Part 2:

Baal HaSulam. The Freedom. (The Mind’s Control over the Body)

Reading Item. (00:26) “Some external contemporary sages, after contemplating..”

1. S. (08:08) What Baal HaSulam describes is clear but from experience I have to cancel my intellect in order to acquire the wisdom of the Kabbalists. What I'm trying to say is we can't work with our common sense because we need annulment before them, that's the whole problem?

R. Okay, I hear you.

2. S. (08:44) Is our work to take the intellect of the Kabbalists that wrote these writings, is that work above reason?

R. There is a part of work above reason in it.

3. S. (09:01) Can we say that what turns out here is that it's a must to annul in order to receive something, otherwise it's like you say, you can't bring wisdom to children, as much as you want good for them, you can't pass the wisdom to them unless you annul towards them?

R. I agree, yes.

4. S. (09:30) So how should we use our intellect or our mind correctly?

R. That's a question, it's good that you're asking.

5. S. (09:45) Can we annul and do things mechanically according to what the Kabbalists tell us? That's not a question, we can do that but how can we go deeper inside so that they will seemingly be the Rosh, the head, and we will be like the Guf, the body, the one who executes?

R. The question remains.

6. S. (10:32) According to what we just read, the intellect is only efficient if it's working, serving the emotion, when it's under it, an intellect serving an intellect that doesn't work, only if it serves the emotion, is the right way?

R. We hear you.

7. S. (10:58) It's not clear why the life events that are in the will to receive don't build the intellect in us, that distances us from the evil and brings us closer to the good?

R. Because the good and the bad that we should come to are probably not clarified to us through our life's events. Otherwise, there really would be no one as wise as the experienced, experienced in life.

S. But we learned that everything a person goes through has to bring him closer to the purpose of creation?

R. Who told you?

S. So why do we go through that?

R. I don't know but I see before me that the more that humanity develops, it develops in the opposite direction from the purpose of creation.

S. So something doesn't make sense, here doesn't make sense?

R. Something in our lives doesn't make sense, I agree.

8. S. (12:14) According to what Baal HaSulam writes in the last paragraph, the way we actually choose the environment is the path of suffering and the way we get some upper mind is the path of Torah, can you explain that please?

R. There's nothing to explain, it really is two ways, we will soon learn it.

9. S. (12:40) Annulling before the upper mind is light, this way we get the light from above?

R. Yes.

S. And annulling before the mind of the group, is that the way to build the vessel?

R. Yes, he's got the right perception.

10. S. (13:20) We see on the path as we read articles in the ten, we read them a few times, sometimes I read it alone, and when we come to the study hall it's completely different. When you make the effort, you open yourself, you come in annulment, you open your heart, you hear the questions of the friends and the answers, the article is perceived in a whole different way, suddenly you get the article in a full, more full way. That's my understanding about what he says: that we compliment each other if we really want the true connection, I come over here, I open myself for everyone and I insert all these answers into me and then I understand this from my heart to my mind?

R. Excellent, well said.

11. S. (14:24) The path of suffering compared to the path of Torah because the one who doesn't believe what the Torah tells him, that he should accept it without understanding, must have to go through the path of the cause and consequence of life. What does this mean? I understand it, tell me if I'm mistaken? It means if I won't be above reason?

R. If you don't accept the path that the Kabbalists determined for us.

S. So you go through sufferings?

R. Then you'll have to learn it from life's events and this is filled with tons of suffering.

S. Exactly, so I'm asking you, this is the reason I'm going through the study of the Kabbalah, I don't want to go through suffering?

R. No, he's just telling you in what way you can study it, in the good, short, pleasant way that Kabbalah advises you or if you don't want it or if you want to check the other way, then by all means, you have two ways before you; this is called the path of Torah and the path of suffering.

S. Nice, but when we start learning even for a few years, I don't perceive it but if I don't believe it and I won't be above reason, so you're going to get trouble, is that what the Creator tells me? It's not that I go, I start from the beginning, I don't understand everything?

R. No, you can't do it from the very beginning, you came in in order to learn.

S. So how can I understand, how can you, our teacher, teach us that from the onset in order to bypass the suffering, bring you..?

R. Bypassing the suffering means studying the suffering before us on the path, why they exist and through what operations or activities we can in connection between us etc., we can bypass the suffering and bring ourselves to the goal.

S. So basically there's some formula here that tells us how you can basically not suffer, actually?

R. No.

S. Why?

R. Because the point is not the suffering, not for it, if we, if it was not to suffer, then the Creator would give us a shock against pain and we would go through these things with gladness.

