The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Lesson (Morning), September 23, 2024.

Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot

Reader: (00:03) Hello, we are reading in the writings of Baal HaSulam, The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot. You can find the study material on kabbalahgroup.info and in the Arvut system, you can also send questions live through those websites. Anyone asking a question here in the study hall is asked to stand up, hold the mic close to his mouth, and speak loudly and clearly. We're starting today The Introduction to TES.

M. Laitman: We won't talk about the introduction, itself. We'll learn it from the study itself. But it has to be a very important introduction because it is the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, which is the main thing that Baal HaSulam invested so many days and years in. That's the main thing that he wants to give, so we'll study it even though we already know it, we should invest more. We are in a new state and this will help us achieve even a new degree of understanding, feeling, attaining. Go ahead.

Reading: (01:57) Introduction to TES, Item One.

At the outset of my words, I find a great need to break an iron wall that has been separating us from the wisdom of Kabbalah, since the ruin of the Temple to this generation. It lies heavily on us and arouses fear of being forgotten from Israel.

However, when I begin to speak to anyone about engaging in this study, his first question is, “Why should I know how many angels are in the sky and what their names are? Can I not keep the whole Torah in all its details and intricacies without this knowledge?”

M. Laitman: We can see, here, that Baal HaSulam begins from a very important point. On the one hand, a person who speaks this way obviously doesn't know what the wisdom of Kabbalah is truly about. And also, it means they don't know about the purpose of the Torah, the essence of it, and the purpose of the study.

Reading: (03:48) Second, he will ask, “The sages have already determined that one must first fill one’s belly with Mishnah and Gemara, and who can deceive himself that he has already completed the whole of the revealed Torah, and lacks only the wisdom of the hidden?”

M. Laitman: Meaning, it could be that a person is so wrong that he doesn't know what is the essence of these words, to fill one's belly with Mishnah and Gemara, what is it really about?

Reading: (04:36) Third, he is afraid that he will turn sour because of his disengagement. This is because there have already been incidents of deviation from the path of Torah because of engagement in Kabbalah. Hence, why do I need this trouble? Who is so foolish as to place himself in danger for no reason?

M. Laitman: So if, as we heard, there are some who lose their minds, there are some that leave Judaism, altogether, because of this or go in all kinds of directions. So, if I start studying, do I endanger myself? And he gives an answer, here, to why we can begin to study and there's no risk in any way.

Reading: (05:51) Fourth, even those who favor this study permit it only to holy people, servants of the Creator, and not all who wish to take the Lord may come and take.

M. Laitman: Right, so it's a special kind of study – the study that raises the person to the level of heaven, on the one hand. On the other hand, one has to be ready, ripe for this study.

Reading: (06:33) Fifth, and most important, there is a conduct in our midst that when in doubt, keep this, do as the people do. In my eyes, I see that all those who study Torah in my generation have one view and refrain from studying the hidden. Moreover, they advise those who ask them that it is undoubtedly preferable to study a page of Gemara, instead of this engagement.

M. Laitman: Okay, the question is basically reasonable: If you have other parts of the Torah in front of you, why do you specifically need to choose the hidden part? Study what everyone else studies, start from the revealed and then we'll see later what you get. But then you certainly won't go astray. Any questions here?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:56) Why is there a barrier in the first place that is trying to break down?

M. Laitman: That, we'll have to discuss but, first of all, these claims existed. And in each and every generation, you have people who ask themselves to study Kabbalah or not. And around Kabbalah, there was always rumors and myths so, there's a problem. There's a problem because what is this study really about, you don't understand in advance. It's not like you open some textbook and you see clearly what it's about. The material that you study is unknown – the style, the approach, everything that has to do with the study, is also unknown, the study material. And the method of the study is very different, it's very different. So, you don't just continue studying as in the ordinary study of Torah and that awakens problems and questions. If I, let's say, if I'm a father, the head of a family, how can I allow myself to invest some of my time to that? How can I teach my children, if I'm not certain about what will happen, and so forth, as we see from these doubts? So that's a problem, yes, and this problem is not something that awakens, today. It is from many years ago, thousands of years ago; meaning, the study of Kabbalah is unique. And it is a different kind of material and approach, the approach is to attain. And what you study comes to you from a degree of equivalence of form. Whereas, the study of ordinary wisdom or knowledge doesn't require a person to make an effort to take on a form of the study that he, of the material that he studies. That's the whole problem. Well, we'll see that later on.

Reading: (11:48) Item 2

Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone, meaning this indignant question that the whole world asks, namely, “What is the meaning of my life?” In other words, these numbered years of our life that cost us so heavily, and the numerous pains and torments that we suffer for them, to complete them to the fullest, who is it who enjoys them? Or even more precisely, whom do I delight?

It is indeed true that historians have grown weary contemplating it, and particularly in our generation, no one even wishes to consider it. Yet the question stands as bitterly and as vehemently as ever. Sometimes it meets us uninvited, pecks at our minds and degrades us to the ground before we find the famous ploy of flowing mindlessly in the currents of life as always.

M. Laitman: That's clear, yes? Please, ask.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:59) I cannot understand, he said that the wisdom of Kabbalah is seemingly different than all the methods that he touches on Gemara, etc.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, if it's different why does he call it an iron wall, a barrier, something that seems lacking?

M. Laitman: “An iron wall” is that there is a wall, it's not that it's missing; meaning, there's a wall that we need to somehow overcome.

Student: He suggests to someone addingas one forms to add something to your study?

M. Laitman: No. It says that here at the entry to the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is an iron wall between us and the wisdom of Kabbalah. And if we can overcome this wall, then we'll know what the wisdom of Kabbalah is about and, otherwise, we won't.

Student: It sounds from the questions that even if he will offer someone to study the wisdom of Kabbalah. They'll ask him about what they're doing, not about the wisdom of Kabbalah, itself. Seemingly, he's not discussing what the wisdom of Kabbalah is going to give to a person.

M. Laitman: It doesn't matter, we're talking about a person who approaches the study of Kabbalah, so, is he ready for some wall in front of him? So, he's ready to cancel this wall through the study.

Student: And what is this wall a man meets?

M. Laitman: There is something that one cannot go through, emotionally.

Student: It's something perceptual toward the goal?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It's not clear the transition now from Item one to Item two, as if he's coming to offer a method. That there is an iron wall between us, and suddenly, he goes to a question about life. What does that have to do with it? Why this transition?

M. Laitman: He says,” if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I'm certain that all these questions and doubts will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place. Only one question remains, what's the meaning of life”?

Student: And the question disappears? He places his finger on that.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Does it mean that all the other people who engage in some other study, don't pay attention to that question?

M. Laitman: It probably just escapes them in some way. They can study, they can philosophize about it, and intellectualize it, but this question, no. It doesn't become revealed in them in the same intensity, shape, and sharpness that it appears in those that are ready for the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Student: And before the destruction, the question was clear to the people of Israel?

M. Laitman: We'll see. The better, the more we learn and understand our state, we'll also understand those who went through the path and what happened to them before. All right?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:54) I wanted to ask about this question, what is the meaning of my life? Why this question is the one that leads a person to the wisdom of Kabbalah?

M. Laitman: Because this is actually the one big central question that exists in front of the human being.

Student: If a person doesn't have this question, does the wisdom of Kabbalah have anything to offer him? Or is it only designed for those who have the question, what's the meaning of life?

M. Laitman: Yes, to the extent that one comes closer to the essence of Kabbalah, then this question is burning in him. And it's asked with greater intensity.

Student: Meaning, only through this method, only through this wisdom can he acquire an answer to the question?

M. Laitman: Yes, about the meaning of life, certainly.

Student: Clear, and he continues, and he writes that if you check who is it who enjoys them, or who, more precisely, who do I delight. Who needs this examination, if a person has the question of what's the meaning of my life?

