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

Daily Morning Lesson: May 20, 2026

Part 1: Rabash. Article No. 24, (1986). The Difference between Charity and Gift

Original lesson date: 10/16/2002

Reader: Dear friends, in the first part of the lesson we will watch a recorded lesson from the 16th of October 2002. The second lesson from a series of two lessons based on the article, The Difference Between Charity and Gift. Today we will read from the words, It therefore follows that here in the work of the Creator, and through to the end. Again, from the words, It therefore follows that here in the work of the Creator.

Reading: (00:59) The Difference between Charity and Gift

It therefore follows that here, in the work of the Creator, in the beginning of his work he had energy and confidence, and great importance for Torah and prayer because at that time he had grace of holiness, and felt that the work of the Creator is important. However, this was still not considered a “deficiency” that the Creator will satisfy, a deficiency is called Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator, since the lack and pain of not having Dvekut with the Creator was still not felt in him as he has not exerted for it because he has just begun the work.

But after a long period of time of making efforts and not achieving satisfaction of his deficiency, torments and pain begin to form in him because he has made efforts but sees no progress in his work. At that time the thoughts begin to come one-by-one. Sometimes it is with sparks of despair, and sometimes he grows stronger, but then he sees once more that he has fallen from his state, and so on repeatedly. Finally, a real deficiency forms in him, which he has obtained through exertion in ascents and descents. These ascents and descents leave him with pain each time at not having been granted Dvekut with the Creator. Finally, when the cup of labor has been filled sufficiently, it is called a Kli. Then the filling of it comes from the Creator, since now he has a real Kli.

It follows that his seeing that now—after several years of work—he has retreated, this happens deliberately so he will ache at not having Dvekut with the Creator. It turns out that each time he must see that he is approaching the making of the Kli, called “real deficiency.” That is, his gauge of Katnut [infancy/smallness] and Gadlut [adulthood/greatness] of the deficiency is to the extent of the suffering he feels at not having the filling, which is called here “Dvekut with the Creator,” where all he wants is only to bring contentment to the Creator. Before the deficiency is completed, it is impossible for the filling to come in full. It is known that what comes from above is always complete. Thus, the deficiency should be full, as well, meaning that he will feel pain and deficiency at not having anything. That is, he should feel that he has no Torah, no work, and no fear of heaven.

Although in practice, he engages in Mitzvot, learns Torah, gets up before dawn, and is careful with the slight and serious things, and if other people did what he does they would regard themselves as complete righteous, but he feels that he is completely empty. This is so because he wants to be rewarded with Dvekut with the Creator, and for this one must have one thought, meaning that all his works will be in order to bestow, and he sees he is very far from this.

Therefore, he tells himself, “What am I gaining by engaging in Torah and Mitzvot? My whole calculation was that through this I will achieve Dvekut with the Creator. Yet, I do not see that I have moved one bit closer. On the contrary!” Thus, this person is not asking for luxuries, but only for necessity, to have something with which to revive his soul with some spirituality so he will not be immersed in self-love.

It turns out that he feels that he is completely devoid of spirituality. However, other people do not have this feeling of being far from spirituality. Rather, we see that the rest of the people, if they can pray each day in a Minyan [a minimum of ten participants in a prayer] they feel complete. It is even more so with people who come to study their daily page after work—they feel themselves as whole, and have no demand of the Creator to help them have the strength to walk on the path of the Creator. Rather, they pray for the Creator to help them continue their routine. Thus, they are already satisfied with life.

Even more so, those “whose Torah is their work” certainly feel whole and always praise the Creator for giving them the mind and desire not to sit among the idle. Although they pray to the Creator to help them with the matter of Lishma [for Her sake], which they had heard existed, they regard it as luxury. They observe the essence of Torah and Mitzvot, but do not have this matter of working Lishma. It is true that one should engage Lishma, but this pertains to a chosen few.

Thus, even when they pray that the Creator will grant them with learning Torah Lishma, they regard it as luxury and not as necessity, for thank God they feel that they are among the chosen ones in the nation, that they are in the “light of the vanities of Torah,” and for them, “their Torah is their craft.”

Thus, it turns out the same, that two people ask the Creator to grant them their requests. We should discern between them not by the prayer, but by the reason for the prayer: one wants it because his soul desires luxuries, so he is asking for a gift. But it is impolite to ask for gifts. Therefore, his request cannot be granted since one does not ask for presents, but it comes only from the giver, meaning that the giver awakens to give the gift to the receiver. For this reason it turns out that the lower one is full of grievances at the Creator for not hearing his prayer, since he is praying for gifts each day but he is not being heard. Therefore, he argues that there is something wrong, God forbid, with the upper one.

