*This transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves possibility for errors.*
*Morning Lesson October 14, 2020*
*Parashat Beresheet (Genesis) - Selected Excerpts from the Sources #16*
1. Rav’s Introduction:
We are indeed continuing on with the weekly portion from the Torah. It is desirable for one to account to himself on all matters even such as in what way we get up in the morning and what we are thinking about and what we relate to. How much throughout the day as we talked yesterday, that we have to try in each and every action in each and every thought of ours to prepare ourselves that by this we are giving contentment to the Creator aiming to do so that I want to delight the Creator in each and every moment in whatever I do. Doesn’t matter what my actions are however in my thought I am constantly thinking in His direction because there is none else besides Him in the end He is the only one I am dealing with. So I relate to Him He relates to me and this is the connection between us, later on it becomes easier for me to aim such a thought through the group but I should at least aim myself for the time for towards the Creator in all I do. It doesn’t matter walking sitting eating sleeping working arranging all kinds of things subconsciously I am also thinking in the background that I, by this by each and every action would like to do good to the Creator to do good to Him and this way we also start to study.
*Excerpt 16 Reader (2:35 - 3:02)*
16. Genesis 1:3-5
And God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
2. R. Well, this is written in the Torah. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains all of these things in a broader way because from what's written here you cannot determine anything. Someone called the Creator says let there be light and there was light, let there be darkness and there was darkness and there is some difference between the light and the darkness. These are things that each one interprets the way that he wants so let's see how Baal HaSulam explains these things according to the Book of Zohar.
*Excerpt 17 Reader (3:47 - 7:10)*
17. Baal HaSulam, "Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot", No. 10
The Zohar […] writes about the verse, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light,” let there be light for this world and let there be light for the next world. This means that the works of creation were created in their full stature and form, as our sages said, meaning in their fullest glory and perfection. Accordingly, the light that was created on the first day emerged in all its perfection, which contains the life of this world, too, in utter pleasantness and gentleness, as expressed in the words, “Let there be light.”
However, to prepare a place of choice and labor, He stood and concealed it for the righteous at the end of correction, as our sages said. Hence, they said in their pure words, “Let there be light for this world.” However, it did not remain so, but rather “let there be light for the next world.”
In other words, they who practice Torah and Mitzvot Lishma are rewarded with it only at the end of correction, the end of days, after the end of the purification of their body in the path of Torah. Then they are rewarded with that great light in this world, too, as our sages said, “You will see your world in your life.”
3. R. This means that the Creator wants us to attain the whole of creation, everything that he prepared for us, he prepared, he created in us desires, intentions, thoughts, these are all preparations but as for the attainment that we attain the whole of creation as well as him that he exists in creation, this creation is attained, is a gradual. According to how much, how we are ready, capable, according to how much we invest ourselves. So, it turns out that we always attain the darkness, first the desire to attain the feeling that we want to attain, however we're not attaining. That feeling is there is darkness and then, there was evening and there was morning and we attain it throughout the day, it's called day. So, our whole path according to the plan of creation is always darkness and light, darkness and light, in greater and greater portions each time. Portions that are deeper. This is how we advance towards the revelation of this entire creation, this entire state that the Creator has prepared for us to begin with. This is why the whole of creation to the “I” is called Bar, meaning outside on the degree where we exist outside of the Creator outside of the light and we always attain from the dark to the light, from lack of knowledge to knowledge. We have to realize that the entire spiritual process that we go through is only in order to feel that the upper Force the Creator is lacking missing in our world and to discover him a little bit more to feel that he is lacking and a bit more to discover him and that way through such portions we discover the Creator the whole of creation is outside of the degree it's the concealment of the Creator from us and the entire revelation towards which we are going is all in all the revelation of the Creator within us. Within us meaning inside of our corrected vessels.
4. S. (9:50) You've answered this partially. On the first day of creation, there was light and it's wholeness, perfection, this is revealed when the Creator gives us a new taste in each and every degree?
R. No, no, no, we should not receive it and accept it as though it is all for us. All of these days of Genesis are not for us, we are going to study it, this is in the worlds that is before us comes up before us. It doesn't pertain to us. This is the creation of the world even before we exist and we start to know what is happening and our awareness, it comes gradually and it was evening and it was morning, that comes later. The Creator has to break the world that he created and he has to bring it to a state through all of the degrees so that there would be a place for us and then to start tending to us so that we would start to grow and understand where we are and we would start to get to know ourselves and that all of creation from darkness to light from darkness to light, each time more and more. You don't add what we're reading about right now to us, that we are here already and we can grasp what it says here and we can measure it on ourselves. No, take it gently, take it gently.
*Excerpt 18 Reader (11:40 - 13:29)*
18. RABASH, Article No. 36 (1985), "And There Was Evening and There Was Morning"
The Zohar says about the verse, “And there was evening and there was morning” […] “‘And there was evening,’ which the text writes, means that it extends from the side of darkness, meaning Malchut. ‘And there was morning’ means that it extends from the side of the light, which is ZA.