M. Laitman: Because there's a great rule of The Torah, here, the Great Mitzvah, “love thy friend as thyself”, that everyone has to be as one man and one heart. Everyone has to get to that, to make sure they get to that – be as one, so.

Student: But it's not the primary impulse, the question of who enjoys it. Who do I delight, this is a greater depth.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It's beyond but he starts from what's the meaning of my life.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: And then from the answers about the meaning of life, he understands that he also needs to answer these additional questions.

M. Laitman: Yes, yes, it's like a chain, yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:32) What is this readiness, readiness of a person who asks about the meaning of life? Since a person who's asking such a question wants to learn from the internality of Torah, he reaches a certain maturity. What is that maturity when he asks this question, it's an essential question about life?

M. Laitman: Yes, indeed there are different people who ask themselves but the deep, innermost question comes from a question that grew, that was brewing within the person: What is the purpose of life, the essence of life, what's the need for life. And that's what he comes to the study with, now, people come from different levels and different angles. But here he talks about what kind of a person it needs to be who comes with his question to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Student: Does it have to do with the person's root of his soul?

M. Laitman: Of course, that's what he's talking about.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:00) I want to ask about the question itself, what is the meaning of my life. What's happening with it during the spiritual development of a person. He comes burning with the question of what's the meaning of my life? And then, what is the process this question undergoes? Does it turn off, does it have to do anything?

M. Laitman: We'll learn, we'll learn.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:34) He expands on the question, what's the meaning of my life, and it comes from great torments, suffering that a person goes through. Does it have to come from great suffering for this question to awaken or is there another path?

M. Laitman: It depends on what do you mean by suffering. Perhaps a person goes through physical suffering but doesn't feel it mentally at all. Could be the other way around. But he's not talking about this right now, he's not talking about the essence of suffering or the amount of it.

Student: He continues, the question he says, he experiences these sufferings, and then the question arises what's the meaning of life, and who do I enjoy, who enjoys my work, and who do I delight. And as I feel Baal HaSulam, those are emotional, soulful torments, they come from emptiness, not simply physical suffering. There are many solutions to physical.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: The question is, can it awaken only from such a place?

M. Laitman: We'll see, you see that in the meantime he's concise, so looks like to be continued, later on.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:06) Every time we read it, there's a complaint to the Creator. That those who don't have this question in their hearts are not willing to listen to this. And it's up to the Creator to awaken a person's point in the heart, once the point is awakened, he's free to sit down, to listen, to go through study, and the wall does break down, but it's such an important topic, we have to tell everyone about it. On the other hand, the Creator awakens people one by one, slowly. I don't know, what's the question? It's just simply annoying.

M. Laitman: Well, that's not an excuse, that it's annoying. Well, probably people who feel they carry this question, they awaken in a different way. As opposed to other people, they have a different approach to the Torah. And therefore, they're worthy of a different kind of study.

Student: We're in such radical times, you see people's despair and the question of, what's the meaning of my life? Then you want to approach it somehow and tell them, no, no, no, no, leave me alone with your stuff. What else does the Creator need to do to a person to awaken in them that question?

M. Laitman: I don't know the Creator's plans, we'll learn that. The Wisdom of Kabbalah is a summary of the questions and searches of the greatest of spirit of the people of Israel, and hopefully that will give us answers.

Student: Can we hasten the development of points in the heart, somehow, or when the Creator awakens them, then He awakens them?

M. Laitman: We only have the ability to be more precise in how we study, and through that precision, I think we'll, I hope we'll get to the right solution. Because what He says about the Wisdom of Kabbalah being the hidden wisdom, then when we study, it is still the hidden wisdom. What is hidden from us, the spiritual world, the Creator, the souls, and so forth? Clearly that is hidden, we don't feel it, we only know the names of it. But it is hidden as it is hidden from an ordinary person or a baby, or a little child who's listening – it's hidden to him, as well. So we have to learn to what extent is the concealment and what for, and that will bring us to a solution.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:48) Even people who come to study with us and are attracted to spirituality, they can say that also with us there are two parts. One part is revealed, they say, I have friends before you, you have Torah, love your friend as yourself, you have actions that you have to do. And that is clear to a person, it is revealed, not everyone has the impulse to study wisdom, as it is written in the Study of the Ten Sefirot. The question is if a person has that question of what is the meaning of my life, does he need wisdom? Because you said more than once that people are not always willing to study TES, and it's enough for them to work in the society, and that's it. So the question is, does everyone really need this wisdom?

M. Laitman: I can't say, there are many questions that aren't really belonging to us, but we'll continue and we'll see it later on. It's possible that in a few pages I'll see questions that I can't see right now. It's not up to us, each one is given a unique illumination from above, and then a person asks a question, hears a question.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:38) You said that we need to be more precise in our study.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How do we make the study more precise?

M. Laitman: We'll talk about it. What are you asking right now?

Question (Kyiv 7): (30:10) What does daily work on the question of, what's the meaning of our life, give us?

M. Laitman: Likely, that as we clarify this daily work, what it's about, we get closer to understanding what is the purpose of life.

Question (Kavkaz 1): (30:34) Why is it, does it matter to the Creator who do I delight, are we talking about people?

M. Laitman: It depends on who a person feels that he's connected to or who is he going to develop a spiritual connection with. That indicates the conclusion from his work.

Question (KabU 9): (31:06) What is the normal, the regular study of Torah, the revealed study?

M. Laitman: No, no, no, I'm not going to now open any possible direction that everyone wants. We are here scrutinizing what's relevant to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Student: Maybe it's not clear to people in the world about the connection, why Baal HaSulam starts to write in this way.

M. Laitman: Because many people come, and each one could have a different approach, different purpose. One could think the wisdom of Kabbalah needs to give him this, or give him that. And Baal HaSulam tries to explain, even though taking them, while putting them through the same path that everyone needs to go through. So, from all of, say, a thousand possibilities he wants to suggest one path to go through. Okay, so let's not block the study because there are many questions in a person. You could find a thousand questions in every person. First, we have to clarify what do we need and what for?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (32:56) Once a person arrives at the wisdom of Kabbalah, his point in the heart is awakened, he asks about the meaning of life. He comes here, he studies for years. How does he awaken this questio because the study and the social life here, it fills him to some extent, it extinguishes the question.

M. Laitman: This is true, but it only fills him up and satisfies him, externally, he knows more what is the wisdom of Kabbalah about, what it talks about. But he doesn't yet attain the wisdom of Kabbalah itself. What is he actually doing by studying? Does it lead him to acknowledge the forces of nature, the processes that nature is going through, what happens in Heaven, what happens with every person. Especially what has to do with life and death and so forth? He can't know, on the one hand, but on the other hand, he also doesn't want to shut his eyes to it because these are important points in his spiritual development. So, he wants to know what happens before death, after death, and so on, many questions.

Student: It sounds like curiosity that he has for knowledge.

M. Laitman: Maybe it's curiosity, I don't know, but still he wants to solve all of that through the study.

Student: How can a person protect this question, what's the meaning of my life? Just like the day he came. That it's burning inside of him, he's searching, he's thirsty, he's not calmed down.

M. Laitman: It all depends on how much he wants to delve into understanding the wisdom, itself.

Student: The question's essence to overcome more and more could be to have created the deficiency of what's the meaning of my life, or the other way around?

M. Laitman: It depends how much he wants to learn the internality of the wisdom.

Student: And the desire to delve in the internality, what is that?

M. Laitman: That I want, through each and every word that I study, read, hear, I want to understand its inner essence. What does it come to explain to me? That's very important; now, certainly, some people are more drawn to it and some less. We'll discuss that.

Reading: (36:18) Item Three

Indeed, it is to resolve this great riddle that the verse says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Those who keep the Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] correctly are the ones who taste the taste of life. They are the ones who see and testify that the Lord is good, as our sages say, that He created the worlds to do good to His creations, since it is the conduct of The Good to do good.