But the upper one argues that the lower one is wrong, since he is crying about receiving presents. What he thinks he needs is only a luxury to him. Therefore, if he corrects himself and sees the truth, meaning that he demand necessity, which is charity, then charity is given by the awakening of the lower one, as it is customary for the poor to ask. And the more the request is necessity, the more it is accepted.

This is what is explained above (Ketubot, p 67b), that meat and wine may be luxuries for every person, but for the one who came to Rabbi Nehemiah it was necessity. The evidence is that he gave him lentils to eat and he died.

By this we will understand why we see that once a person has made great efforts to achieve Dvekut with the Creator, in the end he sees that he has become worse than when he began to do the holy work to correct himself. That is, it is as though the corrections he had made were in vain, useless, but to the contrary.

The answer is that in truth, he went a great deal forward, but we should discern between progress toward the light and progress toward the Kli. Human nature is to regard progress toward the light, since light is all that man wants. It follows that things that do not illuminate do not interest him at all, for what will it give him if he has a great deficiency? There is a rule that man wants things that bring him pleasure, so when he wants to know if he has advanced, he examines how much closer he is to the light.

But the truth is that there is no light without a Kli. Therefore, first he must advance toward the Kli. That is, there is such a thing as advancing in deficiency. In the beginning of his work his deficiency was not revealed to him and he craved the light, although then, too, he had a deficiency—that he did not have light.

But this is similar to what people do: Sometimes a person loses some important object that is worth one hour of his work according to what he earns per day. If, for example, he makes eight dollars a day, he will not work for less than one dollar an hour. Rather, rest will be more important to him. But if he loses an object that is worth one dollar, he will search for it two hours until he finds it. This brings up the question: “Why did he just work an hour to earn half a dollar?”

The answer is that there is a difference between denying profit and losing from the capital. What he possesses and then loses, even if it is a small thing, it is important to him because he had already had it but then lost it. This is not so with something that he did not obtain. A great thing is worth exerting for, but otherwise rest is more important to him.

The same rule applies to us. When he had a desire to achieve Dvekut with the Creator, that deficiency is called “prevention of profit.” That is, he is deficient that perhaps he will not profit, so he goes to work. But this is still not considered a real deficiency, fit for clothing the upper abundance.

But if he has already invested several years of work it is like losing from the capital. That is, he has lost several years of work without gaining anything. Then this deficiency is regarded as such because this deficiency creates in him torments and pains.

Thus, we see that the great efforts he has made, thinking that soon the Creator will help him and he will be rewarded with Dvekut with Him, so he was advancing concerning the desire for Dvekut because of the great efforts he has made, so the more he sees that he is exerting, the more he sees the opposite—that the body resists the matter of bestowal altogether.

At that time the understanding that he needs His help forms in him. Then, he is not asking for luxuries, but wants to be a simple Jew who believes in the Creator, that He, the blessed One, His name is the “Good Who Does Good.” He wants to praise the Creator and say to Him: “Blessed is He who said, ‘Let there be the world,’” just so, without any great attainments in Torah and Mitzvot with intentions, but very simply to be able to praise the Creator and thank Him for creating him.

Since now he sees that he does not even have the desire for Torah and work he had when he began to work, it is for two reasons, which are one: 1) The reason he began to assume the burden of Torah and Mitzvot was built on vessels of reception. Initially, the body longed to receive the delight and pleasure because he felt that he could receive from spirituality more satisfaction in life, meaning that the will to receive would have what to receive, since corporeal pleasures did not give him satisfaction in life. But now that he has begun to work in order to bestow, his body resists it.

The body agrees to labor where it can gain. But now that he has told the body, “Keep Torah and Mitzvot and by that, meaning by keeping Torah and Mitzvot, you will be able not to give the body any pleasure or reward for your work.” Because of it, when the body hears that it will have reward for itself, but that its reward will be to have the strength not to give the body any reward for its work, this is the reason why now he has no strength to work as he did before he began to work in order to bestow, when the body expected greater pleasures than what it received from corporeal pleasures. Therefore, for this he had fuel and did not encounter any preventions from the body, since the body expected the desire to receive to gain more pleasures now.

However, we must know that the body has no other language, that it should want to work the holy work. Our sages said about this, “One should always engage in Torah and Mitzvot Lo Lishma [not for Her sake] for by that he will come to Lishma [for Her sake].” It follows that the beginning of his entrance to the work was just fine. That is, we must promise the body that God forbid that we should blemish its will to receive. On the contrary, by keeping Torah and Mitzvot, the will to receive will have real satisfaction in life, and his will to receive will feel that specifically by keeping Torah and Mitzvot he will feel that throughout the world, he is the happiest man in his generation.

