The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) August 13, 2024.
Part 2: The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction.
Reader: We are studying the topic, “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction,” and we will read selected excerpts from the sources. You can find the study materials in the Arvut system, continuing with number 60. So, “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction,” excerpt number 60. Rav Chaim Vital writes.
Reading: (00:28) 60. Rav Chaim Vital, Sha’arey Kedusha, Part 2, Gate 4
Our sages said (Avot Chapter 4), “Hatred of people expels a person from the world,” and behold, it is as though he hates the Creator for creating him. It is written (Yoma 9b), “In the Second Temple, there were righteous and great sages, and it was ruined only because of unfounded hatred, and the end has been prolonged and concealed only because of unfounded hatred. Moreover, all other transgressions, he commits them only at that time, but unfounded hatred is always in the heart, and at every single moment he transgresses in ‘Do not hate’ and the cancelling of the commandment to-do of ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Moreover, it was said about this commandment that it is a great rule in the Torah, that all of it depends on it.”
M. Laitman: Questions? Questions? There's nothing to ask? Good. All right.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:08) If a person feels that another person really comes to kill him, is against him, any action that he does puts him to death, how can he not hate him?
M. Laitman: Yes. There's a commandment to either love or hate.
Student: But why is it so sharp, so strict? You can love a person at state zero and reach love, but here, from state zero to reach love. But here you have to reach it from the state of mindness. The one opposite you is your enemy?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes. What you hate, you seemingly don't want to exist.
Student: He threatens my very existence.
M. Laitman: Well, let's say, not always, but...
Student: It's how the Creator displays it. He makes you feel that the person opposite you is threatening your existence. If he keeps going in his way, I'll stop existing.
M. Laitman: Well, that's one side. And the other side is that he's not intending towards you whatsoever. And you hate him because you’re willing to do this until you put him to death.
Student: I'm asking, in the state where the Creator orchestrates things, is it even realistic? And how can we reach love your friend as yourself? Because He's giving us conditions that are completely irrational.
M. Laitman: Which ones?
Student: That the other is my enemy. He wants to harm me.
M. Laitman: Yes, and love your friend as yourself is the opposite, yes?
Student: love your friend as yourself is that we together want to build a place where the Creator will be revealed. It's a positive thing, we're both going in the same direction, towards the same goal. But here is somebody else who is completely contradictory to it.
M. Laitman: Then we'll continue and we'll see. But more than likely, there is the ruin inside us, in desires, thoughts, actions that we need to correct.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:42) He says here two very strict, severe things. One is that a person who is not in love of friends, he hates people, he actually blames the Creator for even creating him. And the second thing is that unfounded hatred is something that we do every moment, every time, not like other commandments or transgressions that we commit only at that time. It sounds very severe, this thing. How can we not violate this commandment? Not reach it?
M. Laitman: With the help of the Creator, with the help of the friends, with the help of the study, in everything. But you think only of how to correct yourself and not to pass it somehow.
Student: [translation missing]
M. Laitman: Well, that's something we need to ask from the Creator until we receive such a sensitivity for all that's taking place in us. Because it's then that you will see in all your state that the intention is innovating, is renewing, and the relations are renewing. And then you will have to engage in corrections in it.
Student: How to blame, how to understand?
M. Laitman: We're working on it. We don't take ourselves in the way that it, rather we go as it's all coming from above. We connect to thoughts, desires, actions of ours, relations between us and each to others.
Student: So what does it mean that we blame the Creator for creating us if we're not in love?
M. Laitman: After we attribute to the Creator the thoughts, actions, intentions, then here is the problem. What do I relate to Him and what do I relate to myself? If I come to a state that anything that I feel, I attribute to the Creator.
Student: Meaning a person constantly measures himself in relation to the society. Let's say, accordingly, he discovers that he constantly prefers himself to the friends. He doesn't really love them as he should be. Let's say that this is, and then he accuses the Creator for creating him like that?
M. Laitman: No, he has to check how he relates to it.
Student: It's a bit difficult to see the connection between the way I relate to the friends, which is corrupted, and the way I relate to the Creator.
M. Laitman: But we've already read that all these corruptions belong to the Creator Himself. All our corruptions, we need to relate them to the Creator.
Student: Not to our nature?
M. Laitman: It's the same.
Student: That we were created in such a way.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Reader: Number 61.