Yet, those who have not yet tasted the taste of life of keeping Torah and Mitzvot cannot feel or understand that the Lord is good, as our sages said, that when the Creator created us, His sole purpose was to benefit us. Hence, we have no other counsel but to keep the Torah and Mitzvot as they should be.

It is written in the Torah (portion Nitzavim): “See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil.” This means that prior to the giving of the Torah, we had only death and evil before us, as our sages say, “The wicked, in their lives, are called ‘dead,’” since their death is better than their lives, as the pain and suffering they endure for their sustenance is many times greater than the little pleasure they feel in this life.

However, now we have been granted Torah and Mitzvot, and by keeping it we are rewarded with the real life, joyful and delightful to its owner, as it is written, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Hence, the writing says, “See, I have set before you this day life and good,” which you did not have in reality at all prior to the giving of the Torah.

And the writing ends, “Therefore, choose life, so you may live, you and your descendants.” There is a seemingly repeated statement here: “choose life, so you may live.” Yet, it is a reference to life in keeping Torah and Mitzvot, which is when there is real life. However, a life without Torah and Mitzvot is harder than death. This is the meaning of the words of our sages, “The wicked, in their lives, are called ‘dead.’”

The writing says, “so you may live, you and your descendants.” It means that not only is a life without Torah joyless to its owner, but one also cannot delight others. One finds no contentment even in one’s progeny, since the life of his progeny is also harder than death. Hence, what gift does he bequeath them?

However, not only does one who lives in Torah and Mitzvot enjoys his own life, but he is even happy to bear children and bequeath them this good life. This is the meaning of “so you may live, you and your descendants,” for he receives additional pleasure in the life of his progeny, of which he was the cause.

M. Laitman: Yes, I don't see that any questions arise. I guess that's clear.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:28) I don't know, maybe you can, simply?

M. Laitman: No, whatever you understand, you understand. What do you want?

Student: I don't know, Torah and commandments, sons?

M. Laitman: No, no, we'll learn all of that.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:56) Can a person deceive himself and see that the Creator is good and benevolent even if he doesn't attain it?

M. Laitman: Some say, God is good, even though according to their life, we, from the side – looking from outside – can't see it. Maybe he's in such a degree where even though he receives suffering, he accepts it as good.

Student: Does he mean he's in attainment?

M. Laitman: I don't know, I don't know. What you read is what you read.

Student: Because that's what Baal HaSulam is talking about, he's touching on this point. That if you're not in attainment, that the Creator is Good Who Does Good, then you're not keeping the Torah and commandments as He intended. So, I'm trying to understand if a person can deceive himself or he has no chance. He'll see that he's banging his head against the wall, he can't do it.

M. Laitman: For now, it's not clear from here. We'll continue and see. Okay, next.

Reading: (43:20) Item Four

Now you can understand the words of our sages about the verse, “Therefore, choose life” (See RASHI’s interpretation). It states, “I instruct you to choose the part of life, as one who says to his son: ‘Choose for yourself a good part in my land.’ He places him on the good part and tells him, ‘Choose this for yourself.’” It was said about this, “Lord, the portion of my inheritance and of my cup, You support my lot. You placed my hand on the good fate, to say, ‘Take this for you.’”

The words are seemingly perplexing. The verse says, “Therefore, choose life.” This means that one makes the choice by himself. However, they say that He places him on the good part. Thus, is there no longer choice here? Moreover, they say that the Creator puts one’s hand on the good fate. This is indeed perplexing, because if this is so, where then is man’s choice?

Now you can see the true meaning of their words. It is indeed true that the Creator Himself puts one’s hand on the good fate by giving him a life of pleasure and contentment within the corporeal life that is filled with torment and pain, and devoid of any content. One necessarily departs and escapes them when he sees, even if it seemingly appears amidst the cracks, a tranquil place to escape there from this life, which is harder than death. Indeed, there is no greater placement of one’s hand by Him than this.

And one’s choice refers only to the strengthening. This is because there is certainly a great effort and exertion here before one purifies one’s body to be able to keep the Torah and Mitzvot correctly, not for his own pleasure, but to bring contentment to his Maker, which is called Lishma [for Her sake]. Only in this manner is one endowed with a life of happiness and pleasantness that come with keeping the Torah.

Before one comes to that purification, there is certainly a choice to strengthen in the good way by all sorts of means and tactics. One should do whatever his hand finds the strength to do until he completes the work of purification and will not fall under his burden midway.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (47:36) It sounds like the Creator necessarily gives us torment in the corporeal life to choose what He wants us to choose.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: Now, in our personal life, we work in our corporeal life we have certain ambitions, aspirations. It seems like it's a fixed match to our detriment in terms of corporeality.

M. Laitman: We'll see, it's still too early to decide.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (48:22) Can we explain the paragraph about man's choice?

M. Laitman: Yes. “Where can a person change his fate by his own choice? Through strengthening. This is because there is certainly a great effort and exertion here before one purifies one's body to be able to keep the Torah commandments correctly. Meaning not for his own pleasure but to bring contentment to his Maker, which is called Lishma.” So, what are you asking?

Student: Strengthening in what? What is that strengthening?

M. Laitman: He wants to reach in order to bestow Lishma. Or only in that manner he is rewarded with a life of happiness and pleasantness.

Student: Why? Why the life of happiness and pleasantness are only in Lishma?

M. Laitman: Then he says, “that come with keeping the Torah”. It's arranged like that according to your vessels “and according to the Torah that shines more to your vessels if you follow its path”.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (50:09) It says here, ”one should do whatever he's able to do. Whatever he's able to do with his strength until he completes the work of purification and will not fall under his burden midway”. What does it mean to fall midway?

M. Laitman: He can't observe what's written in the Torah. It comes to such an extent that he stops observing and keeping what's required by the Torah and he falls. And he falls under the burdening of his own heart.

Student: What else can we get out of this quote to succeed, if you can give some advice?

M. Laitman: The advice is that he has to search for strength. How to keep himself on this path and reinforce himself.

Question (Women French): (51:29) Seems like Baal HaSulam says that the wicked suffer more than they enjoy. But the impression is that those who suffer are actually those who ask what is the meaning of life. So, a person who doesn't have the point in the heart that awakens, does he really suffer?

M. Laitman: Yes, who suffers more: One who suffers because of his point in the heart, meaning he's connected to the essence of life? Or a person who's not connected to the essence of life but instead he suffers because he doesn't receive from the upper light? Then, of course, ‘he who is greater than his friend, his inclination is greater’. as well. In other words, until a person is rewarded, or rather, before a person is rewarded with finding his connection with the source, with the Creator. Then to the extent that his soul is higher, he feels himself tormented more.

Question (Women PT 6): (53:03) What's the point in life, does that only come from suffering and emptiness?

M. Laitman: What else can be the source for that? Only this. Where are we?

Reading: (53:50) Item Five

According to the above, you will understand the words of our sages in the Masechet Avot: “Such is the path of Torah: Eat bread with salt, drink little water, sleep on the ground, lead a sorrowful life, and labor in the Torah. If so you do, happy are you; happy in this world and happy in the next world.”

We must ask about their words: How is the wisdom of Torah different from the other teachings in the world, which do not require this self-tormenting and sorrowful life, but the labor itself is enough to acquire those teachings? Even though we labor extensively in the Torah, it is still not enough to acquire the wisdom of the Torah, except through the mortification of bread with salt and a sorrowful life.

The end of the words is even more surprising, as they said, “If so you do, happy are you in this world, and happy are you in the next world.” This is because it is clear that it is possible to be happy in the next world. But in this world, while I torment myself in eating and drinking and sleeping, and I lead a sorrowful life, would it be said about such a life, “happy are you in this world?” Is this the meaning of a happy life in this world?