“This is why it writes about them, ‘One day,’ indicating that the evening and morning are as one body, and both make the day. Rabbi Yehuda said, ‘What is the reason?’ He asks, ‘Since ‘And there was evening and there was morning’ points to the unification of ZON, that the light of day comes out of both of them, then after the text announces it on the first day, why does it says about each day, ‘And there was evening and there was morning’?
“And he replies, ‘It is to know that there is no day without a night and no night without a day, and they will never part from one another. This is why the text repeats and informs us each and every day, to indicate that it is impossible that there will ever be the light of day without the darkness of night. Likewise, there will never be the darkness of night that does not bring a day after it, since they will never part from one another.’”
5. R. It is a great thing what Rabash writes to us here. He explains that it was evening and it was morning as it says in the Torah means first we all have to feel the evening darkness, night, lack of understanding, like a feeling, confusion, but it's not that we don't feel anything we feel that we do not feel. We understand that we do not understand. That is that we are in darkness at night the feeling of night is nevertheless a feeling it's not a lack of consciousness. It is a feeling so a person must necessarily in each and every with each and everything he necessarily has to start from not understanding, not feeling or feeling bad that he's confused in sensation and also in understanding and later on out of that, when one wakes up and one starts to discover everything, what we call the day. Therefore, we need to get used to it, to be happy with the feeling of the darkness, confusions, lack of understanding, so I could feelings and we don't like these states because it doesn't fulfill our will to receive, our ego, but we have to realize that specifically in the darkness in the feeling of darkness we are feeling the empty Kelim that are being revealed for a new exertion, a new sensation of the day, bestowal, of connection the feeling, of the Creator. We must respect these states of darkness and night no less than the feeling of knowledge and awareness and bestowal that come later, that we call day.
*Excerpt 18 Reader (15:55 - 17:34)*
6. S. He writes that the evening is Malchut and day is Zeir Anpin so how in the lesson do we reach the day?
R. Well, during the lesson, I constantly want to be tied to the friends and in the connection between us to discover the Creator that needs to fill up our correct connection. If we can exert between us in bestowal the Creator is revealed in this Kli. I try to feel this way and for sure the state exists, however everything is dependent on my efforts, how much I'm drawn to it so that the effort to connect with the friends, this is like my degree of bestowal. There we have Tzimtzum, Masach, Ohr Chozer the degree of my bestowal from me towards the others, that's the friends until I connect with them and in this effort of mine, I can already discover with my Ohr Chozer, reflected light I can discover the Ohr Yashar, direct light, the Creator. These states are still not clear. I still cannot measure them precisely in the way that they are established with which Aviut, coarseness, with which screen with which Zivug de Hakaa, coupling through striking, but nevertheless I already try as much as possible just like a little child tries to perform the same actions like the grown-ups. It works out for him or it doesn't work out for him but he does whatever he can and this is how we try to do it until we grow up and we begin to recognize the connection between us and according to the extent of the connection between us, according to the intensity of the connection between us and the manner of the connection between us, we start to discover the presence of the Creator. That's the work.
S. What does it mean that Malchut, what is night?
R. Malchut is a deficiency, a lot of will to receive or the guest let's say standing opposite the host, he doesn't know what to do for the time being, so we try to arrange himself correctly towards the host. He discovers that he doesn't have vessels of bestowal like the host and therefore he enters restriction and then he has to search how can I relate to the host as the host is relating to me, so for this I was given the friends. So I relate to the friends in the form of bestowal a little bit, as much as I can and I see that they are trying to relate to me in such a way so between us we are building a corporeal form of bestowal on our level, until we are all able to gather more and more to establish between us the form of bestowal that already begins to resemble spirituality. Then did we start to discover the upper force.
7. S. (21:14) What does it mean, the Creator shattered worlds?
R. He shattered the worlds, we will study this later, it's not directly related to the Act of Creation, Genesis, but after the Creator created the Olamot, worlds and he created the final state where he wants the created being to be like the Creator and be in adhesion with him and in complete connection. Then after he established this entire state, he broke it in order to make room in it for man to exist so that man will be able to position himself, establish himself in the correct final form but along the way he will be able to do it gradually, with understanding with attainment so it's as if man by himself creates everything. The Creator created everything like a puzzle and then he cut it up into pieces and we have to assemble the puzzle and bring it to the same form as it was done in the first place by the Creator. The Creator begins from the end of creation then He breaks it, he gives it to us and we start from the beginning of creation and we reach the corrected state.
8. S. (23:03) The text says in a very clear way that there must be both day and night so the question is in our work in connection, if we reach Achishena, hastening, can it be that the day will be longer the nights shorter? How does this affect the relation between night and day?
