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

Part 3: Lesson on the Topic of “The Spiritual Power of a Physical Gathering”.

Reader: (00:02) We are in a lesson in the topic, The Spiritual Power of a Physical Gathering. We're continuing from Excerpt Number Four. You can find the study materials on Sviva Tova and the Arvut system. Whoever asked the question down here, please hold the microphone close to your mouth and speak loud and clear. Number Four by the Rabash.

Reading Item: (00:24) RABASH, Article 17 (1984), Part 2, “The Agenda of the Assembly – 1"

At the very beginning of the assembly, when gathering, we should praise the friends, the importance of each of the friends. To the extent that we assume the greatness of the society, one can appreciate the society.

“And then pray” means that everyone should examine himself and see how much effort he is giving to the society. Then, when he sees that he is powerless to do anything for society, there is room for prayer to the Creator to help him and give him strength and desire to engage in love of others.

M. Laitman: (01:38) Are these words clear? Let's read together, all of us together. Each one tries to speak with everyone. 

Reading: (01:54) At the very beginning of the assembly, when gathering, we should praise the friends, the importance of each of the friends. To the extent that we assume the greatness of the society, one can appreciate the society.

“And then pray” means that everyone should examine himself and see how much effort he is giving to the society. Then, when he sees that he is powerless to do anything for society, there is room for prayer to the Creator to help him and give him strength and desire to engage in love of others.

M. Laitman: Questions? Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (03:15) I think that this excerpt answers what we asked before. We're just not used to working for society, whatever I attain with my work is yours, it’s the Ten’s. And to keep passing it onward, that's what we're afraid, that we're losing ourselves, And here he says, we just have to pray to get that ability. I see with a few simple words, how the answer is already felt, and we already got an answer to this question. That we need to get used to be in giving, what I attain as mine to give it to the soul, to the Ten.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:15) I had the same feeling, that everything we read in the previous part of the lesson in the Rabash article. That the work of the lower one is to make a connection with the upper one. Meaning, the more I lower myself, I get the influence of the upper one. And, here, he gives us an actual vessel to work, that it's all between man and his friend. That in the Ten it's the upper value, to learn how to lower myself, and if you don't reveal it, it's already a place to pray, that that is the work, actually. You don't have to do something with your hands and legs. So, my question: How to keep this value in the frame of the Ten, that it's the upper value? Because, also in bestowing to one another, so each one raises himself. That's the purest ego, he bestows better than the friend and all the frictions, it's all from this and you don't reach it. So, How to learn to lower oneself and to make the right connection? 

M. Laitman: Very well, you're speaking correctly.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (05:52) He says that a person has to criticize himself as much as he gives forces to society. How can a person measure how much force he gives to society? 

M. Laitman: I don't know, you should check, measure. 

Student: I assume that we're not speaking about deeds or something that I can say, this is what I did today. It’s more about where the heart is, right? 

M. Laitman: Well, that, too, is true. 

Student: Because in the deeds it's easy, it's today, I woke up a friend, or whatever, I read an excerpt for the friend, that's a deed. But how do you measure the inner devotion, the forces, you give society? 

M. Laitman: You need to try to measure it as well. 

Student: How, according to which ruler, what? 

M. Laitman: To the extent that you're incorporated in the upper one, you can measure yourself compared to the upper one.

Student: Again, as much as? 

M. Laitman: To the extent that you're incorporated in the upper one, you can measure yourself compared, or with respect, to the upper one. 

Student: So, how do you include yourself in the upper one, more? 

M. Laitman: It's written in many places, to be incorporated, to annul, to pray, together with the friends, to help them, etc. 

Student: So, that's a state a person is in? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: But then how can he measure how much forces he gives society? 

M. Laitman: I don't know, it's written, here and there, to the extent that he helped them become incorporated in the upper one.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:21) How do you go from a state of criticizing oneself to a state of prayer? 

M. Laitman: Self-criticism is criticism, and from criticism, we can come to the prayer. This is actually relatively easy, they're not contradictory.