M. Laitman: Any questions, none. I don't have much to add, these things do not require much study, seemingly.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (56:10) Baal HaSulam says that everything revolves around pleasure and suffering. That, at first, a person feels suffering in the corporeal life, and then he's given some place of tranquility and joy, and he's drawn to that pleasure, and he expects pleasure. And then he's told, no, you're not going to get pleasure, now you need strengthening. And then when you get to the right track, you'll receive true pleasure.

M. Laitman: And each and every step he is in a state where what he did, he's between what he did and what shines on him from above, and what he's about to do.

Student: So, on one hand, a person is drawn to pleasure; on the other hand, there are conditions. Well, the question is each time you have to build and be drawn to a greater, higher pleasure, how does that work?

M. Laitman: It's according to how He reveals it.

Student: But without pleasure, you can't work.

M. Laitman: Certainly.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (57:36) To continue that, still there is a feeling when the point in the heart awakens that a person needs to realize himself. Where does that fit, here? That a person needs to make a choice and taste and see? It seems like?

M. Laitman: What?

Student: That this inner urge is beyond just pleasure, that a person has to do it.

M. Laitman: The fact that a person must do it is a result of the upper will, that he will transition from a weaker desire to a stronger desire.

Student: A stronger desire for pleasure? No, for what?

M. Laitman: Ultimately, also for pleasure. As much as we climb the ladder of degrees, our desires and the lights in them grow stronger.

Student: What is this awakening of the point in the heart that a person feels he has to realize it?

M. Laitman: But you don't have him, and you seemingly, want even more of him.

Student: This is the point because on the one hand, it sounds like the point in the heart is a kind of a vocation.

M. Laitman: It works on a person, and on the other hand, it attracts him, draws him near.

Student: And it's the vocation. In its development, is it supposed to look for fulfillment? It sounds as if, against or opposite to what he says, that it has to happen in Lishma.

M. Laitman: I don't know what you're talking about. Our will to receive works in such a way that it constantly awakens in us that part of the desire that we need to observe, to carry out, that's it.

Student: But the point in the heart, basically, goes in an opposite direction.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: So, what is this direction of the point in the heart?

M. Laitman: Is that what he says? I'm sorry, it is, this is what he says. When he asks, “what is the difference between the wisdom of the Torah and the wisdom of the rest of the world. That they don't require these self-tormenting and sorrowful life but the labor itself is enough to acquire those teachings. Even though we labor extensively in the Torah, it is still not enough to acquire the wisdom of the Torah except through the mortification of bread with salt and a sorrowful life”.

Meaning, it's not enough for us to work according to what we see in the will to receive, in the will to bestow – it doesn't matter in what. Rather, we need to know how we should act, the type of action is different, is more complex. And he says, “if you do it, happy are you in this world, and happy are you in the next world. Because it is possible to be happy in the next world, but in this world while I torment myself in eating, and drinking, and sleeping, and I lead a sorrowful life, would it be said about such a life, happy are you in this world? Is this the meaning of a happy life in this world”? He tells us, “according to what is explained above, that engagement in the Torah and observing the Mitzvot, the commandments correctly, under strict condition to bestow contentment to one's Maker and not for one's own pleasure, is impossible to achieve except through great labor and exertion in purifying the body. And the first tactic is to accustom oneself not to receive anything for one's pleasure, even the permitted and necessary things for the existence of one's body such as, eating, drinking, sleeping, and other such necessities”. What's not clear here?

Student: It's not clear is that the point in the heart wishes to come to contact with the Creator.

M. Laitman: The will to receive wants the Creator, wants the Creator to fill him. To provide him with everything, he wants to be cleaved to the will to bestow of the Creator.

Student: But there is the matter of connection with the Creator, without any connection to the fulfillment, just a matter of the connection.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: So, the question is about that. That the point in the heart, the will to receive does want to receive everything from the Creator. On the other hand, the point in the heart is not?

M. Laitman: It needs to come out of the connection with the Creator, and belong only to the purpose, the goal, of the created being.

Student: Which is to be fulfilled?

M. Laitman: Which causes its own fulfillment in order to bestow.

Question (Turkiye 8): (01:04:56) Is there spiritual meaning to what's mentioned here: Bread, eat bread with salt and drink a little water, and so forth?

M. Laitman: No, when I'm placing all of my corporeal pleasures, which I'm deriving from food and other things. I place them as pleasures that I desire, naturally. Beyond that, I only want connection with the Creator.

Question (Turkiye 9): (01:05:43) Is the right approach to devote yourself to the wisdom of Kabbalah without paying attention to the wealth in this world?

M. Laitman: Of course it is, what difference does it make if we want to go into in order to bestow? Let's say we lived in the 16th century or the 22nd century, what's the difference? It's after all a certain measure of light that comes to us more or less, torments that we feel, more or less.

Student: Just to ignore the happiness of this world?

M. Laitman: No, this according to the degree each one is in.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:05:37) What is the work of purification of the body?

M. Laitman: The purification of the body, it depends on how much I feel that I'm drawn to filling my will to receive.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:07:14) It turns out that all the process of suffering and sorrow, a person goes through them until there's a light at the end of the tunnel and then he receives pleasures. So, throughout this whole journey, a person is supposed to feel that in this suffering, there's also pleasures that are that accompany?

M. Laitman: No, he should try to feel just how much he's attracted to those pleasures, how much it goes against Torah and commandments. And how much he has to choose spiritual pleasures in which he can advance toward the observing of Torah and commandments.

Student: He's supposed to choose spiritual pleasures, it's just at the end of the path until he merits that, or what?

M. Laitman: No, no, no, it's things that are near to him right now.

Student: So, in terms of the path itself, we know it's not short and it's not simple. He also describes this here in short. So, one is not supposed to have any pleasure and delight until he comes to that final state?

M. Laitman: No, he's supposed to enjoy himself and feel happy through conditions of equivalence of form.

Student: How does it work with the suffering, the sorrow, in being on the path?

M. Laitman: When he leaves the equivalence of form, he feels himself opposite from the Creator.

Student: How does that coincide with the work for the Creator with joy?

M. Laitman: We'll learn, we'll learn. In everything we learn, you need to have a clear distinction between where does he speak of our state, current state, and where is he speaking of spiritual vessels, where the will to receive. is in order to bestow. That is what we're talking about here. How to distinguish between all those vessels under which conditions.

Reading: (01:09:47) Item Six

However, according to what is explained above, that engagement in the Torah and observing the Mitzvot correctly—under its strict condition to bestow contentment to one’s Maker and not for one’s own pleasure—is impossible to achieve except through great labor and exertion in purifying the body.

The first tactic is to accustom oneself not to receive anything for one’s pleasure, even the permitted and necessary things for the existence of one’s body, such as eating, drinking, sleeping, and other such necessities. In this manner, one will detach oneself completely from any pleasure that comes to him, even in the necessities, in the fulfillment of one’s sustenance, until he leads a sorrowful life in its literal meaning.

Then, after one becomes accustomed to it and his body possesses no desire to receive any pleasure for itself, it is now possible for him to engage in the Torah and keep the Mitzvot in that manner, too, in order to bestow contentment upon his Maker and not at all for his own pleasure.

When one acquires this, he is rewarded with tasting the happy life, filled with delight and pleasure without any blemish of sorrow, which appear in the practice of Torah and Mitzvot Lishma. It is as Rabbi Meir says (Avot 6), “Anyone who engages in the Torah Lishma is granted many things. Moreover, the whole world is worthwhile for him, the secrets of Torah are revealed to him, and he becomes as a flowing spring.”

It is about him that the verse says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” One who tastes the flavor of the practice of Torah and Mitzvot Lishma is endowed with seeing the intention of creation, which is to do only good to His creations, as it is the conduct of The Good to do good. Then he rejoices and delights in the number of years of life that the Creator has granted him, and the whole world is worthwhile for him.