But after he has begun the work and begun to know that the main thing is to achieve Dvekut with the Creator, called “doing everything in order to bestow,” the body begins to resist this work. However, there is great benefit in this resistance of the body, since by this a person develops a great deficiency, meaning he suffers from being far from Dvekut with the Creator. At that time, the more he regrets, the more he becomes needy of the Creator’s help, since then he sees that he cannot exit self-love by himself, but only the Creator Himself can help him. This is not a matter of understanding, but a matter of feeling. It is as it is written (Psalms, 127), “If the Lord does not build the house, they who built it labored in it in vain.”

It follows that one should believe that all the twists and turns that have brought him to his current state were so he would have the ability to give an honest prayer from the bottom of the heart. However, the evil inclination brings man opposite views, so where one can ask the Creator from the bottom of the heart, meaning when the mind and heart have come to a decision that now only the Creator can help him, because now he can pray a true prayer, the evil inclination comes and brings him to despair, as the spies argue. We can say about this, “The ways of the Lord are straight; the righteous walk in them and the wicked fail in them.”

With the above-said we will understand what we asked about the verse, “He who hates gifts will live.” It does not mean that he should not receive gifts. However, if he hates the gifts because he wants to work in order to bestow, therefore he hates being a receiver but receives the gifts because the Creator wants it. This is called “receiving in order to bestow,” since he would not awaken the Creator to give him luxuries. Rather, he is asking the Creator for necessity. And it makes no difference whether for another it is regarded as luxury, since each one works according to one’s own feeling, and does not mind what his friend has. If later the Creator gives him a gift, he receives it in order to bestow.

It follows that if a person asks the Creator to give him vessels of bestowal, it depends on a person’s character. That is, we can say that for one it is luxuries and for another it is necessity.

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Reader: (24:47) We will continue to the lesson from the 16th of October, 2002.

M. Laitman: We heard the second part of the article. It all depends on man's discernment of what is luxury and what is necessity. Between these two discernments, we live; between these two discernments, we reincarnate. The problem is there are conditions before us:we either accept them as necessary or still as luxury, meaning not necessary, and accordingly, we determine what we need to do. Say now, I feel good, nothing pressures me, I can exist this way, meaning the state is kind of satisfactory. If I, now, hear that this state is not good and not for my own good, that I feel that I'm in danger, that I'm going to lose my soul and so forth and so on, losing the purpose of life. Then I'll begin to relate to that state as a state that obligates me to act, meaning I shift my attitude from luxury to necessity and, accordingly, I work. Meaning, man's free choice always lies between how to accept the present state – either to leave it as luxury, then you can always escape and the Klipot work for that and our body and the environmental conditions, the society, which confuses me, everything, tired – and it's all becoming painted in me as conditions sent to me from above and I can relate to them as luxuries. Meaning the state is satisfactory, as it says, rather there has to be labor, great labor in explaining to myself that this is a special state, where I am in danger. And then I'll relate to my life as forcing me to make necessary actions. Of course, everything here depends on the books, the authors, society, the friends. How much the spirit, the fire that burns in them – how much of that can I absorb and that will necessitate me to change the inner feeling. It's not intellect, it's an internal feeling: where am I - war, at the place of danger at a point where everything almost ends? Or, I can just kind of burn the time and waste life away and not that bad, everyone's like that, everything works out.

(28:46) So everything again and again comes down to one point: importance of the goal. Only that, if we increase that, then we can really be saved from these disturbances that confuse us, that give us this kind of sense of tiredness. There is no tiredness, it all depends on necessity. We know it about ourselves – as tired as a person can be, all of our feeling is ultimately a will to receive – these aren't bodily matters, it's all spiritual matters that we feel. If the body would see in the most tired state, if it feels some worthy goal, like an appropriate compensation, then it would jump and run. Meaning it all depends on how we're going to increase the importance of what we can attain and that's the only thing that we need to work on. Basically, there's not a lot of things that we need to do, there's only one thing: importance of the goal as opposed to all other disturbances, it cancels them, they're not felt, they fall, they disappear, all these disturbances. Then, you can see that they arose only to confuse us, that's it; you raise the importance of the goal, what used to be important, this and this and that, oh boy, it doesn't work out. You see that, immediately, it just falls, that's how it is because these things are artificial. The disturbances are not real, they only exist against the importance, that's how they arise. And if I got the importance then there's no more need for them – they just disappear, they dissolve. A person needs to only work on that, to always increase the Creator and the importance of attaining Him in his eyes. This is the solution for each and everything that rises against us. You understand, I don't know the article so I'm speaking to myself.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:52) How is it that a person's necessities constantly change?

