Morning Lesson November 21, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 1:
Rabash. Article No. 22, 1988. What Are Merits and Iniquities of a Righteous in the Work?
Reading Article: (00:36) It is written in The Zohar, “A complete righteous…”
1. S. (27:35) Good morning, the main question is how to come to the morning lesson, in the ending he writes, “He must clean himself from self-reception. At that time, the abundance, which is the pleasure, does not go to the Klipot, the shells, regarded as reception for oneself. Rather, the abundance will go to Kedusha, holiness because he can aim to benefit the Creator while receiving the pleasure. This is called ‘Eating the food on the pure table.’” How do we leave everything outside and come prepared for the morning lesson?
R. You're asking in practice how we do It?
S. Absolutely.
R. We have been preparing ourselves for that since yesterday when we go to sleep, in the morning when we wake up when one cleans himself, then we come to the lesson. It all depends on the person's thoughts; everything will be clarified in the thought.
S. I see two qualities in me. One with what I wish to arrive and the other, what I did not wish to bring to the meeting. The rest of the day I will take care of myself later. I want to be open to the friends and to you, that's very clear. Receiving what he is receiving is not important. Once I come to the lesson and feel that you're part of a vessel that has a greater role. How can I grow that each time?
R. When you are responsible for everyone.
S. I am responsible for everyone?
R. Yes.
2. S. (30:13) He writes that when a small one serves the great one, he gets pleasure from it, he doesn't need any reward. In the end, he writes, once he wants to work for the sake of the Creator there is equivalence of form. It doesn't work out for me, how come the greatness of the Creator is not considered a vessel of reception? There's a reason for which he's working and for which he derives pleasure from the work.
R. That his work is seemingly to fulfill the Creator.
S. It turns him into the bestower and the Creator into the receiver?
R. Yes.
S. There's no pleasure for himself when he feels the Creator.
R. How can they be a pleasure for oneself? That is the biggest Klipa.
S. This danger does not exist?
R. It exists, that is why we are coming closer to it. Gradually, gradually coming closer to bestowal. Because in bestowal you have much greater pleasures than you have in reception.
S. What turns the work into the benefit of the Creator?
R. The intention in order to bestow contentment upon Him.
S. Only the intention?
R. Only? This determines your entire direction, where your heart is and your mind, the action.
S. There's no pleasure in the intention of aiming to bestow to the Creator?
R. These are pleasures that bestow upon the Creator. But these are pleasures that are not revealed in the vessels of reception, it already stems from the vessel of bestowal.
S. It's not clear. Why these pleasures do not expand in the vessels of reception? What makes it?
R. Because what would be the reason, the cause, you receiving pleasures in the vessels of bestowal? So how could you enjoy it from the vessels of reception?
S. What is considered the vessel of his bestowal?
R. The vessel of bestowal is the intention in order to bestow.
3. S. (33:00) It says that they throw him from the king's palace, the place of litter, the place of waste, meaning the pleasures that he receives from self-gratification, is thrown into the dark and it's suitable only for the animate and not for speaking. When he's in the place of litter like an animal?
R. Then he feels where he is, and he has in relation to that a response that he wants to come out of there?
S. The desire to come out of there, what's the profit from the effort, and the next moment, tomorrow, the next state starts again? Is he in the place of litter?
R. That we don't know but there are calculations for each and everything.
S. Inside the litter is the place of waste for animals. That is what we have to hold on in our heads? The recognition of this lowliness is what I'm gathering each time in waste that I'm going to recognize how much I am a waste?
R. I don't want to be a waste or garbage, I want to be above it.
S. Right, then I reveal myself in this place of waste?
R. Right, but then I make an effort to come out, try to come out.
S. How do you make an effort?
R. Through the environment through connection with the others that will help me.
4. S. (35:08) What does it mean to receive the reward in Bina? In the next world, how do we imagine it to ourselves?
R. Afterwards, after the correction.
S. To receive our reward in the next world?
R. To receive a reward in the next world is considered after correction.
S. How do we correct this reception?
R. How do we correct all of the vessels? They're revealed gradually to the extent that a person can overcome them.
5. S (36:05) Why is it that only he who judges himself, gives contentment to the Creator and not to himself?
R. Why only?
S. One who judges himself with judgment or merit as long as he's able to receive with the intention to bestow contentment to the maker and not for his own pleasure.
R. Judges himself, it is all according to a person's judgment and how he feels himself, and accordingly decides what he needs to do.
S. One who is envious of the light of Hochma and the one who is wide-hearted is Hassadim generous, I mean.
R. Yes.
6. S. (37:15) Is written in the end that a person has to cleanse himself of self-reception, in the middle space he feels a certain emptiness in this life, and he cleanses his vessel of reception. Does he feel emptiness?