M. Laitman: Questions? Okay, let's stop here. Even before Item Six, people stopped absorbing.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:13:47) He talks about “the first tactic here to accustom oneself not to receive anything for one's own pleasure, even the permitted and necessary things for the existence of one's body”. Now, we always said that in corporeality, there's no problem. You can eat, you can do whatever, it's not connected; so what is this tactic?

M. Laitman: What do you mean there's no connection? It is connected.

Student: We say that spirituality is not connected to this world. A person can eat well, could enjoy this world.

M. Laitman: No.

Student: And in parallel, it's not going to influence his spirituality. As far as I remember, a person doesn't need to live a sorrowful life.

M. Laitman: It's not called sorrowful life, why are you giving your own definitions to things?

Student: The meaning is a person doesn't need to sleep on the ground, he doesn't need to walk barefooted. He needs to live a regular corporeal life. It's not going to harm his spirituality.

M. Laitman: You see to what extent you can twist those things. If I'm accustomed to sleeping on floorboards, it doesn't mean that I will not enjoy a fluffy bed with down pillows; one has nothing to do with the other. Meaning, a person, even if he's used to sleeping under tough conditions, not that he's sleeping with soft conditions, does not lower him from his degree. Rather, it's the attitude toward it.

Student: So, if I understood you, correctly, it's not important what the conditions I sleep in. I can sleep in a five-star hotel and everything but my attitude needs to be such that I want to rid myself from the pleasure, he writes.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: To completely rid himself from any pleasure. So, I could engage in anything in corporeality.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: I just need to make sure that I don't enjoy.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Here there's no commandment not to enjoy, the Creator wants you to enjoy, after all.

M. Laitman: In order to bestow!

Student: In order to bestow, so how do we do it so that you will be able to now, I don't know, eat something very tasty. And the pleasure, and somehow rid yourself from the regular pleasure, and receive pleasure in order to bestow? How do you perform that action?

M. Laitman: It depends on how much a person appreciates his connection to the Creator and the pleasure he gets from the Creator. So, the main thing is that the connection with the Creator will be on the highest degree for him than the pleasure he's receiving. Then he'll be able to hold himself in order to bestow.

Student: How is it possible to carry out this action that you said because it seems like the Creator is telling you, you first of all prove yourself, show that you're doing and only then you'll receive. He doesn't give you like the tip of the rope, or some taste, for you to have the motivation or the strength to concede. He's tough, He says, no problem, you want Me, here, pay, sacrifice something.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: Does it always work in this way in our spiritual development, in a person?

M. Laitman: A person needs to reach a state that he can be independent even if he doesn't get any support from the Creator.

Student: But after a person makes that first step where he jumps, and there is support.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: He feels it.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:19:11) How does a person know that the connection is more important than the pleasure and he doesn't fall even before he does the action? After all, he doesn't know if he's going to enjoy or whether the connection will be more powerful. How can he do that?

M. Laitman: So, he stops himself until it won't be clear to him. He stops himself from each and every action that comes to him if he's not confident in his connection with the giver, the giver of the degree, the giver of the forces.

Student: So that's the question, how is he certain about that connection because I don't yet understand. So, if he stops himself, he'll stop himself from anything because how does he feel the importance of the connection being more important than the pleasure? How, before he acts, does he do this, I still don't understand. How to discern between these things.

M. Laitman: That's why we have the ladder of degrees and we do understand that we are going from receiving in order to receive, to bestowing in order to receive, to bestowing in order to bestow, and so on.

Student: How do we jump to this important stage of connection, of bestowing in order to bestow. This initial stage where He will truly give a strong foundation that you can perform this action?

M. Laitman: Yes, that's true that we: Here I'm going to go and bestow in all the vessels I have in the will to receive. But to bestow in those same vessels, that I can't receive in them in order to bestow. But in bestowing in order to bestow, then in receiving in order to bestow.

Student: I'll ask it this way, is there a certain discernment where before the action you can know that you're carrying out such an action?

M. Laitman: Of course.

Student: What, in what?

M. Laitman: If I have been working in vessels of bestowal in order to bestow. So now I can also come to vessels of reception in order to bestow.

Student: So my question is what's the indication, what's the examination that you can carry out an action of bestowing in order to bestow where you're certain in that? Is there something that gives us to understand this, kind of like…

M. Laitman: The upper light.

Student: So, there needs to be a connection with the upper light in order to come to that?

M. Laitman: Of course because I'm doing actions, like the Creator's doing, equivalence of form.

Student: The question is whether you can perform such an action before the connection with the Creator or not?

M. Laitman: I reach connection with the Creator; and I ask, I search, for a way to work with Him. In my feeling of bestowing in order to bestow, I can be, supposedly, in a neutral way – bestow in order to bestow. I'm not passing the upper light through my will to receive but only the will to bestow, only through the will to bestow. When I do that, I already deserve to be in a degree of receiving in order to bestow. And then, I start receiving that light that when it used to be to bestow in order to bestow, now I start receiving it in vessels of reception.

Student: Do we need to complete all the actions of bestowing in order to bestow, in order to receive, in order to bestow? Or does it kind of mix together?

M. Laitman: It doesn't mix.

Student: So we have to complete all the previous degrees first?

M. Laitman: Yes. It'll come, I understand that.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:24:19) We read in Item Four that “the Creator places a person's hand on the good faith. How? By giving him the life of delight and comfort in his corporeal life that is filled with suffering and pain. That's how the Creator aims a person to come closer to Him. And an item and a half later, He says that “a person needs to take upon himself the engagement in Torah and Mitzvot appropriately, in the harshest manner, which is only to bring contentment to His Maker and not for his own pleasure. And the first tactic is to accustom Himself not to receive anything for his own pleasure”.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: Meaning, the Creator is pulling you by giving you pleasure, He can't do it another way, He wants to advance us to the degree of Adam. So, how do we scrutinize the attitude towards the pleasure? From what, in principle, is it correct to enjoy in order to advance, correctly?

M. Laitman: To advance correctly, means to advance to more bestowal; so, that depends on the coarseness of the degree. To the extent of coarseness, it uses now, compared to the previous degree, and the person who performs it. Well, give me an example.

Student: The example is how a person that must receive pleasure can differentiate what is a pleasure that advances him towards the goal and what's a pleasure that distances him. How do we build this?

M. Laitman: There's no problem in that, as much as you work with a greater pleasure, if it's in order to bestow, so you are greater. If it's in order to receive, so you are smaller.

Student: Yes, but there is no bestowal in order to bestow, yet. I'm asking even before, the attitude towards the pleasure. Where you don't yet have the in order to bestow, you don't identify it, yet.

M. Laitman: Wait, wait, what do you mean you don't recognize it? If I stand in front of an action that has pleasure, so I have to work with that pleasure.

Student: The pleasure is clear.

M. Laitman: Well?

Student: The in order to bestow is not clear.

M. Laitman: You, in order to bestow you need to receive, as if you're receiving while receiving, it's the same vessels. Only the intention of what you want to get out of this, that'll be the difference.

Student: How can a person who doesn't, yet, discern within him in order to bestow. And understands that the approach to the pleasure has to move through a restriction, through annulment?

M. Laitman: Yes.

through building this calculation? We know all these things in theory but when I am right now in front of a pleasure, I don't yet have this mechanism that manages to scrutinize these matters. And yet, I have a question?

M. Laitman: So, now you try to do it?

Student: Until I do it, I want to scrutinize what is the correct attitude to the pleasure? That's my question.

M. Laitman: The right attitude to the pleasure is that, through you, you pass the pleasure to the others.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:29:26) It's a continuous question: Through you, you move the pleasure to others. I have good food, I have a good movie on TV, I have a pleasant group of friends. Where do I have room to pass these pleasures to friends?