R. When we start using darkness correctly so that it brings us to the light and we understand that the light can be felt only because of the darkness within it and the greater the darkness so later on the light will be greater because darkness is a deficiency. It's our desire that we want to attain and the light is revealed later on according to the intensity of the desire meaning of how much we are drawn to it so it turns out that the darkness and the light have the same weight and the more we advance in our corrections, we have greater darkness and then greater light. Therefore, this is why we respect the darkness no less than the light because both of them are connected to each other and the both of them are equivalent to each other and this is how we advance. Therefore we must constantly hold ourselves in the middle between the darkness and the light and then the revelation of the light we have to realize that it comes from the darkness and in the revelation of the new darkness we have to respect it because this is the correct true form for the fact that we are about to discover light.
9. S. (25:15) This complete vessel called day, well everything we feel we feel personally, it's a personal darkness, the feeling of light is personal if we got there so how to get there with a collective vessel?
R: This is the greatest question for the time being for sure each one feels the darkness and the light and a small individual way. We don't yet have the feeling of connection, the feeling up our general Kelim and our body of the general ten, therefore it is still considered that we are only in the preparation, for the preparation, for the spiritual vessel. Later on hopefully we will start to feel the connection between us intermittently but hatred and rejection between us and such states all the time closeness, distance, closeness, distance, hatred and love, we will have more and more of the states between us, also actions that are revealed. Accordingly, it will become more practical revealed accordingly we will scrutinize the space between us connection, disconnection, connection, disconnection, and accordingly in the disconnection, we will start to feel the light of the Creator. In the disconnection we will feel the opposite form where the Creator does not exist and there is no spirituality and this way through ascents and descents through such falls, the revelation of the Klipot, shells and the revelation of sanctity we will advance because it is only possible through these and we can only be in one of these two states either Kedusha or Klipah. Let's hope already, start to realize, to actualize these corrections in practice, for the time being were not given to feel such states in practice because we're not yet capable of digesting them correctly. We're not capable of holding them between us in the right way. This means that we don't yet feel that we are in a single boat, we don't feel that we can be in the stormy sea and therefore we're not given that. We can't advance like that. We need to as quickly as possible to detect that we have to feel spirituality in the connection between us out of the connection between us in the ten and if we don't have this feeling of connection then what we feel is just a little bit of spirituality however in a personal way it's not yet true, it's not out of the true vessel.
10. S. (28:47) Can we say that light and darkness would be for the sake of choice and the recognition of evil for us to intensify?
R: It is all to our benefit in order for us to start to feel the light and darkness and the difference between them emotionally and the reasons for this and for that and to be grateful for the light as well as for the darkness equally.
11. S. (29:27) I had a question exactly about having the same amount of respect for both the light and the darkness. Is there an exercise that you can recommend so that we can increase the respect of the darkness?
R. You need to talk about it that it cannot be, there cannot be revelation except affording to the extent of the darkness the extent of the concealment that in the concealment there is the same revelation however what's lacking there is just our correction so that we were late correctly to the darkness. If I'm in darkness now and if I relate to the darkness that it is coming from the Creator and this is the form in which the Creator wants me to be in, if out of the darkness we tried to reach connection and love with the Creator, then I already stopped feeling that it is darkness and for me it becomes light. It's not light and darkness like in our world where something external becomes revealed, some sort of light, a flashlight that's not shining, no. The light and darkness depend on, out of my soul, how do I relate to the quality of bestowal and the quality of reception. If I receive the quality of bestowal and the quality of reception so that for me it is the same thing, I just want to be in adhesion with the Creator than there is no light or darkness. Everything becomes one day, one day in which the light and the darkness become interconnected and for me there is no difference, there is no difference. I rise above all of these discernments and that will be a full day and this full day is what we have to reach. Therefore, by me determining by me feeling and I standing what is light and what is darkness what is like day and what is night that it is all according to my vessel if I rise above them then for me there is no light or day or night it is all light as we call it. It is not any longer the light of day as it was before rather it is day because I'm in adhesion with the Creator from whom all of these discernment come to me day and night and I adhere to him in the day and the night and all of our work we specifically in the feeling of the night.
12. S. (32:32) Perhaps you could recommend for us, exercises by which we can go deeper into the article so that they're easier to comprehend?
R. Yes, you need to speak together about what does it mean, for example, day and night that it says nothing to do with the days and nights that we have that we feel in our physical world as a result of the sun and the moon and the earth that is spinning. But rather it is a feeling with respect to the vessels of bestowal with vessels of reception with respect to the feeling of the Creator, that he used concealed deliberately and we accept his concealment as something that is good and proper in order for us to advance on our side towards bestowal. That as much as we implied, implied, implement within us the force of bestowal, the darkness becomes light. It is considered that we rise with faith above reason and then we no longer feel that it is darkness, rather it is light and this darkness comes specifically in order for me to develop such a feeling out of me towards the Creator, towards bestowal, towards connection, towards giving, that darkness then passes and I start to feel that it wasn't darkness it was a state of help from above in order for me to be able to open up myself also in seeing during the night not only seeing during the day.
13. S. (34:47) Describe a state where we don't feel the ten as one vessel but rather each one feels himself to a small degree so how do we get there where we feel the whole ten together?