Reading: (09:02) 61. Likutei Halachot, “Blood Rules,” Rule No. 1
The main flaw in the disciples of Rabbi Akiva was that there was no love of mercy among them, for by this is the main drawing of the Torah that they had to extend from Rabbi Akiva, their teacher, who was regarded as the revelation of the Torah. This is why Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai said, “In us, the matter depends on love,” that we must have great love among us, that this is the most important. It is also brought by the disciples of the ARI that the ARI had cautioned them quite a few times that there should be great love among them.
Also, he once said that he would be willing to come to Jerusalem so redemption would come through them, but the matter was spoiled by the dispute that occurred among the friends through their wives (as detailed in Praises of the ARI), since the main drawing of Torah is through love and mercy, by which we are rewarded with reception of the Torah and with abundance.
M. Laitman: Any questions? None. Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:55) He writes that their disputes came from their wives. What does that mean? Externally? Internally?
M. Laitman: It doesn't matter how we think of it. Inner women, external women.
Student: Because of such a dispute such a disaster happened?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, yes.
Student: It was thousands that died there.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Reader: 62.
Reading: (11:38) 62. Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Makot, p 24a
Once, Rav Gamliel and Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaria and Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Akiva went up to Jerusalem. When they arrived at Mt. Scopus, they tore their clothes. When they arrived at the Temple Mount, they saw a fox come out from the Holy of Holies. They started crying, while Rabbi Akiva was laughing. They said to him, “Why are you laughing?” He said to them, “Why are you crying?” They replied, “In the place of which it is written, ‘And the stranger who draws near shall be put to death,’ now foxes walk. How can we not cry?” He said to them, “This is why I am laughing, as it is written, ‘And I will take to Myself faithful witnesses for testimony, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jebe’rachiah” … until Uriah’s prophecy came true, I feared that Zechariah’s prophecy would not come true. Now that Uriah’s prophecy has come true, it is known that Zechariah’s prophecy will come true.” With these words, they said to him, “You have comforted us, Akiva, you have comforted us.”
M. Laitman: Clear? What did Rabbi Akiva say? That everything is for the best, to put it shortly.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:44) What does it mean that it says that the stranger who comes near the Temple will be dead?
M. Laitman: Because only priests could enter there.
Student: What does it mean to keep the Temple Mount from strangers?
M. Laitman: I don't know.
Student: Internally?
M. Laitman: Internally, it's a person who checks himself if he wants to get into a level, enter a level called the Temple, the Holy of Holies and other levels. So, he should see what thoughts, desires, qualities he has in him.
Student: But they're writing that the stranger that will come close will be put to death.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Not exchange with a desire to bestow but die.
M. Laitman: Yes. A person knows in advance if he belongs to the level of the Temple or not. Because he wants to carry out his equivalence in practice.
Student: And what is the fox? It's like a cunning animal. That's what it's considered.
M. Laitman: Yes. Okay. Go on.
Reader: Number 63.
Reading: (15:20) 63. The Holy Shlah, The Two Tablets, Bamidbar Devarim, Balak
The poverty, which is the troubles, is the reason for the rising, and causes what happened to become light. That advantage will come out of the darkness since He has placed us in the dark so that a great light would come out of the darkness. Likewise, the Lord will turn the curse into a blessing, since the curse itself has become a blessing, and the ruin of the Temple is its building.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:12) It's written that the trouble brings more light. Can you explain?
M. Laitman: The more trouble a person has and he tries to correct them, he understands their real spiritual roots and corrects it, then more light comes to him.
Student: So when we perform corrections, the light comes?
M. Laitman: If we perform corrections, then the light will come. Yes.
Reader: Number 64.
Reading: (16:58) 64. Tifferet Shlomo about Holidays, Intimation of Purim
Through fasting and mourning came joy, and from the plight itself came relief. This is because from fear comes love, as it is written (Jeremiah 30:7), “It is a time of trouble for Jacob, and he will be saved from it.” This means that in very dire times, salvation will quickly come from it, to cause the unification. This is the meaning of what was said, “On the day of the ninth of Av the Messiah was born,” for only on the day when the Temple was ruined, when the children of Israel were at the lowest degree, that was the time to bring forth the Messiah, who will come soon in our days.
M. Laitman: Okay? Go on.
Reader: It's written by Rabash. 65 by Rabash.
Reading: (18:22) 65. RABASH, Article No. 19 (1986), "Concerning Joy"
On the month of Av, when we must mourn the ruin of the Temple, we must work on the left line, meaning criticize our actions, that we must be in the path of Kedusha, which is in order to bestow, and how one is remote from bestowal.