M. Laitman: The necessity constantly changes because a person needs to scrutinize the attitude to the Creator from each and every desire of the soul. We have theoretically 620 desires, 620 organs of the soul. From each and every organ, I need to determine each and every desire, that this desire, most importantly, will be filled with the Creator, with His presence, with His feeling. Therefore, I constantly feel various disturbances against that and different situations and different interactions. We still don't know, for now, how to detect against opposite. What kind of quality, what kind of part of my soul? Certain questions or problems arise and each one has his own. There are collective things and then there's also individual things for each and every one. But it's the reason that they keep changing and coming again and repeating as well.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (33:10) I'm going to talk about the social aspect: we see in society that there's one who really enjoys working in the kitchen and another who very much likes writing; and another one who likes managing, organizing. Does this attest in any way to the quality of the Creator that is revealed in him, his measure of necessity. Because he has the fuel to work specifically in that thing ;or is it just beastliness?

M. Laitman: I do not know what to say, according to a person's external work, the way he feels, like expressing himself towards the society or towards his spiritual path, if it's in the kitchen or amongst the friends, helping the society bond or writing, does this attest to anything? Of course, it does attest in a way to the kind of soul he has, but it doesn't mean – it doesn't say if it's a high soul, a low soul, or something like that, if someone's drawn towards writing, it's not that he's closer, that he has more access to spirituality and the goal than one who finds himself in the kitchen. Let's say, Baal Shem Tov is the greatest Kabbalist that rose after the Ari in the European parts between the Ashkenazis. There is no one greater than him in those times and, until Baal HaSulam, there wasn't. Between the Ari and Baal HaSulam, the greatest is the Baal Shem Tov. He didn't write a single word. He would walk among people and explain; he would gather groups and teach and was completely—he wasn't drawn to writing at all. All that we have from him is, well, it's from his students. They heard from the Rav and each one wrote what he heard. He himself, all of the literature that later came from all the Yad Morim, all the sages, great Kabbalists, it's all just the remnants of what he said, the words he uttered. He himself wrote nothing and we had many more such examples, actually.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:46) Why does a person feel that this is necessary for him, to contribute to the society through that? That this is his means, this is his path, and not otherwise?

M. Laitman: This is his inner structure, I cannot say, it's the inner structure. I still can't—you know, astrologists divide people into signs or sixteen different types according to character and such like – I still cannot say for certain. What's written in the Zohar, various other sources, it doesn't give you an accurate table where you can divide the souls this way, that way. Of course, you have just a certain number of kinds because you have the Ramach: the organs, just the tendons, so you have a division. You have a division to Rosh, Toch, Sof, you have the division between the three lines. You have many, many such options but there is no simple table for it. Simply put, this indicates that there is no, well, there is no ultimate, final understanding as to this. So I cannot say what appears to be, what may appear to me in a certain way – I don't want to say. Also, many changes, great changes can occur, who knows? Of course, all the things, all the disruptions a person receives in life and all that, that's because of these records being revealed. The upper lights act uniformly on everyone, the fact that each one jumps differently, reacts differently, feels differently, that's according to the records coming out to be realized.

But altogether these records, they constitute the evolution of the soul, of the body and the soul of each and every one. This evolution, this development, it doesn't speak to, it doesn't point towards, let's say, in a very accurate way, to the type of the soul. For example, in this world, up to age twenty, for example, Einstein was dumb – he was an idiot, you could say, at school he would only receive, like F’s. Afterwards, he became a genius and everyone's like, what, what? You see, so it could be the same in spirituality, the development of the soul at its tender age, let's say, on those degrees. It doesn't attest to its general structure, its degree, many things, we cannot speak of this yet. So I'm wary of establishing some kind of theory about it, something like that. What they write about the types of souls in the Zohar and all that, it is unclear. Let us hope that at some point we can make a kind of table: you have 600,000 souls, they divide into several billions and through thousands of incarnations and what happens with all that. We'll have a complete picture, complete picture of how it later all forms into one vessel, why each one had that and this and that path to go through. It's something where I don't even know how to bring it all into focus. It is possible, at the end of correction, each one attains it within him, it's his – he sees and he feels the end and all these things. When we come to the end of correction, we'll be able to know, right, if it is possible to lower it down to this world and write it in the Kabbalah for the Beginner book. Right, that's the thing, for the beginner, you understand? Later, we'll know it, of course, that is for certain, yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:37) I wanted to ask, how can we fight against despair and just tiredness in the work?

M. Laitman: Fighting against despair and tiredness, again, as I said, there is no such thing as despair or tiredness. As he writes, forgetfulness, all these things. It appears to us in our world that there are such natural phenomena but it isn't natural, it's angels. Every single thing that you feel to exist, every force, desire, thought, doesn't matter what it is, it's an angel, what is an angel? It is a special force directed towards you from above and as it appears, it may also not appear. As it appears, well, you can neutralize it as though it did not appear, as though, right – it does appear but you are above it, right? That's it, there's nothing which is just, it's by nature and there's nothing you can do about it. There is always something you can do about it, you just can't do it because you don't have the means so work on the means and you will be able. We see that we have these constant interruptions, despair, weakness, a lack of flavor, confusion, lack of orientation. Although we hear, it's as though we don't hear – you can write it on the wall a thousand times, like here behind me, you see? Write on the wall a thousand times the importance of the society and you simply don't see it. You won't see it, the eyes will scan it but it won't go in, right? That is an angel, that is an angel and you can see how it works: it doesn't let you act upon the most important things to you.