R. You should do exercises between you throughout the day as much as possible whatever Rabash says, I can't briefly repeat everything, go over all of his articles. Make a summary out of them. On a single page what is it that we have to do? Later on trying to keep that as much as possible. Prepare this as a general collective workshop for all of our groups all over the world and we'll do it together, I'll be happy to take part in that you just have to prepare it.
S. It's simply from our individual work to continue and it will come?
R. Yes, there's nothing you can do about it this is a group work where you're searching for the center of the ten, how to detect it, how to arrange it, how to hold on to it more and more, how to reach such pressure between you so as to be in that single point of connection where you discover that indeed there is a mixture there between your different qualities and thoughts and you can rise above it to faith above reason and then you discover the Creator.
S. Then we tie the exercise you gave us to this exercise of giving contentment to the Creator with every action, how can we tie these actions together?
R. Well this is more suitable for the personal work of a person that with every movement that he does he should proceed it, with the thought that he wants the Creator to enjoy it, that's it, it's very simple. Whatever I do, I want the Creator to enjoy from me, from all of my actions from all of my thoughts from my qualities whatever becomes revealed in me whatever I discover.
14. S. (37:15) In order to reach the state of day and night in the ten do we first need to get to the state of day and night on the personal level to reach these discernments alone and only then in the ten?
R. I don't think so the day and the night that you feel personally they are quite egoistic. Do you don't want to delve into it. It's better for one to annul himself and to be in the society then for sure you are already in the inclination toward spirituality.
15. S. (37:56) If in the darkness there's no connection, what can I do for the night not to be so long?
R. You have to feel the night for sure even it will seem like a second but you have to feel this because this is the disconnection between the states and to quickly make the night into the light at all depends on your environment. How much does it help you to quickly get out of it because the day that's already connection between us and our participation and you cannot awaken from the night to the day quickly unless, if you have an agreement with the friends. I do help each other, what we call that you have Arvut between you. Because a person truly when he's in the night is disconnected truly disconnected from spirituality. We don't feel it yet but soon we will feel that only the connection with the society that we, in one state of night the ten awakens him. It's like I go to sleep while I'm sleeping, how can I wake up? There's some inner alarm clock within the body or there is an external alarm clock or some other things, so in spirituality, I have to prepare my connection with a society so that the society will wake me up. In spirituality it is almost impossible to wake up by yourself, only if the Creator arranges such a state for you there for the night and the day, it's very important and it greatly depends on the relationships in the society in the group.
16. S. (40:10) Is it possible to see the darkness as light or to see the darkness and light as one day before the Creator is revealed in the group in the connection between us?
R. No. Well you can fantasize about these things as if your imaginations. but it is impossible. darkness and light can be together when you reach the correction of the darkness of it and it entirely becomes light. This is called and darkness will shine as light, we will talk about this.
S. I'm constantly in a state of darkness?
R. Well even now we are in a state of darkness although sometimes we think that it is light but without the revelation of the Creator truthfully it is considered night but nevertheless somehow there is a difference. The question is what is the difference? Who determines the difference between the night and the day? Is it my ego? That, for it is nicer to feel this state and it's not so pleasant to feel the other state, so is it my ego or my degree of bestowal to the friends? And furthermore, through the friends to the Creator? What does day mean for me, when I bestow to everyone when I just disconnected from the night from thoughts about myself is that what I consider or is it something else?
17. S. (42:15) It says here that there will be evening and day, it doesn't say night and day here, is that about the middle line we need to build but in the contact between us and..
R. And it was evening and it was morning, meaning that it was night and day but however they put the emphasis on the transition between the darkness and the light that's why they say it was morning and it was night, because the most important for us are these transitions. Later on we will reveal why in the night itself you are disconnected from spirituality. In the day, light, you are under the control, the rule of spirituality. These transitions, called evening where the darkness and the light are mixed and also in the morning where you're still in the night maybe but you're drawn to the day to the light those transitions are the most important they are the greatest we will learn more about it.
18. S. (43:35) How not to reject the feeling of darkness but rather to understand that this was the Creator's invitation in order to reach the revelation of the light?
R. It all depends on what we agree in our social contracts in our Arvut where between us we signed on this Arvut where we help each other and then we begin to understand that we must have darkness and light and some in the ten are in darkness some are in the light in different kinds of darkness and light and generally in that way we advance all the time despite there being some who are in darkness and some who are in the light. That's how we are being promoted constantly being in motion like a wheel, where part of it rotates back and part of it rotates forward so that's what we have to understand. We respect and bless the light and the darkness and we use them only in order to advance and there's no problem here. The dark is not inferior to the light.
19. S. (45:03) The text says that they will never part from each other, what degree does it speak about here at the degree of connection?
R. They will never apart from each other meaning that we're all tied together in connecting ourselves with the Creator that's the meaning of us trying to be together. To the extent that the forces of separation are revealed in us and above them we want to be connected. That's, that also speaks of humanity which as a whole must reach a state where we are all connected, all in one Adam, one man.