R. It depends on what state he is in. There are states where he reaches a correction from being empty and there are states where he reaches correction even when he has bitterness.
S. How does he come clean to the work?
R. When he wants to empty himself from everything that he previously had and turn all these vessels to be in order to bestow.
7. S. (38:20) How can we understand this intermediate that he's talking about?
R. That is between this and that.
S. We learn that a person should always see himself as half on the path. So, our path is intermediate or what?
R. Well actually it's better to see oneself as being in the middle line.
8. S. (39:02) How can you see himself in the middle line if he sees that he's unable to be a worker of the Creator, but he works for himself so where is the intermediate in here?
R. The fact that he sees himself as receiving for himself then, you're right, he can't. Then he sees that he is wicked and that he is still in the will to receive.
S. What will be with him?
R. What will be with him, he will complete working. Even on the contrary, if he's shown where he is and what he needs to correct that's even better. He needs to be grateful and satisfied.
9. S. (40:10) Why the created being must care about the Sitra Achra, the other side, even when he is living in the last waters meaning the filth, why just not let it disappear?
R. You can't.
S. He's my enemy, why can't I?
R. Because you can't cancel him completely; he needs to be as the Achoraim, the posterior, as the ending of every degree.
S. Let it be so but why do I need to help him? Why do I need to think of him, give him something that will go against me?
R. Have you ever said a blessing after the meal?
S. I did.
R. Did you do the last waters of the tradition?
S. Yes, but these waters I pour out, I don't give it to anyone.
R. But still you're doing some action that is necessary, that is required after every prayer, every blessing. In other words, you agree that with all actions there is also a part of the vessel of reception because all of the vessels of bestowal are built upon them, and you need to say thank you to them.
S. Even when I'm resisting, there is no reason for me to destroy it or to ignore it, one against the other was created?
R. No, no, that is creation.
10. S. (42:08) What does it mean to have an iniquity on the path, what is the feeling of an iniquity?
R. The feeling I can say.
S. What does it mean to have an iniquity, not a feeling but an action?
R. To transgress is to fall from in order to bestow to in order to receive.
S. Like making the effort to bestow to come closer to the Creator and the friends and what I feel, like I have no strength and I'm not asking from the Creator, does it mean that I'm causing an iniquity?
R. Yes, the fact that you are not asking.
S. Can I ask another question?
R. Yes.
S. It says that if the whole world would work in bestowal, then the existence of the world be in corporeality.
R. This world would also be a world of bestowal. Yes.
S. Meaning the entire world will be at the end of correction?
R. Yes. Something like that.
11. S. (43:27) Rabash gives us many definitions, what is a house, what is a table, what is this world, the next world, he looks at things from many angles and we are trying to understand it through the ten, everything. So, can we say that there's a state where the ten is justified or condemned, of course by the perception of man, is the ten now a table full of goods or…?
R. Yes, these are all the relations between the friends that stabilize the connection between a person and the Creator.
S. How do we add it in the article?
R. Add what?
S. In the article it says, a person, his attitude, and the Creator, period. It’s not mentioning forgiving, we learned it orally not by the text, even when we are reading TES or the Zohar. What is the correct way of adding it to the ten, what are the correct words?
R. It exists in our attitude not words, so clothe words into that.
S. Can you add something here to it?
R. Me personally? No, no that’s the Torah by heart, meaning you need to add it yourself, It is the spoken Torah.
12. S. (45:25) In the preparation for a meal or for some action of connection between us we have to be cleansed before, to cleanse ourselves, and at the end when we come out of this action, we need to see that the filthy part went to the Sitra Achra, why? I expect that at the end of this action, we will see wholeness, that we have reached a connection?
R. Connection, yes, but when you worked on these connections, I'm sure you had words, thoughts, intentions, and desires that aren’t joined into the connection, and you are correcting them; that's called, the Last Waters. Meaning that you are giving a blessing and asking for forgiveness for the parts that you haven’t been able to correct; that not all 100% of the light that came to you, you were able to receive in order to bestow.
13. S. (46:37) In order to receive sustenance from the Creator he writes to us that we have to cleanse the vessels of reception. Purifying these vessels is that the work with the ten?
R. Primarily, yes.
14. S. (47:08) He writes that his iniquities are down below in this world, meaning that when his pleasure is in the vessels of reception this is called punishment for him.
What is the attitude towards these things? I truly enjoy certain sports, so I'm going to feel punished. Does he speak about things like that, these kinds of pleasures?
R. Pleasure that doesn't contribute to connection. In other words, to the correction of the vessels, are pleasure which are wrong.
S. Meaning if these pleasures deviate from the work, from connection, from the thought of the purpose of creation?
R. Yes.
S. Now when I come to a meeting with the friends, what is the difference in the feeling of pleasure, what scrutiny do I make? What pleasure do I want to reach in the meeting with the friends?