This is the only thing keeping you from entering the spiritual world right now, immediately. He stands in your path and you can do nothing about it, why? Because you cannot enter the spiritual world if you just break his eyes, ears, teeth, I don't know what, right? You cannot budge him that way, you can move him only on the condition that you connect with others because, by that, you acquire a vessel. And without that vessel he won't allow you to ingress. He stands in your path, waiting for you to make a vessel; and how does he push you to create the vessel? By these various despair, confusion, forgetfulness, weakness, criticism, it doesn't matter, yes, all those things, right? He shows you what you need to work against – not against, what, exactly, you don't need to work against despair. This despair, you can break only through the society, meaning he gives you a few signs that only by doing something externally, some external work, you can break them and then you go through, right? There's no alternative here, he will stand there for a thousand years more – the Creator doesn't give up with such things. Not because He's stubborn, it's because you don't have the vessel, the means: if you don't move that angel which serves as an obstruction, it's a sign that you cannot feel the upper worlds, how? You did not attain the right vessel, what he gives you, he gives you the opposite form of the vessel that you need to attain. Instead of despair, upliftment, instead of criticism, appreciation, He gives you the opposite signs. And if you go and neutralize them, improve them, then He disappears, he moves and you enter.

So, he will stand at the gate until you gain the vessel. Time is no issue here, there is no time in spirituality – it's an indication that for us a million years more can pass. While in spirituality, it's not counted as even a second having passed because you did not move from your place in the million corporeal years, right? You didn't move, nothing moved, nothing passed, you understand? You understand, it's a wonder – I remember I waited three or four hours in line for the dentist at something urgent and there was no choice, right? There was no alternative, nowhere else to go, that's what it was. After four hours, well, how are you, enter. It's as though I waited for a minute or two and I was bewildered, the person did not count time like I did. It was very interesting, you can sit there exploding with pain, and he's just like, yes it's your turn, come, enter. Until you gain the vessel, you're not in spirituality, how to be in spirituality without a vessel?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (46:23) To what extent can you shake the society artificially?

M. Laitman: What pace can you rock the society artificially? It's not artificial, everything that we do is against the will. It appears artificial to us, it's not artificial; rather, this is how it should be.

Student: How often should we do it?

M. Laitman: How often to work in the society?

Student: To shake the society?

M. Laitman: To shake the society – nonstop – to constantly be engaged in that and, simply, do not calm down until the entire society is raised.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (47:30) What is the process of acquiring the vessel?

M. Laitman: The process of acquiring the vessel is the process of setting the right attitude towards spirituality: how I now relate to spirituality, how I describe to myself what it is; how I'm oriented towards it, the extent to which I'm willing to detach from this entire world in order to adhere to that, to be devoted to it. That is called building a vessel for spirituality. The vessel is called the will, desire, that's it.

Student: Any disturbances that comes so, against that?

M. Laitman: No, we can't work against every disturbance, if I'm in despair, I will now create joy, we can’t I can't. Well, artificially, I could start dancing and so on but these are things which work temporarily. In truth, advancement comes only through the society because, by that, I acquire additional vessels which I join to myself, that's it. Didn't get an answer, what did you ask again?

Student: We said that a person, as if, is facing an angel that presents to him something which is the posterior.

M. Laitman: It's very, it's preferable to imagine to yourself that this is an angel obstructing you and not you yourself because then it's an angel coming against you. It's a foreign force and it is a foreign force, then there's something to work with. But we will forget about it – he's wiser than we, this angel. He'll confuse us and we will forget. Ultimately, you will have nothing left to do except to work with the society. Listen, this is how it'll be.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (49:37) The question is, I heard that the state can extend endlessly and look…

M. Laitman: Look, describe to yourself the ideal state you'd like to be in and bestow upon the society such that the entire society wants the same, very simple. You don't need to be so clever.

Student: It's like a person, why is it a state that a person can't overcome?

M. Laitman: Why can't a person go through these states? Because these states are in him, himself, and he, by himself, cannot go through these states where he is by himself. Rather, for this, he needs a foreign force to change him and this foreign force could be the Creator or the society. The Creator and the society is the same force except the society is within the, in the same plane as the person.

Student: What does it mean in these states to work with the society, what is that?

M. Laitman: To work with the society in these states, whatever state I need to be, I need to see the society as being in that state, I need to bring it to that state. And then I too will receive from the society the same state. If we're partners in some business, yes? If I think about and make sure that everyone becomes rich and we're partners, then, I too will become rich. This is the condition where if you think about yourself, you will not become rich; and if you think about them, you will become rich, why? Because then, you're acquiring these vessels, you're acquiring their service as well and with that, you enter spirituality.