20. S. (46:30) How can I reveal light inside me without knowing what is darkness? How can I get these feelings in the group?
R. You cannot awaken the light without feeling the darkness otherwise you will imagine all sorts of darkness incorrectly. The Creator brings a separation between us and the feeling of separation between me and the friend, that is what I feel to be darkness and the feeling of connection between me and the friend that I feel to be a corrected vessel in which I expect to receive the light.
21. S. (47:27) It turns out that the darkness actually helps us build a deficiency for the lights?
R. Correct, exactly so the darkness exists so that we will yearn for the light correctly and until we properly scrutinize the darkness we will not be able to feel the lights. We need to prepare ourselves for the feeling of the light, the sensation of the light from the darkness.
S. The question is this light existed in potential and then it appeared or...?
R. The light comes from above it creates in us the darkness in the whole world and then everyone in the whole vessel of Adam HaRishon and from that shattered vessel, where we begin to feel the darkness we also begin to feel and the connection between us the light. The light comes when we connect the broken vessels.
S. Is that the same light that revives the dead?
R. Correct. Each and every part that is disconnected from the others it's like a broken body. It is called dead and if we connect these parts together we come to the resurrection of the dead.
22. S. (49:09) What is the day that passed and the next degree?
R. It's a degree that we've completed and now we have a new degree which starts from darkness as well.
S. In the ten we somehow have to work with the day that went by?
R. We stand on what we've retained as connection and sometimes maybe even as some revelation of the Creator and above that we now enter a new darkness from which the new degree begins and we perform all the actions necessary to bring it to the point where in the connection between us the Creator is revealed and that is called days so there will be this evening night morning and all of that is full light.
S. Ahead of us the next degree is revealed as darkness so in the ten should we remember somehow, lean on that revelation we had the feeling of the Creator that we had already.
R. Yes that is part of the darkness of the day. The darkness of today is worse than the darkness of yesterday because we constantly climbed these degrees. Darkness, overcoming the darkness that’s day, the revelation of the light and against darkness, overcoming it and then it becomes day and so on. And there was evening and morning one day and so on one after the other like that we climb the ladder.
23. S. (51:18) I wanted to ask what does it mean to scrutinize the darkness in the ten, how do we do it correctly in the ten?
R. As detached we are, not connected to each other correctly, we cannot assemble the ego pieces together properly or the puzzle more correctly for the connection between us to be complete on our small degree and then we find that if we assemble the puzzle correctly and assembling the puzzle that's the work of the night then in that we begin to discover the image the painting of our connection and in that the image of the Creator, the form of bestowal. That's the work of the night and the work during the day.
S. There is common works here by the entire ten or is individual work in relation to the ten?
R. Work in the ten, the individual personal work of each one in the ten. If it's not in the ten and it doesn't count.
S. This means that we in the ten talk about it, what are we lacking to be more connected, or in the ten we only talked about wholeness perfection?
R. This and that both. The main thing is that we work in the connection between you.
24. S. (53:01) It seems that thinking about giving the Creator contentment delighting the Creator, enjoying the thought that there is none else besides Him, how can this combination help us and accelerate our work in the ten?
R. That's very nice what you said, very true. There is none else besides Him good who does good, all of these discernments that we read exist in the Creator. If we want to discover them together then they help each other, they connect together and they give us the right form the right way to seek the Creator, to find Him the right way to establish the relations between us so that He is revealed. The thing is never forget that it's not a revelation where I look at some image. I myself am painting assembling that image. I am myself and part of the picture which is called the Creator, because the Creator is revealed in us in the right connection between us. It's as though we are pieces of the picture, the parts of this puzzle and each one of us wants to assemble, to assemble the Creator, looking for what might it be in the connection between us until we attach ourselves together in such a connection where we get the shape of the Creator, the form of the Creator and when we find the form of the Creator that is the true form and the perfect and whole form. But it's, how to put it, it's a matter of, it's a matter of the precision, the resolution we are talking about. It's like when you look at a map you can see things from afar and you can then zoom in so that it's all closer. That's the matter of the degrees. The more we climb the degrees of the attainment of the Creator then the scale becomes more and more bigger and magnified and we in our scrutiny’s we can feel and integrate with the Creator. It's the inner form which is revealed in that way.
25. S. (56:14) Is hatred the cause of the darkness?
R. I can't say that because we begin to love the darkness and we begin to love the hatred. They are inseparable states from the revelation of the Creator, from the revelation of love, you cannot have one without the other. So using the form of hatred and the darkness we can't always do that because it's for me it's an integral part then I don't ascribe any negative emotions to that, that is how we reach a world that is entirely good where there's nothing bad that the Creator created nothing exists which is bad, it all exists for things to complete each other.