When one thinks about this, he is in a state of remoteness from Kedusha and is immersed in self-love, where his whole basis for engaging in Torah and Mitzvot is in order to satisfy the will to receive with every possible satisfaction.
Therefore, when considering one’s lowliness he can awaken the pain of the ruin of Kedusha that there is in each and every one. And then the verse, “All who mourn Jerusalem is rewarded with seeing the comfort of Jerusalem” comes true.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:52) When I look at the state of the nation of Israel—mourning, trouble, anxiety, fear, the crisis, wars.
M. Laitman: I see festivals every day.
Student: So, where do you see that festival? Where do you see the happiness, the comfort if this is what exists? And he says that through this, you go to that one against the other. I don't see the other. I only see the cascading downward every day. Only the fear and anxiety in the nation.
M. Laitman: Maybe you should change your glasses, I don't know. You need to see in this advancement, the right advancement with them, with grace from above, with mercy from above toward the general correction.
Student: But it's still just the process. So, to understand that we're in the process, that's what I'm adding?
M. Laitman: When we need to prepare ourselves for the end of the process.
Student: When will the happiness and comfort be revealed?
M. Laitman: When you prepare yourself, each and every one.
Student: That depends on my preparation, on the nation? What does it depend on?
M. Laitman: It depends on the nation, on the state of the nation, and the state of the nation depends on you.
Student: Who sees the happiness and the positive states?
M. Laitman: Those are rewarded, those who caused it.
Student: How can I now prepare myself to already see that positive change but now, not in the end of correction?
M. Laitman: You have to tell everyone on what the correction depends, on what the end of correction depends, and how we approach it.
Student: By me telling everybody about the process, where will the change come from?
M. Laitman: Everyone will become a little bit more and more incorporated in it, more and more each time, and by hearing these things, they will become incorporated in it.
Student: The Kabbalist sees the two states, the trouble and the happiness?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: He sees it now in the present even though there's suffering? He finds comfort and happiness in it?
M. Laitman: Well, comfort, I don't think so, but the joy that will come in the future, yes.
Student: As long as they don't feel the happiness, he already does feel the future happiness, they'll have?
M. Laitman: To some extent. In potential.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:07) Yesterday, before I went to sleep, I saw that they advertised in the city I live: "Tonight, we're not studying Torah." It was strange to me. I know a different type of attitude towards it. The Kabbalist studies.
M. Laitman: No, on the Ninth of Av, we don't learn Torah. There's no learning of Torah on the Ninth of Av.
Student: So, what are we doing now?
M. Laitman: We're learning about the Ninth of Av.
Student: When I tried to understand why you don't study the Torah on the outside, they said because it brings joy to man's heart.
M. Laitman: Correct. This is how it's written.
Student: But we see a Kabbalist looking at it in a different way, and Rabbi Akiva, that they saw happiness in that state.
M. Laitman: That depends. Each one is in a different state.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:18) He speaks about, in 65, how to enter the left line correctly, right?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: That you have to work on the left line from mourning the Temple, but it can be on its own account but from lowliness. Can we explain what the right way to enter the left is?
M. Laitman: We need to prepare the vessel to be suitable for the Creator so that through it we rise higher and higher.
Student: So, what's a danger here in this work?
M. Laitman: I guess there are dangers.
Student: Maybe if the friend can read it again and we explain it?
M. Laitman: I don't think so. I don't want to get into it, but there are several kinds of explanations here. There's also this commandment not to go deep into matters that pertain to the Ninth of Av.
Student: Okay, we won't discuss it now. But in general, we say to keep the right, the greatness, the...
M. Laitman: Right, right.
Student: And here he's giving a discernment on how to work with the left correctly. Nothing to do with Ninth of Av. Maybe it's not the time. That's okay, but...
M. Laitman: It's still not for us. Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:13) To continue the friend. When I see what’s happening on the outside, I have great pain for our nation. I can’t deny it. I'm not a Kabbalist yet. How to turn that pain to the sorrow of the Shechina? Because what's being revealed is a complete lack of connection in all reality. So how to turn it to the sorrow of the Shechina and not something of my ego that feels pain?
M. Laitman: To try to think about it, and regret it, and ask for repentance.
Student: In my feeling, it's just getting worse.
M. Laitman: Perhaps. I don't know. I'm not in it.
Reader: The Rabash writes.