Student: If I'm in weakness, fatigue, and I connect with someone else who's also in weakness and tiredness, what do I gain from that?

M. Laitman: What do you gain from it if I'm in fatigue, weakness, despair and, let's say I see someone who is also in the same state: fatigue, weakness, and despair, how will that help me? It'll help me because I can influence his fatigue, weakness, and despair, to awaken him – that I can do, through acting, even, it doesn't matter what. You cannot operate on yourself – you can't but you can operate on him. There are people constantly shouting at the society, Come on, move, let's do this, that! Yes, you understand, you know well how to do that, then gradually he calms down. By himself, no, but others, for others, yes. Like a drill sergeant – well, that is good, to use that quality is good and, afterwards, you'll receive back from him. We have in our egoism, we have all the data required to influence, to bestow the other, even from the side of egoism; then, it acts upon me in return. What I can't do to myself, I can actually do through egoism – yes, it's a very special kind of opportunity where you have no ability to do anything with yourself. It's only this kind of secondary, selective influence which you can supervise over, it's a very special thing. That is the cause of the shattering of the vessels because by this you acquire discernments between you and the others regarding the boundaries between the parts of the soul. You have 600,000 souls, the boundaries between the souls, really the border between these squares, you can say, these borders. There, you find new discernments from which your spiritual body is built which is called Adam. Not the souls themselves; it's not the souls themselves but the discernments from connecting to them, the boundaries between them. It is the same as we find, not with hunger, not when we are completely famished and not a state where we are completely full—neither of those states is pleasurable. Pleasure exists in the middle: I'm hungry and then I have something tasty on my tongue already and then, Ah! You understand? In the boundary between light and darkness, there, all the discernments are in the middle. The division of the soul and its connection in such a way, that builds a new vessel that the Creator isn't creating. These discernments, you gather them from all of the connections with all the other souls. And, from that, appears a new vessel which did not exist before at all, it's built from these boundaries between each and every soul and the connection between them.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (55:35) How can a person constantly feel that he is in danger?

M. Laitman: To feel himself in a place of danger, a person can only if he is told that this is so.

Student: How can I know that?

M. Laitman: It's work, you need to have some kind of flashlight everywhere. That's only the society, on someone, only someone from a side, from the side. There's no other way the person doesn't feel that.

Student: If the society doesn't feel these efforts?

M. Laitman: If the society doesn't feel, then the society needs to be changed: either look for something on the outside or change from where you are. There's no other choice. Otherwise, it's a waste of time.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (56:35) You say that, in principle, it's all about acquiring a lack, the vessels. This is actually through giving, through bestowing upon the society, more or less. Now, if I'm in a situation with a person who doesn't have spiritual attainment, let's say?

M. Laitman: No, we're not talking about attainment, the society simply needs to be a group of people who have a direction towards the goal. Not that they know exactly what it is, and they already have attainment and they're enthusiastic. But, altogether, how they come together to study, to do all kinds of actions, they dedicate their free time for it as much as they can. If they have that all in all, that's a society that I need to examine whether I can advance with it: if I can move that society, yes; if not, maybe it's a society that can't be moved so you need to leave it. Just leave or maybe take a few people from that society and they can continue in their elderly settlement and we will keep moving.

Student: What's the difference between, well, in the society with this kind of—but if there's a society that's not yet there, doesn't have that vision?

M. Laitman: No, no, no, a society that doesn't have this direction, there's nothing I can do with it, not at all. Unless I come to them and I start teaching them and they absorb this message and they're willing to fulfill it and do everything that's required according to our books. Without that, you can bring a thousand other disciplines and methods – and I'm talking about people who are accepting the method, accepting the goal and willing to go for it – and they become a society, as I said before. Let's say, now, they're nothing, so maybe, could be but until they become such a society, you can't relate to it as to a vessel with which you can go forward.

Student: How does it influence me if, let's say, the closest thing to me, my father?