M. Laitman: I don't know but you're on a degree that you have to connect to the others. You're on the state that you have to pass, through you, certain pleasures. That is called a fulfillment for you.

Student: My measurement is according to the extent in which I can connect to the Creator. Meaning, I receive pleasure in how that seemingly connects me or brings me closer to the Creator

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Where I receive in order to bestow. Let's say, I'm in a certain situation in states where it's not connected to this society whatsoever, and there's all kinds of things there that also have pleasure. How do I, what do I do; meaning, I receive pleasures, it impacts me.

M. Laitman: I cannot teach you in the way that you're depicting it right now, I can't, You understand? It's impossible.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:30:55) When a person goes towards an action of bestowal to the Creator. These are pleasures he receives in his five corporeal senses, they need to disappear.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): Why? Well, I don't know, let's say.

Student: I am asking because it's a form of examination, here, to where a person can check himself. Along the spiritual action, the pleasures that he receives in his corporeal senses need to disappear because they're imaginary, they don't exist.

M. Laitman: Well?

Student: I'm asking this just for the sake of checking, for examining. He's not supposed to use those senses. On the contrary, he has to have them disappear. It doesn't mean that this has to happen, that they'll disappear and to move to completely different senses?

M. Laitman: Well?

Student: Is it correct?

M. Laitman: Let's say. You can say so.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:31:55) For the scrutiny, so it'll be simpler. Rabash writes, “before a person starts to bestow to the Creator, he needs to bestow to a person”.

M. Laitman: Well?

Student: So for that, we have a Ten, that's where we can exercise, bestow to our friends. And by that, that gives us the indication whether we're managing to bestow or not.

M. Laitman: Okay.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:32:31) When I eat something tasty and I want my friend to have it tasty as well. So I let him taste, maybe it'll be tasty for him, maybe not. Now, pleasure is a matter of feeling. How do I, let's say there's a spiritual pleasure, how do I pass it to a friend, in what way?

M. Laitman: You connect to the friend and you pass on to him what I have.

Student: That's an internal connection, it's not something external.

M. Laitman: Well, of course.

Student: Meaning, I can within me ask for this pleasure, if I sense it, to move to him? For him to have that connection like I feel it?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: That's the way?

M. Laitman: Yes, how do you feel?

Question (Nikolaev-Sochi): (-1:33:41) There's pleasure like air or oxygen. Does that exist? I enjoy it because it exists, is that it?

M. Laitman: No.

Student: I can give an example. Let's say we're sitting in the lesson. How can you like sip a cup of coffee in order to bestow?

M. Laitman: It doesn't matter, think that when you're taking that sip of the coffee, by this you're giving your friend everything you're receiving from that sip.

Question (Holland): What is happiness actually during the study of Torah?

M. Laitman: When studying Torah we learn how to receive more and more pleasure from coming close to the Creator in order to bestow. And then, we bestow through the friends back towards Him.

Student: How does it express itself, how is happiness expressed? If you look at the whole, you look at the phrase, how is it expressed now?

M. Laitman: For this, we have all the vessels, that's it. This is how we will receive them and bestow through them.

Question (Kyiv 1): (01:35:36) You said to move the pleasure towards the friend, and that we're learning more and more how to receive pleasure in order to bestow during the study of Torah. What does it mean that we receive more and more pleasure for the friend, for the sake of the friend? That Kli that we receive in the wisdom of Kabbalah – Partzuf, the reception in order to bestow. It's all in the vessel of the friend?

M. Laitman: It happens in the vessel of the friend when he connects to my vessel.

Student: But, nevertheless, we say that I'm receiving in order to bestow, and it's either a person receives the pleasure or the friend needs to feel the pleasure?

M. Laitman: If I connect to the friend through my vessel, when I receive in that vessel, also, the friend receives. That's why, here, I'm making a calculation towards the friend.

Student: And the Creator in this schematic between me and the friend, is what?

M. Laitman: It's the source that fills us.

Student: What does it mean to delight the Creator, when we talk that way?

M. Laitman: When receiving from Him, we're giving Him contentment.

Student: Let's say, when we feel the friend in the Ten and I want him to enjoy something. Can we in the same way feel the Creator like we feel the friend that's enjoying?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Tel Aviv 3): (01:37:50) My question is I hear questions that are being asked by friends. I don't always understand the questions, and sometimes I feel like they're not in the flow, the general flow of the lesson. Moreover, your answers, where I understand them in a certain way. Maybe someone else understands it, differently, according to their degree. And more than all of that, both the questions and the answers, I don't understand or I don't understand, well, it's clear that I'm not talking about someone else. But I don't understand what to do with this. What is the implementation, I want to implement everything I hear. So, when I am told, or they talk about this, whether it's in the Ten or all together, I'm being told that do this and that in order to connect, to incorporate, and to pray. So, I understand that, what in general to do but here, many times I'm missing the way to implement what to do – bottom line – from all these things that our friends are throwing us from one direction to the other, each according to the place he's living in, he's in, the degree he's in, I don't know what. I'm sorry for the long question.

M. Laitman: We'll keep going together. That's it. .

Question (Women MAK 88): (01:39:27) Is bestowal the willingness to always give up what I have and without the extent of the value? Or extent of what it is that I'm giving up?

M. Laitman: No, you don't do it that way, bestow is upon a certain measure, upon certain conditions that are in the action itself.

Question (Women Almaty 1): (01:39:50) Is joy stemming from delighting the Creator or others?

M. Laitman: The happiness, the joy?

Student: That I'm delighting the Creator or others?

M. Laitman: It doesn't matter, joy comes from bestowal and the magnitude of bestowal depends on who I'm bestowing to. It could be very great towards the Creator compared to bestowing to a friend and it could be something else, the opposite.

Question (Women MAK 53): (01:40:36) How to connect to a vessel of a friend, you mentioned it earlier.

M. Laitman: To connect to a vessel of a friend: When I see what degree he's on. And I can maybe connect to that same degree. All right, number six?

Reader: Item Seven, should we go back to six?

M. Laitman: No, no, go to seven.

Reading: (01:41:22) Item Seven

Now you will understand the two sides of the coin of engagement in Torah and Mitzvot: The first side is the path of Torah, meaning the extensive preparation one must make to prepare the purification of his body before he is rewarded with actual keeping of Torah and Mitzvot.

In that state, he necessarily engages in Torah and Mitzvot Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], but mixed with delighting himself, since he has not yet purified and cleansed his body from the will to receive pleasure from the vanities of this world. During this time, one must lead a sorrowful life and labor in the Torah, as it is written in the Mishnah.

However, after one completes the path of Torah, has already purified his body, and is now ready to keep the Torah and the Mitzvot Lishma, to bring contentment to his Maker, he comes to the other side of the coin, which is a life of pleasure and great tranquility, to which the intention of creation—“to do good to His creations”—refers, meaning the happiest life in this world and in the next world.

M. Laitman: Shall we read it again?

Reader: Again, Item Seven.

M. Laitman: Questions?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:45:26) So, we read that you live a life of sorrow, and in Torah you work, if you do so, you feel good. And then he writes, Baal HaSulam explains, that also eating, and drinking, and sleeping is necessities if he doesn't get pleasure from it. And then on the same sentence, in what we just read, “however, after he completes the path of the Torah, and has already purified his body, is now ready to keep Torah and Mitzvot Lishma, to bring conTentment to his Maker”. So it's not clear how, from removing all the pleasures of this life from him, he can reach the ability to bestow. Usually we see that people who, also in our world, they do all kinds of actions, of like mortifications. They don't get a desire to bestow or an ability to bestow to the Creator. How do you reach, from staying away from any pleasure of this world and he feels pain because there's no taste in life. To suddenly being able to bestow?

M. Laitman: In that, I see a spiritual action that we awaken and then we will receive from it a result, a spiritual result.

Student: Why doesn't it happen in other methods?