Reading: (27:24) 66. RABASH, Article No. 39 (1990), “What Is, ‘Anyone Who Mourns for Jerusalem Is Rewarded with Seeing Its Joy,’ in the Work?”
It is known that Malchut is called “Jerusalem.” Hence, when we say, “the ruin of the Jerusalem,” it refers to the ruin of the Temple. This is called “Shechina [Divinity] in the dust” or “Shechina in exile.” In other words, a person should take upon himself the burden of the kingdom of heaven and believe that the Creator leads the world with a guidance of The Good Who Does Good, since it is hidden from us. [...]
Thus, if a person overcomes and takes upon himself the burden of the kingdom of heaven although he sees no importance, and mourns for the importance of Jerusalem being so hidden from us, and prays about why Malchut has no importance, and asks of the Creator to raise Jerusalem from the dust it is in, to the extent that one regrets its ruin, he is rewarded with the Creator hearing his prayer.
And that man is rewarded with seeing its joy, meaning that it does bestow upon him delight and pleasure.
Reader: 67 by Baal HaSulam.
Reading: (29:26) 67. Baal HaSulam, from a manuscript
This is what the poet implied (Psalms 122:3), “Jerusalem that is built as a city that was joined together,” that the end of correction is called “Jerusalem that is built,” meaning that the redeemed do not build it but are in awe in their attainment that it is already built, and there has never been any flaw in it, since any change of place, change of action, and change of name, which are themselves the moments of time in the exile, all those opposites have joined together. It is complete simplicity, like the whole that becomes revealed when all its parts and details gather into it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:39) He says that whoever is rewarded in seeing the ruin and prays for it, so the Creator hears his prayer, and then he's rewarded to see it in joy that he's bestowing good and pleasure.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How by praying for the ruin, for it to be corrected, how by that do I get happiness and see that the Creator is good?
M. Laitman: If it's a real prayer, a real desire, then you connect to those who participate in building the temple.
Student: By asking, praying about the ruin, I'm revealing a corrected attitude?
M. Laitman: For the correction of the ruin.
Student: So, I see the system itself as good?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So how exactly do I see this correction that the Creator is bringing me in the system?
M. Laitman: That from such prayers, the temple grows and exists.
Student: Oh, so by increasing the good upon the ruin, I discover the Creator's good attitude towards…
Reader: Number 68.
Reading: (32:09) 68. Baal HaSulam, "This Is for Judah"
All the letters of Ge'ula [redemption] are present in Gola [exile], except for the Aleph, since this letter indicates the “Aluph [Champion] of the world.”
This teaches us that the form of the absence is but the negation of the presence. And we know the form of the presence—redemption—from the verse, “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor …for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.” Hence, the form of the previous absence, meaning the form of exile, is only the absence of the knowledge of the Creator. This is the absence of the Aleph, which is missing in the Gola, and present in the Ge'ula—the Dvekut with the “Champion of the world.” This is precisely the redemption of our souls, no more and no less, as we have said that all the letters of Ge'ula are present in Gola but the Aleph, which is the “Champion of the world.”
This is precisely the redemption of our souls, no more and no less. As we have said that all the letters of Ge’ula are present in Gola, but the Aleph, which is the champion of the world.
Reader: 69. By Baal HaSulam.
Reading: (34:09) 69. Baal HaSulam, "Introduction to The Book of Zohar", Item 71
In such a generation, all the destructors among the nations of the world raise their heads and wish primarily to destroy and to kill the children of Israel, as it is written (Yevamot 63), “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel.” This means, as it is written in the above Tikkunim, that they cause poverty, ruin, robbery, killing, and destructions in the whole world.
After, through our many faults, we have witnessed all that is said in the above-mentioned Tikkunim, and moreover, the judgment struck the very best of us, as our sages said (Baba Kama 60), “And it begins with the righteous first,” and of all the glory Israel had had in the countries of Poland and Lithuania, etc., there remains but the relics in our holy land, now it is upon us, relics, to correct that dreadful wrong. Each of us remainders should take upon himself, heart and soul, to henceforth intensify the internality of the Torah and give it its rightful place according to its merit over the externality of the Torah.
Then, each and every one of us will be rewarded with intensifying his own internality, meaning the Israel within him, which is the needs of the soul over his own externality, which is the nations of the world within him, being the needs of the body. And that force will come to the whole of Israel until the nations of the world within us recognize and acknowledge the merit of the great sages of Israel over them and will listen to them and obey them.