Student: But there could be such a criticism that lowers a person and doesn't bring a prayer? Or actually leaves him in self-blaming and all kinds of, the fool devours his flesh. 

M. Laitman: No, these are things that of course it is possible to fall into for any person, but we are talking about states when a person tries to rise above himself.

Student: So, the key, in not to be stuck in criticism and go to prayer, is? 

M. Laitman: To rise to a prayer where he's adhered to the friends, to the desire to help them. Not because he's greater but, precisely, because he's pushing them from below, from underneath. 

Student: When a person criticizes himself, he doesn't feel adhered to the friends. That's exactly the problem. He doesn't have the forces to work in love of others. 

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: So how, from a place where he discovers that he's criticizing himself, that he can't work in the love of others, and he isn't working in it? 

M. Laitman: He is willing to join them in whatever work it is, as long as he participates in their efforts. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:30) He describes here that if he can't do anything for society, he has a place to pray. 

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: I feel in myself that it's much harder to be in prayer than to do something for society.

M. Laitman: Yes? 

Student: So, if I don't have the forces to do something for society, how can I have the forces to pray? What preparation do I need for this? 

M. Laitman: That you want to bestow upon the society, right? And then you ask to have the strength to see where you can add to the society.

Student: So, that something is a preparation to a state where I don't have the forces? 

M. Laitman: You can put it this way. You can say so. 

Reader: (11:25)  Number 5 by Rabash. RABASH, Article No. 6 (1984), "Love of Friends – 2"

When they gather, each of them should think that he has now come for the purpose of annulling self-love. It means that he will not consider how to satisfy his will to receive now but will think as much as possible only of the love of others. This is the only way to acquire the desire and the need to acquire a new quality, called “the will to bestow.”

And from love of friends one can reach love of the Creator, meaning wanting to give contentment to the Creator.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:52) It's written that we have to come to the gathering with a purpose to annul self-love. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: To actually make a preparation that it will be my goal, and I feel that it's difficult for the friends. They come to the gathering, and they feel that that's on account of their spare time, maybe it's a free day off on account of their family. But they come and it's like sometimes because they have to. Not that the purpose is to come and annul self-love, that's a great thing. How to stop with these calculations and to come and that will be my purpose?

M. Laitman: Prepare yourself for this, prepare. 

Student: How can the Ten help? 

M. Laitman: From all the hours, when you're learning or scrutinizing, from all those hours, you have to pick out these feelings, these thoughts.

Student: So, to see the time of gathering as a special time to make an inner change. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:15) The headline of this, the topic of this week is the spiritual power in a physical gathering. I want to ask, why, specifically, when we gather physically, that's the place I have to come and annul myself? Why is that where the powers are, what's the power in the physical meeting? 

M. Laitman: The power that operates on each one in this meeting is the power of collaboration; the connection, cooperativeness, that you all want to reach the same goal.

Student: And it's not something you can get in different connections? 

M. Laitman: How? 

Student: I don't know, a Zoom meeting, other means. 

M. Laitman: I don't see that this can happen. 

Student: Two months from now we have a big Convention. It's something that we're preparing, externally and internally. Why, in a Convention, when we all sit together that is the ideal place to annul our self-love? 

M. Laitman: Because everyone is in the same direction, everyone. More, less, sometimes, sometimes not but basically, all in all, everyone is in the same direction. Same tendency, to annul themselves, each one, annulling themselves before the general connection.

Student: In the gatherings and the convention that is coming, should we always remind ourselves about this? Or just be in the wave of the gathering? 

M. Laitman: I didn't understand. 

Student: I'll go from the small to the big: Let's say today we have a Ten meeting and like the friend said until you come there's heaviness. When you show up, there's already an uplifting, and when you're lifted you can lose the intention. So how do we keep that intention?

M. Laitman: Because it's a sacred time, a gathering of the Ten, together, it's holy. And you need to prepare yourselves for it. To yearn for it, and to wait for it, to expect it. 