S. How to properly use this in the group?
R. It comes when we want to connect together then we begin to gradually love and all of our friends we begin to love the negative things so to speak, they're weird predilections like with our beloved children. We agree and we love everything in them until we discover in spirituality that all of these things are necessary, there's nothing bad in the world, only good. It all depends on the degree of our revelation where we see that all of these inclinations that the Creator created in each one it's all necessary. It's for the best and it completes me actually in every way. I begin to discover all sorts of flaws in me and opposite that I begin to discover that all the negative things that I saw in the others actually compliment me and I need them. Then I begin to discover all the bad things that I had before that appeared as such in the friends as good things and indeed when I reach the right work all the bad becomes good and all that's negative becomes good. The hatred becomes love entirely and it's all because I even egoistically you can explain it because it complements me. Where I have a minus there you have a plus, where I have a plus and there is the minus and so I begin to respect and appreciate those things I discover in the friends whether good things or bad things I relate to them in an equal manner. It's called “love will cover all crimes.” It's like with the mother who loves the baby, she takes care of him, she cleans him, she breastfeeds him, she does everything with his body and it's all her pleasure because that's love. Love covers everything and we are the same in the connection between us.
26. S. (1:00:27) How does above reason relate to our experience of the darkness, what is the place of faith?
R: Faith is the power of bestowal. Faith is the power of Binah, bestowal which rides atop the force of reception covering the negative the bad things we feel in the force of reception by the positives that we feel in the force of bestowal that's all it is. We need to actually implement it to see how practical it is.
27. S. (1:01:19) Can we reach a state of the middle line between the night and the day?
R: Yes, it will be both night and day connected together and there was evening and there was morning one day. Why is it one day rather than one night, because the night shines as like the day and there's no difference between them.
28. S. (1:02:02) I started to make my writing on Facebook more sharp as you discussed in the writers meeting and immediately I got literally a hundred comments on the post. People expressed a lot of anger towards me. Some people thought I was supporting Biden, some people thought I was supporting Trump, I didn't write that at all but a lot of anger came out when I started to talk about the future in a more sharp way. How do I relate to these comments, do I relate to them at all?
R: First of all you need to thank them all. To tell them thank you very much for responding. If what I write is in some way some way damaging to you then there is a connection between us maybe it is a negative connection right now but I now learn I know what you think and let’s scrutinize here, it doesn't matter so much who's right and who's wrong we want to find the truth not the truth of each one but rather from nature and it's not where a person comes and decides by his education by whatever influence he's had on him, what's right to think. We don't mind so much what it is that we think but rather what is important for us is what do we exist and what may happen, because we are in a dangerous situation in our nation in the world on Earth with this general pandemic. Everything now is very general, very global right so let's not deal so much with who's right and who's wrong using our previous ways of measuring things right, our old gauges. Let's, I recommend, let's continue and besides for anger, besides blaming each other accusations let's use our clear logic and as neutrally as possible without our personal bias, but rather like scientists, who respect facts, what's actually happening in nature. If we go along in this neutral way the middle line you have the right you have the last all around these and those let's walk the middle ground where perhaps we can be better attuned to the truth and rely only on what's actually happening in nature and not what each one thinks according to his education, his colour, his spirit, and so on. Let's rise above all these differences between people, between human beings and instead look at things from a higher perspective and then perhaps we will be able to see what we're facing and then maybe we will open this new perspective, a new site for us and we will see the states, the new states that perhaps it is preferable that we reach. In that way, try to calm things down and say that we have to try to reach the truth, to find the truth and I think you will all succeed, because the situation and America is very good for such scrutiny.
29. S. (1:06:34) If we start to feel the bad as good then the bad disappears and if so the good can neither exist so what remains?
R: You will have a new evil, a new bad and thanks to it you will get a new good and so all the time left right left right. It's darkness light, darkness light, each time more and more that's how you will rise gradually.
S: And in between the states we have concealed my…?
R: Between these states we will learn what exists between the states. Between the states it's Ein Sof. We will learn. You asked, you asked, keep the question.
30. S. (1:07:34) You answer to the friend before that in our dissemination we should stick with let's discover the truth, let's understand what the truth is?
R: Yes I told that to Seth.
S: The common claim then is usually that there is no single truth, each one has his own truth.
R. Correct, correct if each one is an egoist than each one has his own opinion for the moment, whatever he was taught to think educated to think. Tell me, how can there be truth, if I was born black or white, if I was born Jewish and not Mexican if I was born a man not a woman if I received this education I'm not a different kind of education so each one has his own truth so can you call that truth? You call that the truth? We are constantly always in struggle, but we never scrutinize the truth we always scrutinize who's stronger. That's what we clarify, and you see between countries, nations, is anyone concerned about finding the truth? Whoever has more money, more weaponry, more power he's right and we cannot continue existing in that way. It's kind of like a gang of criminals. We need therefore to rise above all the differences between us gradually and to find the truth which isn't tied to us directly, dependent on the circumstances of a person's birth and how he lives and in what environment and so on. Each one has to know how do I make of myself a neutral form, objective and that's not simple I need to discover this above my ego. For that, there is no alternative, but to be in the quality of bestowal in the quality of bestowal, Binah, in Binah. Yes, only from there and on am I capable of reaching the truth because Binah is between Keter and Malchut and so her quality can connect between Keter and Malchut and how can we connect between the Keter which is entirely in bestowal and Malchut who is entirely in receiving? It's only in Binah where both connect to Binah and from there we begin to develop ourselves. We will learn how it is done.