And the internality of the nations of the world, the righteous of the nations of the world, will overpower and submit their externality, who are the destructors. The internality of the world, too, who are Israel, will rise in all their merit and virtue over the externality of the world, who are the nations.
Then, all the nations of the world will recognize and acknowledge Israel’s merit over them, and they will follow the words (Isaiah 14), “And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the land of the Lord.” And also (Isaiah 49), “And they will bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.” This is the meaning of what is written in The Zohar (Nasso, p 124b), “Through your composition, which is The Book of Zohar, they will be redeemed from exile with mercy.”
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:36) He writes from here to increase the internality of the Torah and to give it its worthy place and its importance. Then he says to increase the Israel in him, which is the needs of the soul. What are the needs of the soul?
M. Laitman: What the soul needs in order to exist and grow and complete the corrections.
Student: So, that's what you need in order to bestow?
M. Laitman: Yes, through bestowal on the part of a person, we fill the soul.
Student: So, also the forces to overcome and be scrutinized correctly.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (39:34) He writes that there's like a law that the good ones in the generation are those that are supposedly paying the price. Why is it like that?
M. Laitman: What? What? I didn't understand.
Student: He writes that the good ones in the generation are the ones that are paying the price. The good ones in the generation.
M. Laitman: Because they are capable of it.
Student: It's like they're disappearing from the world, that's what happens.
M. Laitman: People who try to perform actions to raise the Shechina through their work, their correction, they pass the light from above, which corrects us and fills us. That's it. This is how it works.
Reader: 70 by Baal HaSulam.
Reading: (40:45) 70. Baal HaSulam, "A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar"
Our generation is the generation of the days of the Messiah. This is why we have been granted the redemption of our holy land from the hands of the foreigners. We have also been rewarded with the revelation of The Book of Zohar, which is the beginning of the realization of the verse, “For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.” “And they will teach no more… for they will all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.”
Yet, with those two, we have only been rewarded with giving from the Creator, but we have not received anything into our own hands. Instead, we have been given a chance to begin with the work of the Creator, to engage in Torah and Mitzvot Lishma. Then we will be granted the great success that is promised to the generation of the Messiah, which all the generations before us did not know. And then we will be rewarded with the time of reception of both the complete attainment and the complete redemption.
M. Laitman: Any questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (42:30) You wrote that we got the Book of Zohar, we're back in the land of Israel, and that's a sign that at least in potential, the opportunity is there.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But in practice, we haven't received it yet.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Today, when we see this formulation of the enemies of Israel around us starting to choke us, so I don't know if it's right to even ask it, but can we look at it as signs of coming closer to redemption or the opposite?
M. Laitman: Perhaps to the approaching of it, that it's getting closer. Of course, it all depends on our reaction.
Reader: 71 by Rav Kook.
Reading: (43:23) 71. Raaiah Kook, Orot HaKodesh 3
The depth of evil and the exaltedness of its root is the depth of goodness. You find that the depth of hatred is the depth of love. If we were ruined and the world was ruined with us through unfounded hatred, we will be rebuilt and the world will be rebuilt with us through unfounded love.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (44:07) On one hand, these states of unfounded hatred and unfounded love are distant. On the other hand, here it says that they're the closest. Can you explain?
M. Laitman: That both of them are dropped on us from the Creator, and by this He brings us closer to the full, complete correction?
Student: The act of correction is also described a little differently. In some parts it says to increase his own internality, and in some parts it says to add the Aleph, the champion of the world and here Rav Kook advises unfounded love. What's the connection between all those things?
M. Laitman: It's all the same thing. It's correcting the will to receive.
Student: Yes, but from what do you begin? For example, from unfounded love, from attributing everything to the Creator?
M. Laitman: So you don't tell a person what isn't accepted in him yet. We need to go along with the nation. And then to say that the way the nation is willing to accept it, that's the way we tell them about it.
Student: Today is the Ninth of Av. From what, of all these directions that are offered to us, on what should we focus?
M. Laitman: We learn so much about it, so much material. What do you mean? Read all these excerpts again. All the material we went through. What can I tell you?
Student: I'm asking because it's hard for me to think simultaneously about unfounded love, about raising Israel above the nations of the world, attributing everything to the Creator. Is this something we should hold on to today?
M. Laitman: You're going to read the portion of Eicha now and think according to that. That's it.
Reader: Yes, now we have Lamentations, so we'll sing a tune together, and then we'll read this chapter, and then we'll go on.
Song: (46:42)