S. Meaning the way you're telling me, anyhow, you have to go through these sufferings?

R. Not suffering but you have to identify, to detect the unpleasant things through which you choose the right way between the two, then by this you grow smarter, this is worthwhile, this is not, I walk this way, I make a detour here etc., and then you reach the goal, with a suitcase let's call it or with a sack, a package full of discernments and then you understand that you reach the right goal. How without it, would you even determine, how would you even detect the goal?

S. I accept what you're saying. I'm just saying there's the height of flames and there's the height of flames, so if I can learn through you, you learned from Rabash?

R. You can't learn through my suffering.

S. Why not? I'm taking from your experience, so he’s telling us everything was through experience, through your personal experience, he writes it?

R. There's none so wise as the experienced talks about his own experience.

S. Can he pass your experience to us so we'll absorb it and understand more?

R. The question is to what extent. This is what we see in the ladder of degrees, that if the lower degree connects with all the other components of it, elements in the ten, then it can analyze and develop correctly, what it is receiving from the upper one, it can detect what is bad and what is good and advance onward, this it can.

S. Meaning there is an ability to decrease the height of flames, the suffering as you say?

R. Practically speaking, so-so, we can see it from history. Theoretically, I see that there's a paved way but judging by what is actually happening, I see that along with it there is suffering on the road. But let's hope that we will advance more on the path of Torah.

12. S. (20:04) What is the incorporation basically, what are we doing by incorporating in each other and if we don't help?

R. To begin with, from birth, from our very origin, we are all incorporated in one another infinitely, afterwards, through the blast, through the explosion, right? We moved away from each other, as a result each one becoming incorporated and included in everyone else and then what did we do? Now we have to try, through all of life's events which the Creator summons for us, we have to try to connect. This is why everything that we experience, we need to try to add, to join ourselves “as one man with one heart.”

S. So basically the action of connection so that we will reach the state of “one man with one heart,” will shorten the process for us, will shorten the personal torments that each and everyone goes through?

R. Of course, of course, we don't need personal suffering whatsoever, at all. Rather, we feel it only if we disconnect from the general system.

13. S. (21:42) He writes that the spiritual and the corporeal are far from each other and no means that will connect them can you depict. Then he writes that the means is the imagination inside of a person. How can a person use this imagination?

R. Through, a person can bring together closer the corporeal and the spiritual through imagination.

S. How?

R. Because a person's imagination is in between the spiritual and the corporeal.

S. What does it mean to imagine something spiritual?

R. I can imagine something spiritual with the conditions that I hear from the Kabbalists. For them it is truth; it is life. For me, it is only conditions for building the spiritual form, imaginary for the time being.

S. Suppose when we say to connect, is that called imagination?

R. Yes, of course it's imagination, we can't even imagine what is connection.

S. So at least my imagination is limited, I can depict something in my mind like a ring, but it's not a spiritual shape?

R. Yes.

S. So how?

R. You build examples, just like we do in our lives and technology and everything.

S. So how do these corporeal examples, how did they make this leap, the leap is never understood from corporeality to spirituality? How does it happen?

R. They're in us when we want to build a spiritual system, although in the meantime, we can depict between it instead of it a corporeal system, by this we by force bring ourselves closer, our forms into being as one.

S. What's the connection between these imaginations and the prayer, the real request for the Creator?

R. When we try to see these things as one, in this way we activate them and they already make the connection.

S. A request from the Creator to change imagination to reality, for instance?

R. That's already His doing, His doing, yes.

14. S. (24:48) Why don't we use what Baal HaSulam says here, that if you learn from the wise and from prophets, you'll suffer less?

R. Why are you forbidden from using it?

S. No, but we're not telling people, “come on, learn the wisdom of Kabbalah, you'll stop suffering?”

R. Tell yourself, why do you need to tell others?

S. I stopped suffering once I came here, I completely stopped suffering from the first moment almost.

R. Nice.

S. So I'm saying, why don't we tell people, you'll understand life, you'll get the meaning of life, why don't we tell them, you'll just stop suffering?

R. I don't see it in people who come to study Kabbalah, that they stop suffering.

S. I think that a moment the person, there are torments but when you feel the connection between what you're going through?

R. There is some compensation, yes.

S. It's a very serious compensation, it's not the sufferings I had before I came.

R. Each one his own.

S. Why don't we use this, he says it explicitly, if you listen to the doctor, he says it, will be your remedy. Today people are going outside with a helmet on, really, so they won't get the blows, you see how a person all the time he's..?