M. Laitman: How am I influenced by all kinds of people in my surroundings who don't belong to my spiritual goal? They influence me in a bad way and it depends on how much I appreciate the goal as opposed to all other things; then, I might not be influenced by them. I go to my mother, she says, oh boy! You're not sleeping. How do you rest? How do you work? This is not okay and look at yourself ,and stop already, how many years? I see it and I, you know—she's old already, beyond eighty so I, kind of, you know, what can I do? It doesn't influence me and there's nothing to do – she speaks and speaks and I stick to my thing and she doesn't know that but everyone is that way. Now, there could be, maybe, societies that are more cruel, so I move away from them. I don't owe them anything, I owe my mother, or father like you say, yes okay. But he's not my friend, my friends, meaning the moment that I connected myself to some goal, only someone who's connected to that goal is called my friend, Chaver. Chaver means connection, Hibur, connection. And so I'll tell you, from the city where I was in Russia, many people came that sometimes they were here, I would invite them, I have no connection with them. There are people—I have relatives, true relatives who are in Israel for ten, fifteen years already – I haven't seen them, you know, I haven't seen them. My mother calls and tells me, you should call this or that aunt, so I call and say, hello. It can happen once in a few years, why? It's just not in my field of view so how can I be connected to someone who's not in my engagements at all? I'm just telling you from life, I'm not just telling you about all this nonsense I have for no reason. It all depends on your desire. You won't have any questions, on the contrary, your question will be, how do I let go of them and not look at them all of a sudden. I thought about some dear aunt from, after five years ago, five years later.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:02:02) Does my mother understand this? Well, I just want to focus the question, refine it: someone has a lack, doesn't matter where he is, he has some kind of emotional need for it. I feel that need, I want to help that person because of the, well, the desire to give, really, the desire to give.

M. Laitman: Someone has a deficiency and you want to help him?

Student: I want to help him, I try to fulfill his lack, satisfy his lack. How does this influence where I am, helping a person like that?

M. Laitman: I don't understand you, simply. Why do you care about helping someone, what is it, an emergency, what – how do you call that, I don't remember, what are you, special emergency services, mental health services, what friends and family? I'm telling you that friends and family can't be in your field of view if you have an important goal ahead of you. Listen, don't play these tricks, you're not that—a person who's going to do good to someone. Well, if you have an interest, you do, if you don't, you don't. You're like us, you're not an angel so everything depends on the desire and these questions are not questions. I feel like helping someone, you know, I feel like gaining something so I'm going to help someone. Who's helping someone?

Student: No, I don't want to make any profit off of him, I really want to give him, to help.

M. Laitman: I have no answer to that, it's just nonsense, I'll tell you. Any society that's other than this direction, simply doesn't exist, the whole world doesn't exist to me. Specifically, in advancing towards the goal and awakening the upper light upon myself, through me, it spreads to the whole world and that's the assistance and everything else is a corruption. How can you help? We see social insurance ruins all of our population, you can see that. Our prisons corrupt just the people even more, they become worse – it's like a school for criminals or terrorists, depending on who's sitting there. I don't understand, where did you see that some good, nice attitude to society actually works for the betterment of society, where have you seen that? Because your good attitude means to give to them and giving will always be a corruption – just so you know, if it's with respect to egoism – that makes you build all kinds of unions that then blackmail you, or all kinds of groups of orthodox people that then blackmail you. And why does the will to receive deserve to receive? It's against the general law of nature, the will to receive is forbidden from receiving. If you give it fulfillment, you're ruining it, you're taking it lower, worse down into the Klipot, you're causing harm to the world. How can you just take a child and start giving him everything, what will happen? You ruin him, you're literally killing him. But the higher Providence works through left and right to aim the person and build him to know how to use both forces in the right balance. But just giving, there's no such thing, that's really not good. Just to help someone, just to plainly help someone.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:05:59) Where should a person aim during the morning lesson, during the prayer?

M. Laitman: During the prayer, like Baal HaSulam writes in Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 155, one has to aim for only one thing: that what he studies, he wants that. He wants to be in that, he wants it to be revealed in him; he wants to know and connect with what he studies, he wants that to influence him. If the topic is so far that he doesn't perceive that there is something that actually happens in his soul, here; then he should just think about it as a remedy. I created the evil inclination, I created the spice of Torah. He heals all his flesh, or as it also says, The doctor for the broken heart – it will give me what I need, it will come as a remedy, salvation.

Student: How is this done, how do you not forget about that during the study?

M. Laitman: If you suffer, you don't forget. Forgive me, but God forbid, some cancer, people sick with cancer come to me, they don't forget about that for a moment. They tell me just one thing, from dawn to dusk, tell me what to do, any minute, I'm willing to do it. Any minute, I'm willing and I won't forget what you're telling me to do. So it all depends on the pain, the importance, and the importance is, again, the society.

Student: Now, previously, you said that only if you connect with friends, then you can make a spiritual vessel and enter the spiritual world. So I'm asking, how does a person bring the friend's point of the heart into him, and how to put one's own point of the heart in the friend's, in practice?

M. Laitman: The actions are simple: do towards society what you would like society to do for you – one sentence. Look at what level we're talking about, such simple, childish lines that we're saying. If someone hears it from outside, they discuss and engage with it. And, you know, if you just thought about it, just listening to this tape recording, what is this? Because without the inner content, it's just the kindergarten: don't do to him what is bad for you, do to him what he will do to you, and so on.