S. Yesterday in the meeting of the writers he said about in this context you said you have to buy the truth but not sell it.
R. Yes.
S. I wanted to ask what does it mean you need to buy the truth and not sell it?
R. Our problem is that we sell the truth. Truth doesn't matter to us but what we care about is convenience. That's why it's written by purchasing the truth meaning paying for it with much exertion, acquiring it and then never separate from it, never exchange it with comforts, sweetness, security of some sort. The truth has to be above anything and everything. Don't exchange it for any other state or discernment. This is the law that the Torah gives us this is how we should act. I'm very glad that we have so many questions about this text, this excerpt. This there will be evening and morning one day because this is the foundation of our work and from here we see how when we began studying the Torah, that it shows us it speaks to us about all of our work and our relationship with the Creator. It's coming, try asking questions that actually are relevant to this and not irrelevant so that we can truly advance.
31. S. (1:12:44) About the day and night is it important in disconnection from the importance of bestowal in the ten?
R. We will learn that in the future.
32. S. (1:13:05) In recent days we have been talking a lot about giving contentment to the Creator, what is it to give contentment to the Creator?
R. I do not know, but on a personal level with everything that I do I want to give Him contentment regardless of what, I eat, drink, sleep, work, it doesn't matter what I do. By that I constantly want to feel and to have this inner feeling that I am giving Him contentment. That is how it is, imagine it to yourself.
S. What does it mean to give contentment to the system to the quality of bestowal?
R. I don't know just like that, it's still very vague to me but I want to cause Him comfort, delight from my actions.
S. Is it a concept or is it a feeling should I reach a certain feeling?
R. I want to reach that feeling, yes.
33. S. (1:14:14) How do we hold the Arvut in all of the different states of light and darkness?
R. We want through the Arvut to relate in a useful objective way to the states of darkness and light so that both of these states will assist us in moving forward, only forward toward connection between us and between us and the Creator.
34. S. (1:14:58) As we choose to awaken the dawn, what is it about the connection in the ten that seems to sharpen and tighten in the face of greater revealed darkness?
R. The darkness appears so that we can scrutinize our attitude towards the darkness and so to discover the light.
35. S. (1:15:42) What is our way to measure and understand what is darkness and what is light in the ten?
R. It is constantly changing in us, light and darkness, from corporeal things to more and more spiritual things until I see that love is light and rejection is darkness in various states even in the most delicate. That is how I perceive it.
*Excerpt 19 Reader (1:16:34 - 1:17:59)*
19. RABASH, Article No. 36 (1985), "And There Was Evening and There Was Morning"
“A man is born the foal of a wild donkey” and he has no desire for spirituality. Thus, from where does the sensation of need for spirituality come to a person, to the point of saying that he feels darkness, which he calls “night,” by feeling that he is remote from the Creator? We must know that at the same time he begins to feel that he is far from the Creator, he is already beginning to believe in the existence of the Creator to some extent, or else how can he say that he is remote from something that doesn’t exist? Instead, he must say that he has some illumination from afar that shines for him to the extent that he feels that he is remote from the Creator.
It therefore follows that as soon as the darkness begins, meaning the sense of the existence of darkness, the light immediately begins to shine to some extent. And the measure of illumination of the light is recognized only through negation. That means that one feels a lack, that he does not have the light of the Creator shining for him in an affirmative manner. However, the light shines for him in the form of lack, meaning that now he begins to feel that he is missing the light of the Creator, which is called “day.”
But those for whom the light of day does not shine don’t know if there is such a reality where a person must feel the absence of the light of the Creator, which is called “day.”
36. R. Meaning that the sensation of the darkness comes when something shines upon him and then he begins to feel the darkness. It is interesting that we have Hebrew and Aramaic, these two languages, so Ohr light, Ohr means light in Hebrew and the word Orata means darkness in Aramaic, so these two languages are like the anterior and posterior, they complete each other, one comes from the day and one comes from the night. So Ohr light, Ohr is light in Hebrew and Orata is night in Aramaic. So what does he want to say? That you don't have darkness you have a light, lights that we cannot still find or locate, it creates in us a feeling of darkness. Darkness is the lack of light, it is the same light but it illuminates upon us in the form of darkness, a black light.