R. Wearing a helmet?

S. Not a physical helmet but all he tells you is how he arranges his life so he'll get less blows.

R. Nice, we should take you to dissemination.

S. I am disseminating a lot but I'm saying, it seems to me we're afraid to use this, learn the wisdom of Kabbalah, you'll stop suffering. Why isn't it, the Rambam, Maimonides, he says, you have to start teaching those through the will to receive and bit by bit, they’ll understand what it's about?

R. And you're telling him through the wisdom of Kabbalah you'll satisfy the will to receive, you'll have abundance.

S. No, you'll stop suffering and bit by bit you'll learn, understand what it's about and then at least you'll have free choice. I'm not telling him that he's going to be a slave of his will to receive but at least he'll know what it's about and why you're suffering.

R. I don't see any benefit in this. I don't see truth in it.

15. S. (28:20) What does it mean to try to connect?

R. To try to connect with the friends.

S. Can you explain what that means?

R. I can’t explain. You are demanding that I will explain to you a certain point, what does it mean to connect? Connect means to be one point of the desire.

S. You also said that we can't imagine what connection is before you're in it, so how to always be in efforts?

R. Because you can't, you say it's impossible, but I'm telling you it is possible, although it's difficult. But it is possible, that's it, and the rest. How many years have you been with us?

S. Fifteen.

R. So you see you are in the same spot and that’s how it will continue, right. There is nothing for you to do.

S. So how to come out of this place?

R. You can’t come out, you will not come out because you are locked in one point and you can’t move, get out of it.

S. So what should I do?

R. What should you do? I don’t know, search elsewhere.

S. Why are you telling this to me?

R. Because I see that I have nothing to give you.

S. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go, I have no other place, I have no other teacher.

R. You don't have any other teacher but you don't have a teacher here and you don't have any place else but you also have no place here. I'm telling you that here you will attain nothing.

S. I don't understand why you're saying this?

R. Because you need a method that will attract you.

S. I want to be here Rav, really. I want to do what you're telling us to do and I don't know how?

R. For fifteen years I've been telling you what to do and what do we have?

S. You're correct but I see about myself that I only sit and I'm waiting for something to happen, but besides that I don't know what to do because connection, I don't know what that is, praying, I don't know what that is?

R. The fact that you don't know, no one knows, the fact that you don't want to know, you don't want to come closer the way everyone is coming closer; this is what you don't want.

S. I do want, Rav, really.

R. Okay, I can't expel or drive a person away from here, but I am telling you that it may be better for you to search for a different place, for the time being, there's nothing you can do.

S. They say everything but leave but you're telling me to leave?

R. Okay, sit down.

16. S. (31:55) How can we pray for a friend who doesn't want to leave but what can we do for him? That's what I want to know. Can we pray for him and work for him? It's hard for me to see a friend, to ask like this please, what can we do for him? Can we pray for him, he doesn't want to go, please?

R. Pray, pray, pray, pray.

S. What can we do for a friend who doesn't want to leave because we have to be in Arvut with all of the friends?

R. For a long time now, many times, I've said in front of everyone that the way He is showing us is not good. We have to try to influence him by all means, by all means try to influence him, by all means help him as much as possible but of course, she's also right. She is right, she is correct. Okay, we will try to connect more and care about each other, Sheila, you'll see, it will be okay.

S. Okay, I wanted to ask about the article. It says the mind is the force that goes out of the events of life and that the mind has no control over the body, what does body mean in this article?

R. We have the mind and the desire, the intellect and the desire. The desire is something more spiritual, the intellect is more corporeal, and there is no control with the intellect over the desire. And the desire also, in certain cases, can influence the intellect or not influence the intellect. So, we will talk about it some more, it's a learning that will take some time going forward.

R. Yes.

17. S. (35:22) If I feel happiness because many friends are advancing towards the goal, how can I make a positive effort so everyone can feel this joy, this happiness?

R. If you embrace everyone and try to give your heart to everyone, then you will see how happy they will be with your heart and will be incorporated in your heart. And it will really be something special. Let's try. But I'm very happy that today we had an eruption of several friends and it means that our vessel is becoming closer and closer to a real feeling and of course the Creator is happy for sure. The Creator is happy.

18. S. (36:50) Can friends change the fate of a different friend?

R. If they pray in the connection between them for another friend in the ten, they can change anything.

S. Should they do it?

R. If you decide on it, if you decide to do it, you can do anything. You can do anything, you can do more than the Creator. But our situation is really becoming more internal, more subtle, bitter, and we are also approaching this kind of period. Soon, we will have the 9th of Av and others, yes.

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