
10. S. (22:03) What determines what does a person wish for animalistic pressure, control, honor, knowledge? Does it change for a person through his life?
R. There are several conditions for it, it depends on the root of a person's soul, it depends on the state of the generation, there are many conditions. I cannot answer this in one sentence.
S. Does a person change during his life?
R. Yes.
11. S. (22:49) What determines or how does a person know what is the essence of each and everything?
R. The person does not know he measures everything upon himself. We cannot measure someone who is outside of us something outside of us, we can never do this only out of love as much as we can develop love towards something outside of us so from that I can to some extent of Love feel it inside of me and accordingly I can judge them and respond correctly.
S. Another question about dissemination, we see that at the end of this excerpt he talks about a person's development from a beastly desire from a small thing to a great ideal idea but we understand as the opposite, it actually causes people to grow further, it does not indicate a person is at the advancing it comes to show, Excuse me, it seems as though there's a matter of human development that what is actually happening is the opposite. We are not developing, we are going towards the shattering in this way because everyone is growing further away from each other and not coming closer, coming to connection as you said. How can we perceive these states always the opposite of the whole way after we have to go?
R. Honestly, I just don't understand you. We are going into the direction that is opposite from our will to receive. That is clear and as much as we start agreeing with it we start to progress. Through that in which we receive help from above. That help comes as a special illumination from above called the upper light and it changes us and we through it can really be bestowers and that is how we resemble the Creator. That is how we start feeling him, we start coming closer, come to an embrace, a hug with him and come to adhesion with him and our goal is to be adhered to him with all of the vessels that we have. We do not know have anything else that is in the Creator but in our vessels we can reach adhesion with Him. Meaning, we can get filled in all of our desires with the fulfillment that comes from the Creator. What else does the Creator like other than that? We do not know. There are other thousands, the eighth, ninth, and tenth millennia. Who knows what they are? We need to open ourselves to the end and to be completely adhered to with the Creator in mind and heart, and heart and soul.
S. Can I ask another question about dissemination?
R. No.
12. S. (26:44) What is the state in the ten called asking together, what is the state where each one asks separately and how can every friend in a ten scrutinize these states?
R. It's not a complex question, the simple answer is that each friend works on the love of friends because we do not need anything. If I love then I hear, I understand, I feel what they want from me and in general what they are because love will cover all crimes and as such I start getting to know them and connecting with them we do not need anything else other than that. But love itself is such a complicated sensation, I would even say it is ,that in love all kinds of emotions of hate, envy, lust on all kinds of things awaken the people who enter love, and they don't know what they're entering.
It is as if I only want to love the other and to connect with them in heart and soul and to think together as one man in one heart and from that we start discovering what is the difference between us. Because each one comes from a different substance even though it is the will to receive. However the will to receive of one and the will to receive of another they have a great difference between them even though each one wants to bestow to the other whatever he thinks is good but to the other it is not felt as good. The other one needs to rise above his will to receive and wish to receive from the first one what the first one wants. I need to receive from the second one his attitude to what he gives me and what he likes I will like and what he wants to give I will want to receive. Meaning each one needs to be included with the other one and as such we can connect. It's complex and there is a lot of stages in it. And incorporation we build systems of connection such mechanisms which are called secondary Partzufim. It is very interesting how it is in our inner nature; from that we start understanding what the Creator actually did.
13. S. (30:24) The person is given intellect in order to attain the Creator but it comes from the other side and the Torah is a spice, so it turns out that you have your reason to learn the Torah to distance from the evil and to come closer to the Creator?
R. Yes, that is very correct, way to go.
14. S. (31:16) We discussed a lot the matter between the philosopher as Rav in our ten yesterday and we have a question. Philosophers say that the soul that acquired wisdom is what remains after death. What does the Wisdom of Kabbalah talk or say about a person after he dies? What is left, whether he attained or whether he didn't attain?
R. I prefer not to answer because you would not understand, you would not understand. I can answer in a way that would confuse you but it is not purposeful. I want you to rise above your perception, your outlook on the world and mingle in what the Kabbalists want to bring us.
15. S. (32:35) I just heard you say that a person who enters love, he really doesn't know where he's going. In corporeality we see the person goes into a connection of love and then and when he gets rejected he runs away. How can we when we come closer not let all these things that push us away do that?
R. We need to increase in understanding each other so much so that we reach a desire for connection for each and every one. Then we do not look at the externality and we do not look at the qualities that we feel of each other, but we attain the inner content of a person and we try to see him as corrected. Then really each and every one of us becomes worthy of becoming a very close friend, a very close friend of ours.
S. What inner content should we put the emphasis on because a person has a lot of inner content. Maybe some of it will push me away, maybe some of it I will value, what to put the emphasis on?
R. The goal and what does he consider above everything else.
S. And what can we do with all the calculations, automatically the ego starts making calculations. I gave this and they gave that, this way and that way. You cannot come out of it?
R. If you really continue that way then you will not exit that.
S. What should we do? It is nature, the ego?
R. You cannot say that everything is nature and ego and you've nothing to do, if you are saying that then you have nothing to do in the Wisdom of Kabbalah. We need to deal with this nature, the corporeal nature.