M. Laitman: I don't know what they're doing, I see what the Kabbalists recommend for us to do.

Student: I, clearly, saw around the world people who do it in a way better way than each one of us. Such mortifications that a sane person can’t do, and it's clear in your eyes, to see how they're uplifting to bestow, it's not in that. It's clear, it's known that there are methods for thousands of years.

M. Laitman: Yes.?

Student: So, what's special for us? Why is this the path of the Torah, what's special about it?

M. Laitman: Probably, it's the reforming light.

Student: Here, he's not speaking about the light, he says that if you do this, you bring yourself to a life of sorrow, not by engaging in the Torah and it brings you light. That comes later but here he's saying that in the Mishnah, when a person stays away from pleasures, somehow it brings them to bestow, so, there's like something lacking here. Also as a child, I tried to stay from all kinds of things, but except for frustration and disappointment, let's say I wanted to be vegetarian for a certain time. After a certain period, you see it brings you to nothing, nothing good and it just frustrates. And I see people around the world try to do it, they get frustrated and start over. But here, there's something about it?

M. Laitman: I don't know what to tell you. I think a person that needs to come to spirituality, needs to do it in the way that the Torah recommends. He says that “he will still receive some light from above, but it's not sufficient in order to purify his body in its complete way, and to receive pleasure from the life of this world, and to that it's best to be in a life of sorrow, and to labor in Torah”. That’s what he says that at the end of the day, if a person continues in this, then it should create a special state in him where he feels that feeling of wanting to bring contentment to one's Maker.

Student: He writes here that after engaging in the Torah for Lo Lishma, but with pleasures for himself since he's not yet purified and cleansed his body.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: So it could be that the difference is that he's engaging in Torah and Mitzvot Lo Lishma. What does it mean that he's in a state that he has to purify his body but still engaging in torah and Mitzvot? What actions is he actually doing that are considered actions of Torah and Mitzvot?

M. Laitman: I think that it's in order to bestow on his behalf but it's not yet scrutinized, the depth of the desire to receive that's in him. And to the extent in which it's revealed, he does it in order to bestow, he makes it in order to bestow.

Student: So, maybe there is a difference that you don't only have to stay away from pleasure but also to engage in something called Torah and Mitzvot at this time. And maybe that isn't in other methods but just to understand what are the actions we can do while purifying that are called, Torah and Mitzvot? That it will really bring us the change that will bring us to bestow.

M. Laitman: The difference that we have, compared to other methods, is that we are transferring through us the light of the Torah to all the parts of our will to receive. And out of that light, the Reforming light, we raise ourselves to actions in order to bestow, in truth. In order to bestow contentment to one's Maker and that's the difference.

Student: And that's called working in the Torah?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So that's the addition there?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:53:05) All the exertion in engaging in the Torah and Mitzvot like he writes is purifying the body.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, that's our work in the Ten, the purifying of the body, that's how it connects?

M. Laitman: Yes, that maybe, also, but the fact that I engage in order to bestow from my will to receive. It brings me the burdening of the heart, where I scrutinize more and more, what I'm really made up of in my body and then I engage in order to purify.

Student: Where can I define this place where I'm engaging in in order to bestow? Where can I put it, that, here I'm working in order to bestow.

M. Laitman: The fact that you're trying to be in order to bestow to whatever extent you're capable.

Student: To the Creator, towards the goal?

M. Laitman: Towards the goal and you see I see that there's discernments, here, that you have yet to go through. So you want, in annulling before them, to go through them such that the Creator will arrange things. That's it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:55:01) The question is we see that he divides it into two: A period of until he purifies the body, and then he really starts getting accustomed of not receiving anything and doing the actions called, bestowal. Can we look at it also as a relation to the group? Like today, we're the world Kli, we went through a stage, we went through a congress, it already seems like years ago. There was a time that you weren't, here, physically, we made a preparation. And now we're going into the holidays, soon, that is also a new beginning. Where are we in coming closer to the state of ending the preparation and starting the realization?

M. Laitman: I hope that we will certainly end this preparation period, more or less, until their Rosh Hashanah, until January, until their New Year's. And from there, onwards, we will begin to engage in the real wisdom of Kabbalah.

Student: What does it mean on our behalf, what should we focus on as a group?

M. Laitman: There isn't a great difference in spiritual work, just in scrutinizing where we are, and now he talked about this and that's it. We'll continue to carry out in our desire to receive, the first part and the second part.

Student: We started learning the Introduction to TES, and it seems from you that we want to speed through it, not get stuck. So, what should we focus on when we're studying this?

M. Laitman: How we need to transfer our desires from one part to the other – from one stage to the next. And what the difference is between our desires that we're operating in, in the first stages and the second stages, even third and fourth phases. We will talk about this.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:58:18) He writes, that the first step is the path of the Torah, that a person has to purify his body before he's rewarded with Torah and Mitzvot. And then the other side, he writes that, he writes pleasure and tranquility, and that was a purpose of creation and doing good to his created beings. The process we're going through of connecting between us, connecting with the path, I feel many times that the desire, the inner desire, you want to get to one desire, above all. There are many moments that, luckily, I find that tranquility that brings happiness. For instance, seeing the people here, seeing you come back, so could it be a process that it just jumps from one time to the next?

M. Laitman: It could be, I don't know.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:59:48) He writes to cleanse his body from the will to receive pleasures of this world. Are there pleasures of this world that a person has to keep? For instance, he has to go out and work.

M. Laitman: No.

Student: But then he's afraid that?

M. Laitman: No, no, no, he doesn't need, he just needs to rise above all that he has in this world and to adhere to spiritual pleasures.

Student: So, on all things in life that we have to go out and work, let's say, so to get fuel to do these actions?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Let's say, as if he gave up on the corporeal level?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:00:48) We talked about bestowing to the friend, bestowing in order to bestow. So my extent of bestowal, does it depend on my vessel of bestowal, the size of it? Or does it depend on the desire of the friend?

M. Laitman: I would say that the vessel depends on my desire to receive and its manner; its light that fills it, depends on the desire to receive of the friend.

Student: And my bestowal is received in the friend's will to receive or in his will to bestow?

M. Laitman: In the desire to receive of the friend, which he passes to in order to bestow.

Student: So we have some mutuality?

M. Laitman: Yes, certainly.

Student: Where? In our vessel of bestowal?

M. Laitman: In the vessels, in the vessels of bestowal.

Student: And if I don't want to deal with my will to receive?

M. Laitman: There's no such thing, a person can't do anything without it.

Student: So, what's bestowing in order to bestow, which is supposedly the beginning?

M. Laitman: It's where both of you want to only use the desire to bestow.

Student: And there's no such thing in bestowing in order to bestow without there being a friend or the others? Without an external vessel that I know what its size is?

M. Laitman: No, we will try and reveal it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:02:48) When he writes that he has to live a life of sorrow and work in the Torah, labor in the Torah. So, we talked about different kinds of methods that are different from us. So first of all, I think that we, our sorrow is on the Creator. And other methods is the sorrow, itself, so that's first of all what I felt. Now, continuing that point, how can I check, how can I discern whether my sorrow is on myself or on the Creator?

M. Laitman: Check. Read this Introduction from the beginning, and you'll see how much advice you're getting there.

Student: We're in a time where the nation and humanity feel sorry for itself, that's what I see, can they be in sorrow over something else?

M. Laitman: I don't know, I see from what he's writing, what he's reading.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:04:13) Usually when we ask you what to focus on, you say, connection. Here, for two hours, we learned terms of purification, cleansing the body. Can you explain the connection between that?

M. Laitman: No, we haven't gotten to that yet.

Student: There were a lot of questions of what we can take care to implement. So is there something?