Student: Is there no contradiction, here, with the need to respect the mother and father?

M. Laitman: In Kabbalah, we have a very special effort a person makes. You're asking, what about the relationships of honoring the mother and father and other commandments, or even just human relations, not commandments, that are just acceptable in every human society. Kabbalah teaches the person to face the Creator: there's Creator and the created being and there's nothing besides that. Everything's included within man; he's the only one standing and facing the only Creator. And all of these discernments: mother, father, friends, neighbors, wife, children, country, the universe, the worlds. Everything exists within man in his connection with the Creator, and therefore in the inner work, there's no attitude here to any biological body, even that which gave birth to you, or relatives, or friends, and so forth. But only according to the spirits, according to the connection with the Creator, links are being formed with all the other parts of creation, let's put it like that. Because we're no longer looking at bodies here, we're looking at discernments. So there's nothing here because mother and father become Partzufim that are higher to me. It says, One shall leave his mother and father and cling to his wife. Meaning he each time finds a new deficiency, and with it he turns to the Creator, meaning it's different, such is.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:11:01) In relation to spirituality, you need to go through so many disturbances, and they have to be so?

M. Laitman: On the way to spirituality, we don't go through obstacles or disturbances, we go through signs that we need to collect within correctly, they're parts of my vessel. They seem to me as opposite, but without me taking them and correctly, in the opposite way, enter them into me, I can't simply, I go. It's like I have to come to the barrier with a basket or a sack, and in this basket I have all kinds of, as we say.

Student: Goods.

M. Laitman: I don't know, I wanted to say like when you collect in the forest, maybe mushrooms, berries, plants. So, when I go along the way to this place, I am given all these things that I have to come there with them, but in an opposite way. Meaning these so-called disturbances are not disturbances, they appear to my desire to see with an obstacle, but without them, if one obstacle were to be lacking, then I simply won't be able to get there. It's considered a blemish, a flaw in the soul, there are such things, it's a very unique thing, or that it's called an embryo that stops developing, or there's what we call a stillbirth, or abortions happen, miscarriages, I'm sorry. And there's all kinds of things. In the world, there's all kinds of cases like this, so it's also such a thing that happens there. It's a very precious thing.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:13:04) In relation to spirituality, these disservices should be so big, because you can't compare it. So if you think you need to go through all this difficulty, where do you take the strength?

M. Laitman: On the way to spirituality, we must go through many so-called obstacles. These obstacles must be probably pretty big, because spirituality is nevertheless a transition from one world to the next. So these obstacles must be in such a tall, high wall, and as much as possible, as he describes, There are those who climb the mountain, the higher they climb, then with even greater cruelty, they're thrown. The solution here is simple: the obstacles are big against the desire to receive. In the eyes of the desire to receive, they appear to you as big. The moment you move with them to the desire to bestow, they immediately disappear. They're not big, you don't need to climb upon them. You don't need before them or against them to go and to break them – you won't be able to do that with your desire to receive.You need to change the angle of vision upon them and to see them, receive them in an opposite way, and then they fall. It's written, Put your eyes upon them, and they'll be as a mound of bones; simply like that. This approach needs to be not as they appear in our desire to receive – the approach needs to be differently from the side, and then they're truly not there. And that's how it truly is apparent as great, is big, you're right. Good question!

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:15:09) What you said now, how does a person do it? Let's say, he gets something, some obstruction. Should he connect it immediately to the goal, look at it from the side?

M. Laitman: If a person has a goal before him, he needs to go in a way that we call above reason, very simply to connect with the upper force, the desire to bestow with a society that will help him rise up a little bit against this obstacle. To rise up, to ascend above it, not to go towards it, you know—jump above it. And this jump does not require great forces, completely not. I would say, it's more of a psychological problem, it's not even a spiritual problem. In us, it's not spiritual at all, here, we're not working with psychology, whatsoever. I'm sorry, with us, we're all still working with psychology, altogether. Okay, I'm just reminded by something.

Student: What you said, that it's a safety means to prevent miscarriage?

M. Laitman: A cautionary security thing to keep, prevent?

Student: The work above reason, the work above reason?

M. Laitman: Well, to prevent a miscarriage, you need to come to the doctor to be checked and to do all that –

Student: Spiritual miscarriage?

M. Laitman: Yes, yes. You do all that nature demands in correlation with the state of the developing embryo, you're protecting the embryo, right? You're not protecting the mother, you're protecting the fetus. The development of this embryo is called the spiritual development in you. You want it to miscarriage? Then participate in the spiritual development, that's it. What's the problem with the miscarriage? The problem with the miscarriage is there's no suitability, no adaptation that's correct between the woman's/ wife and the inner development inside there. Something happens between them there until he becomes a dead piece of meat there towards her. But with us, it happens in a way that a person does not participate in his own development. Well, we'll learn!