Student: But how do we remember it, how do we not lose it? Because if I go to the Congress, the upcoming Congress, the Congress is like an illumination. How do you not lose it? 

M. Laitman: A Convention is something greater, that's why it's more powerful in its magnitude, unless in intention and in inner concentration. But, here, you are in that inner concentration in your Ten, and along with the Ten, you want to incorporate in the others, too. But in order to implement yourself together with the Ten; the Ten is like a wrapping and you, in that wrapping, enter a field that is created by the collective. That's how you have to see it, but the main thing is the intention for connection.

Student: And in the General Assembly, the Ten should, constantly, hold it and remind each person within it. Not to be lost in it, in this high that he is in. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:02) How important is it for the Ten to determine for itself times, like a certain time for the gathering of friends? How important is it to stick with it for the intention because we tell ourselves all the time that the intention is so important to direct ourselves to the Creator, to bestowal, to connection. How important is it, if the Ten decided on a certain schedule to keep that schedule? 

M. Laitman: Look, it's not holiness because the Ten itself can change the date or something. But if everybody already accepted it, so you can't cancel it.

Student: I'm not talking about canceling, I'll tell you why I'm asking because it's to continue what the friend was asking. There's Friday, we're in a process toward the Congress, there's a very strong kind of atmosphere in the society. We want to advance and strengthen ourselves. And the society decided that there's a certain activity on Friday, and after that, we have the Yeshiva Haverim, Assembly of Friends. Can we tell ourselves, now we have a busy day, I think we should move the Assembly of Friends. Or you tell yourself, now here is an opportunity to make an effort, annul myself, although there's an activity in the society, we're going to the Assembly of Friends and we're sticking with it?

M. Laitman: I don't know, you decide. 

Student: You're saying, we can move the Assembly of Friends, It doesn't take away from?

M. Laitman: No, the time itself of the gathering, that's not sacred. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:11) We keep trying to scrutinize what it means to bring contentment to the Creator. And here it says, from the love of friends, he can come to the love of the Creator. Meaning, he wants to bestow contentment to the Creator. So, it turns out that my friends, they, too, are the Creator's contentment?

M. Laitman: Not them, you, together, come to give contentment to the Creator with your deeds. 

Student: In the act of love and unity. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Reader: (21:58) Except 6. RABASH, Article No. 17 (1986), "The Agenda of the Assembly – 2"

When the friends gather in one place, the assembly is certainly for a purpose, since when one allocates part of his time—which he would use for his own needs, relinquishing his engagements, and partaking in an assembly—he wishes to acquire something. Thus, it is important to try that when each of the friends goes home, he should see what he came to the assembly with, and what he has acquired now that he is going home.

M. Laitman: That means that after the Yeshivat Haverim, the Gathering of Friends, each one has to calculate for himself. Supposedly, write in his book what he got from that gathering. In what he got stronger, richer, smarter, and in this way advance from one gathering to the next. Is that clear? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:33) What if he calculates and it comes out negative? 

M. Laitman: That depends on him, as much as he annulled himself towards society, and he gave society an opportunity to bestow upon him. So according to that, he thanks the Creator and society that he was in such a gathering. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:08) I see here, excerpt after excerpt, we can't get away from it. He tells us, calculate, make many calculations: What you gained from the assembly, how dedicated you are, what you do with your free time? The whole lesson, the first part, second part, the whole lesson, today, at least I feel it this way. So, maybe we're missing something? Maybe we should go with a notebook and constantly write down because otherwise, it remains here just in the text.

M. Laitman: It's written, write it, carve it on the tablet of your heart.

Student: So, what, I should just write it on my heart? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: But it means to constantly be in criticism.

M. Laitman: Well, criticism, but that you calculate how you changed and what you did, and so on; this criticism also builds. 

Student: What are we missing if we're not criticizing, making this criticism? 

M. Laitman: We miss out on advancing, we miss out on advancement. We have to make sure we're concerned about the questions, the demands, the problems that will also reveal towards the path, towards the connection. 