S. How can we deal with this nature?
R. Through connection with friends and prayers to the Creator.
16. S. (35:39) What can we do if we do not reach love?
R. Continue because that is the goal.
17. S. (35:58) In the preparation for the lesson there were many questions but during the lesson you said that that there are no questions for women and I think that is only because we were aiming for each other and we get questions from our friend's and we accept your answers because you feel your vessels correctly to receive the lesson, is that spiritual work?
R. It is a part of a spiritual work.
18. S. (36:46) We need to incorporate in each other and you said that love is a complicated thing when we incorporate in the friends that experience hatred and rejection we want to help them overcome this resistance. Can we attach ourselves to their rejection, what is the right way to incorporate without attaching ourselves to hatred?
R. You will always be in such states like the ten with Rabbi Shimon where they were ready to kill each other and afterwards to connect to each other as one soul and afterwards to wish to kill each other and again to devote their souls to each other. We just need to understand that this is the path, ascents and descents, connection, separation that is how it has to be. The main thing is to continue and whoever leaves there's nothing to do about it but it is impossible to understand one without the other, darkness without light. Therefore we need to go through the states and those states and to have patience, patience can help us.
S. The friends that could not overcome to begin with they got the rejections, so it turns out that some friends were contaminated from them, so now for them it is also difficult to overcome. How can the ten tolerate all of that?
R. To increase the greatness of the Creator and of the goal of creation, to explain to yourself that it is most important to simply continue. We are at a stage where we simply do not understand anything, when the fetus grows in a mother it doesn't understand what's happening to him. Two years later it doesn't understand what's happening to him until the age of twelve or so and then it starts understanding. We need to organize ourselves in such a way because we are grown up people.
19. S. (39:57) Is the prayer to accept the inner contents of the friends initially or to ask the Creator rise for the sake of love?
R. The prayer always needs to be connected to the end of the path where I want to reach love and what I have now before me I agree with it, I accept it as an obstacle on the path. But really I want to reach love in that I disappear in the upper one.
20. S. (40:59) If we work in the ten in the way that we talk about us finding in each of the friends something good, and then we add something on the other good things, does that build love in us even though we fall and we descend. The Creator shows all kinds of laws and when we meet we only say how good the friends we have, by this do we build love?
R. In general, yes try to do that.
21. S. (41:45) Why is it that everything we learn and attain we get through you, however it is like a woman that I love that I have to conceal it from the world. Will it always be this way?
R. I do not know. Did you see the King Solomon in me? That is nice to hear but I do not see any connection with him. We need to attain everything in the group, there is nothing other than it and then everything will move along finally.
22. S. (43:06) The soul is the first degree out of the five degrees of NRNHY. In spirituality the question is, is Nefesh given by the Creator or is it built from the created being to bestow?
R. No, we can say that we build it, but it is not building, because all of these degrees already exist in us, it is the first degree of equivalence of form between the will to receive of the creation and the will to bestow of the Creator. That is Nefesh, Nefesha it is something passive, the first thing that creation can attain. Therefore that is what we attain.
S. It is basically without Nefesh, there is no existence?
R. Right, it is the first degree.
S. That is what it is given by the Creator, the created being cannot build the Nefesh without the Creator giving it?
R. Creation cannot build anything, we receive everything from above.
S. Do we gradually build the will to bestow?
R. We do not build it, we receive the upper light from above which creates conditions in us for the will to bestow.
S. The will to receive is the basis for a person that is what is created?
R. Yes.
S. And from within it we get the will to bestow from the Creator?
R. Yes.
23. S. (45:94) When a person does not want to get something from the other but the other does want to give him something that he thinks it is good for him. The first thing you said was you have to want to accept it and to also understand why the other thinks it is good for him and the intention of the other. Is this example about reception in order to bestow?
R. Yes and somewhat yes.
S. Is the initial desire of a person does not have to participate and does it go against the desire?
R. No, desire always participates; it just depends on what form that it appears in the person.
24. S. (46:03) When we learn from the sources from The Zohar and Baal HaSulam, instead of focusing on the Segula, remedy I have envy towards my teachers being so great and I'm a simple person and I cannot get away from it. Can you share from your experience maybe it's just a shell how to work with the sources as a Segula?
R. I do not know what to tell you, I do not envy great people. They reveal some kind of forces within themselves, some kind of efforts and in the end they reach such heights where in this life in this world, they entered into the connection with the upper world with a Creator, they succeeded in explaining that. Certainly, that is a state that you can envy but I would not say that it awakens envy in me. I would like to attain something of what they attained but it is all with the would desire of the Creator either it's there or it is not. We need to do what is in our hands to do and beyond that it is all the desire of the Creator. Therefore a person needs to be happy with his fate, it is very important. It is forbidden for a person to curse the Creator for not being able to succeed in doing something, it is forbidden to relate to his life and his fate in such a way. In the end we will attain everything, all of us, and everything. It all depends on the connections between us, good connections and we will reveal a true reality, we will feel that. We will finish with that, be healthy.