M. Laitman: I don't know, we didn't learn it enough, yet. Item Eight, yes? Please.

Reading: (02:04:50) Item Eight

This explains the great difference between the wisdom of the Torah and the rest of the teachings in the world: Acquiring the other teachings in the world does not improve life in this world whatsoever, since they do not even render mere gratification for the torments and suffering one experiences during one’s life. Hence, one need not correct one’s body, and the labor that he gives in return for them is quite sufficient, as with all other worldly possessions acquired in return for labor and toil.

However, the sole purpose of engagement in Torah and Mitzvot is to make a person worthy of receiving all the goodness in the intention of creation, “to do good to His creations.” Hence, one must necessarily purify one’s body to merit that Godly goodness.

M. Laitman: Yes, that's what we need to attain. And the next step, next stage. Item Nine, yes?

Reading: (02:06:31) Item Nine

This also thoroughly clarifies the words of the Mishnah: “If so you do, happy are you in this world.” They made this precision deliberately, to indicate that a happy life in this world is available only for those who have completed the path of Torah. Thus, the mortification in eating, drinking, sleeping, and a sorrowful life that are mentioned here apply only while being on the path of Torah. This is why they meticulously stated, “Such is the path of Torah.”

And when one completes this path of Lo Lishma in sorrowful life and mortification, the Mishnah ends, “…happy are you in this world.” This is because you will be granted that happiness and goodness in the intention of creation, and the whole world will be rewarding for you, even this world, and all the more so the next world.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:08:17) Where is the entrance to lo Lishma?

M. Laitman: From any place you want to have an entry into Lishma.

Student: If a person is stuck in the lowest desires, even corporeality, so, what to do? How to enter Lo Lishma, even?

M. Laitman: One needs to see where he is and what it means in relation to that, the degree of Lo Lishma. And to compare himself that way, at least to that degree – a little more of it or a little less of it from him.

Student: Lo Lishma means to learn with the intention to purify, to purify the desire, the body, to purify?

M. Laitman: To purify, no. Lo Lishma is called to learn without the intention Lishma.

Student: So what is the intention of studying Lo Lishma?

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: What is that intention in Lo Lishma?

M. Laitman: In Lo Lishma, it's to learn the way the will to receive guides you.

Student: There's a big fear that I will die, that I'll die without bestowing to the Creator, and the friends, and nothing. But I supposedly, the Creator made a program of self-fulfillment that comes to a point where there is no fulfillment, there's no way to be fulfilled. And the moment I realize I want to fulfill something else, and this is where the true pleasure is. I'm swallowed by lower desires for lower pleasures and I forget that bestowal, even exists. And then I'll get up and where am I, what's happening? It's just confusion.

M. Laitman: In English, can you write? Can you write in English?

Student: Sometimes. No, I mean, how do you mean? My questions or?

M. Laitman: Right now, what do you want to explain about your state? Part of it you feel, part of it you can't feel, part of it you're expecting the Creator to be revealed, part that maybe the friends will do for you. So all in all, that state, can you explain it, can you express it in writing – without each time inventing a whole new Torah out of your mouth.

Student: That's what you want from me, is to try to write that state?

M. Laitman: Yes, then at least I would complete all the problems with you. You write a piece of paper for me and I write for you a paper with an answer, and we're done with your problems, only to execute. Maybe there are others like this, here, one or two, that's what I can recommend.

Student: This returns me to the original question: The Creator made me fat and lazy, and I enjoy my sleep and my food more than I enjoy somehow fulfilling the things that the greatest teacher in the world asks of me.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It's like, I want to do as you request because I know this comes to my understanding how to please the Creator and his friends. But I'm fat and lazy and I get my pleasure from the wrong place and I don't know how to exit the loop.

M. Laitman: Okay, I recommended to you what to do.

Question (Women PT 24): (02:15:44) is it an illusion that there's corporeal, that there's pleasure in corporeal individual pleasure?

M. Laitman: No, it's not an illusion, no. Yes, a light that fills the vessels according to their need under the conditions that can be expressed that way?

Question ( Women Rehovot 2): (02:16:09) Can a person recognize which discernment should be in him so he'll be able to bestow?

M. Laitman: Can a person identify, according to the understanding that he has, to which desire he has to reach?

Student: Does he recognize that this, and that should be in me so I can be able to bestow?

M. Laitman: Yes, it's possible to be felt from the bestowal of the upper one towards you.

Student: Where does a person gets the powers to relinquish.

M. Laitman: From the degree that's above it, higher up.

Question (Women PT 8): (02:17:14) It says that after he completed the path of the Torah and has purified his body, what does it mean to complete the path of the Torah?

M. Laitman: He probably did all that's possible to be done in bestowing in order to bestow and in reception in order to bestow. There are two degrees in the Torah.

Question (Hebrew 1): (02:17:41) What is the necessary condition in order to connect the vessels and pass the pleasure, onward?

M. Laitman: Again.

Student: What's the condition you have to keep in order to connect the vessels and pass the pleasure onward?

M. Laitman: The necessary condition: That I will be able to connect the vessels and to exTend the pleasure through them in order to bestow.

Student: How do you connect those vessels?

M. Laitman: With the desire to bestow.

Question (Nikoliv Sochi): (02:18:26) Can we manage our self-pleasure? What exercise can help us do it?

M. Laitman: Again?

Student: Are we speaking about our ability to manage my self-pleasure?

M. Laitman: We want to do that.

Student: So what exercise can help?

M. Laitman: Any exercise that I hear from the Creator and I can execute is already correcting somewhat my vessel, that's it.

Okay. What else do we need to do? In the framework of this lesson?

Reader: We can read. There's some more parts.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:19:47) I wanted to ask in what does it depend whether I can put the inTention to bestow before a reaction?

M. Laitman: How you feel.

Student: Feel what?

M. Laitman: The extent in which you can give the intention in order to bestow before every action.

Student: According to what does the Creator give a person the ability to bestow?

M. Laitman: Usually according to his work and the extent in which he demands.

Student: The tendency to bestow to others?

M. Laitman: To others, to the upper; yes, outside of a person.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:20:48) After the Convention, people are going back home, we are also changing our state a bit. Suddenly was felt yesterday that were scattered, it's clear that it's because we're changing states it's a new degree. So in this state, I'm asking, what's the advice, what's the main work? What is what we need to focus on in order to build a place for that new degree, correctly?

M. Laitman: It's clear to us that the real place is to be in one heart – as one man in one heart. And if we don't feel that then we must correct that state.

Student: In order to reach the correction of the state are there stages because the Rav gives the goal but the stages of our work. Is there a stage of what a person needs to do when he finds himself scattered? That he's not in connection, that he doesn't really know or or he feels a distance. What's the first thing a person needs to do and we as a group needs to do?

M. Laitman: An act of connection, an act of connection is the first thing, where we connect – it doesn't matter in what way, in what desire, in what example, it doesn't matter. As long as it's together and then we already start with the scrutinies

Student: So to hold the other as much as possible and

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:23:10) It's written that until you reach joy in this world you have to go the path of and it's full of suffering. But you made us into Tens and we're incorporating in them. How do you go through this stage in happiness and overcoming? Or we have to go through this mortifications

M. Laitman: No, we don't have to suffer, we don't have to go through no modifications in any stage. We just need to know how, more correctly, to implement ourselves; but we already know all the actions that we need to do. And what we can hope for, to receive from those actions, I don't think that we have actual states in which we have to aim towards receiving something from it, something bad. No, it's all before us it needs to kind of cascade in a direct and clearer manner.

Student: In this generation, in the vessel of the Ten, it's like we're skipping over the path of the mortifications. It's like we have a special?

M. Laitman: No, we have sufferings but it's not such that we cannot withstand.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:25:15) Bestowing, in order to bestow, is a state that a person can go above reason?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: And that's the entrance to, that's the entrance to Lishma we were talking about now?

M. Laitman: Yes. Good, well, so say a few things in the end and we will go.

Reader: Announcements

Song: (02:25:59)

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