*Reader continues “And the measure of the illumination of the day...”(1:19:23 - 1:20:09)*
37. R. We can derive many discernments from this, the main thing is that one comes and attests to the other, the feeling of darkness comes and helps us feel what the feeling of day is and the feeling of day prepares us to better perceive the darkness, detect the darkness. It's not darkness and light as we have in this world, but rather it is connection and disconnection, hatred and love, the existence of the Creator and the lack of the Creator. But lack of his existence means that we feel that we lack the existence of the Creator, at night in the darkness we have the existence of the Creator that has to be revealed after it, but if it isn't revealed that it brings us a lack for His revelation, a shadow so to speak. The beginning of the attainment of the revelation of the Creator in spirituality is where we have the attainment of the Creator in spirituality but in a negative sense. That it is deficiency, that it is called night. What is night? It is a deficiency for the day which will follow and it builds within a yearning for that day when we attain this true yearning for the proper revelation, meaning to bestow through connection and so on. Then the night ends and we come to the day. Therefore, the night prepares us for the day, and it is great work that we must do at night in order to be awarded with the light of day. Kabbalists usually would rise at midnight, 12 a.m., and they would prepare themselves for the day and only after such preparations were they able to reach a state of day. And it's not that the sun comes or it doesn't, it is an inner feeling that they have where they need to prepare themselves from the middle of the night, from the darkness for a state where the light of bestowal is revealed, the light of love according to their vessels which they prepare and then comes the revelation of the Creator within that.
*Reader reads excerpt 19 again*
38. S. (1:25:10) Please tell me, you said that Kabbalists would wake up at midnight to study so is this the middle part of the night?
R.
39. S. (1:26:01) The Sun and the Moon, these are concepts where the Creator is working in concepts that He is giving us, it's nothing to do with the Sun or the Moon or the darkness of the light, it's rather the feeling He is giving us, and the energy that closeness, remoteness isn’t it?
R. Yes, what is the question?
S. Yes all of these concepts are misleading us?
R. We're not talking about this world if we're talking about spirituality, so all of those names and terms that you are used to in your current world take only the names, but the concepts are completely different. The Sun is not this Sun or the Moon, and the MAN is not the same man. Get used to coming to know a new world.
S. (1:27:12) Our perception is subjective always so do we create the darkness as there's no such thing as darkness there's only one light?
R. There is no darkness, darkness is only the negation of the light by our ego, meaning that there is restriction, restriction on the system determines that if there is no equivalence of form there is no revelation of the Creator and that is called darkness.
S. So we create the darkness in our egoistic qualities?
R. We don't create the darkness, the darkness was created by the spiritual ladder, bringing to us the feeling of darkness according to our degree, each one, so that we make light out of the darkness. It's not that we have darkness and we have light, we have light, but this light is either hidden by our vessels and called darkness or we correct our vessels and we come to see the light. But in truth there is only light, there is no darkness at all in reality. There is a sea an ocean of light and we are in it, and each one according to the extent to which he is opposite to the light, the will to bestow and love, then he feels that he is in the darkness and to the extent that he connects to the others working with the quality of love activating them then he feels that he is in the light.
S. In which state does the darkness and light equalize?
R. The darkness will shine as light when you stop feeling that there is darkness and shadows in the world, rather you correct those things in order to bestow and then everything shines. You yourself are creating the darkness, the darkness is not coming from above.
S. This is what I was asking when does our subjectivity in our perception end, does this change in the end of correction or never?
R. To the extent that our connection with the ten, but all of it disappears completely only in the end of correction. What does it mean the end of correction? When you connect with all the vessels of Adam Ha Rishon, meaning all of your intermingling and cooperation with your other vessels bring only light.
41. S. (1:30:20) You expressed that the Kabbalists would prepare themselves from the darkness to receive the light, to be in a state to receive the light. This state that they were in to receive the light, is this the state of love of friends?
R. Yes, that is correct.
42. S. (1:30:03) Is it correct to consider that we have to prepare the darkness, the vessels for the reception of the light?
R. Hold on, when we are in dark we need to prepare ourselves for seeing the light from within the darkness, that we will make such corrections in the darkness that the darkness will turn into light.
S. It is just that the darkness is seemingly a deficiency, a lack of lights in our awareness?
R. Yes.
S. And this is what we have to scrutinize between us in the preparation for the lesson?
R. You need to locate why you are feeling darkness, what kind of concealment exists between you and what do you need to add, each one of you to the connection between you in order to reveal the light. Light and darkness depend on our work, this is what we have to come to that the darkness will shine as light. The Zohar also writes, who are those who are turning darkness to lights, bitter to sweet? That's the way it is.
S. What does it mean that darkness will shine as light that it actually shines?
R. That the darkness, that which was felt as darkness is bringing the light and then darkness and light appears in double the intensity, we understand why there was darkness, why there was light, how they complement one another and by that we are growing each degree,... 620 times more.
43. S. (1:33:38) If I don't know what the reality of the Creator is, does that mean I've never felt darkness?
R. You have felt a little bit, both probably but you haven't been able to locate or depict it, but soon it will come. Of course, without the presence of the Creator, then it is probably time that you had the opposite of Him, you felt a deficiency in Him. Therefore, both of these states are interconnected.