Student: He says that most of the time we have to be in wholeness. Criticism is, seemingly, opposite from wholeness. 

M. Laitman: You need time for that, too, it's written, you know, “the 24 hours” and so on.

Student: But here, before the assembly you have to check what you came with; after the assembly, with what you came out, and compare. Every free time you have to check if you're using it correctly or not. Every moment you have to check if you're in devotion or not. In other words, there is a lot more criticism than half an hour a day.

M. Laitman: Correct, that's what you need to do.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:58) It says, write on the tablet of your heart. This is an active action to write on a tablet of your heart?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: I understand when something happens and I'm really inspired, and so passively it's registered in my heart. But what does it mean to actively write down on your heart? 

M. Laitman: It's the same thing, same thing, just that you participate in what we're talking about. Whether you agree with it or not but, in according to that, the writing exists.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:40) Sometimes, at the end of our meetings, we have this round, what we came out from the meeting. Is it good to do it or should we write it down personally in our notebooks? 

M. Laitman: You check it, there's no notebook, it's a person's heart. 

Reader: (28:03)  RABASH, Article No. 30 (1988), "What to Look For in the Assembly of Friends" 

When a group of people gathers and wishes to work together on love of friends, they must all help one another as much as they can.

M. Laitman: Again. 

Reader: RABASH, Article No. 30 (1988), "What to Look For in the Assembly of Friends"

When a group of people gathers and wishes to work together on love of friends, they must all help one another as much as they can.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:54) To continue the friend's question, there are several kinds of criticism. There's criticism? 

M. Laitman: It's different to everyone. 

Student: Well, there's criticism where we, seemingly, criticize someone else, and there's self-criticism. And there's criticism, which is like a comb, where I simply go through everything to see where I am, to measure. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So maybe the half an hour a day that Baal HaSulam talks about, is that kind of criticism?

M. Laitman: I don't know, no, I don't think so. Alright, let's advance and see.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:54) Besides the Assembly of Friends, we have meetings to make decisions and scrutinize. What's the right way to have a meeting for scrutinizing so that we don't end the meeting with our own opinions. But that, although we're incorporated with friends, deficiencies and greatness. But sometimes we start yelling and quarreling, what's the right way to scrutinize these things? 

M. Laitman: There needs to be, at the head of the scrutiny, a person who knows how to conduct a meeting and not that it'll be a mess, that each one just screams and jumps on the other one, and so on. There has to be an order. 

Student: And in the Ten, what's the right way to make a decision? Is it, should we do it according to the majority, the great majority, maybe just 50%? 

M. Laitman: You have to determine that, it also depends on what we're talking about. Sometimes we talk about things that are so important that it can't be the most or three quarters. It has to be everyone, it has to be taken very seriously.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:30) What we read now, that to come to love of friends, we have to help each other as much as we can. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Now, the question is in the Ten, for example, if there are several friends who are going through states, in corporeality or spirituality. There are two things: One is, where's the limit; and Two, are we really helping the friends or are we not? Should we help the friends, shouldn't we? What do we do? 

M. Laitman: You have to determine all of this in the foundations of society. 

Student: As we know, let's say a friend can't come, so we call him, we talk. Someone doesn't show up, so.

M. Laitman: Whichever way you decide.

Student: And if we're not succeeding in helping the friend, so what, we don't reach love of friends? 

M. Laitman: You have to talk between you, it's not for now. Now we're discussing something specific. 

Reader: (33:19) So now, we're continuing with a summary of the main points we heard in the lesson. Summarizing in the Tens, the main points we heard in the lesson.

Question (Petach Tikva Center) (52:54) Update – Ambassadors of Connection Leadership Social Leadership Seminar – Practical Tools for Connection and Bestowal

Reader: (54:50)  One sentence from Rav’s words before conclusion:

“The Ten is like an envelope, in this envelope, it’s like a wrapping. In this wrapping, you enter field that this rule creates, and this is what we should see. That the main thing is the intention for connection.” This concludes the lesson, have a good day!