R. That you enjoy being together and you are willing to give all of your strength for the connection of the friends.
S. Before the meeting I had a feeling of rejection, I didn’t want to enter the zoom meeting.
It shows me on the one hand, that I'm not connected, you don't see that the friends are great, what is the scrutiny to enter the meeting with the feeling that I'm rejected by that, I don't want it?
R. You ask to have the strength to overcome this rejection in this connection and still try, still try, and connect.
S. Sometimes I feel that maybe I should just connect, close my eyes, and just throw myself at the hands of the friends.
R. Try it that way.
15. S. (50:05) I heard that you said that pleasures that don't contribute to connection should be disqualified, it turns out that 99.9% of my life is disqualified.
R. If you don't make an intention on them, to reach the purpose of life of course they are not related to life.
S. That’s one thing, and if I discover this bad pleasure that keeps me far from the purpose that serves me, it creates a yearning to turn to the Creator so that He will correct it?
R. I don't know.
S. I'm asking?
R. How do I know? Ask yourself.
S. I don't feel comfortable, let’s say if I go to a sports activity and feel that it doesn't advance me this pleasure, it doesn't advance me to the purpose of life. If I feel it as bad, that’s already advancing me, right?
R. It does not advance because what positive force is there here for you to advance? But still, it protects you, so you won't fall into an opposite form.
S. This too I manage to understand somehow. I'm going back to a friend’s
question, when I live in this filth called pleasures of self-love, it feels like pleasure, not like waste, and I come to the lesson and I hear that I live in garbage, I understand that, but it doesn’t feel this way. I don't feel like I have to come out of this waist, how do you escape that state?
R. What are you asking about?
S. How do we come out of it? How do we escape?
R. You pray. If it’s not in your own forces, then all you have left is to pray. Like a little kid, if he doesn’t know what to do, he cries and screams.
S. He cries and screams because he is not comfortable in this state and he wishes to reach a different state, but if he’s comfortable?
R. If it’s comfortable for him he doesn't cry. If he really needs to help a person He helps, and if he doesn't, He doesn't.
16. S. (52:45) I remember about 30 years ago, we were in a state, on the verge that we couldn't bear, we left everything, our properties, and we just ran off, why? We needed to take care of our lives, we ran and came to Israel. All these scrutinies don't feel important. That's why we ask these questions, why like this, why like that, why do I feel this way? We have to reach such a degree of suffering that a person feels the need to be drawn in the wrong direction.
R. Even by that, you have already made great corrections. You fled, you let go and you’re not sorry about it.
S. Here now in our state, before you reach a state where you are poked from behind and receive more kicks, how do you give the friends the right discernments, so there will be no doubt?
R. I don't know what exactly you mean.
S. I understand that we must go through corrections we must go for the discernments, how to hold on, it’s what we learned yesterday and today, that grip that we receive from above that is the only way, the way of love of others, love of friends, and not to look for something else, how to make sure the intention and the prayer that is our only weapon like Baal HaSulam writes, “It is the only weapon we have.” Not to leave this direction and that’s it.
R. Not to leave.
17. S. (55:18) To continue the friend, it says that those people who do not enter the world of bestowal, this person can never see that he’s a complete wicked. That we can’t see the truth before we see the world of bestowal. So, this recognition of the evil of the complete wicked is only after you make all the efforts and you want to bestow?
R. According to his efforts to reach bestowal he sees that he is still in the vessels of reception and by that, he determines that he is evil.
S. That is what gives him the motivation to ask, to want to come out of this state?
R. Yes.
S. Complete wicked is a necessary state?
R. Of course, of course.
18. S. (56:28) It says here that the person needs to say this is the table before the Creator because a table means the place of the sustenance of a person. It is written that the table is close to his father’s table and is close to others' tables. What does the table of his father and the table of others mean?
R. That what he receives, he can only receive from his father and the others who taught him and connected him to the truth.
S. So, the others are a good context?
R. Teachers, yes.
19. S. (57:30) Question from the congress, how do we draw the light of mercy, Hesed? What is the difference between extending the light of Hassadim and the light of Hochma?
R. We draw the light of Hassadim by the connection between us. Then we have mutual help, mutual giving and it allows the light of Hassadim to appear.
20. S. (58:24) When a person lets go of these temporary forms, we read in the article that he reaches this equivalence with the light, then it returns out that he starts bestowing in places that there’s no taste, no smell, an empty place, and that is the last wall of the ego that needs to be broken.
R. I didn’t understand.
S. It says that they gave up the initial form of the ego in relation to our word and afterward they reach what is an empty table and the Kli in the first degree that is ready to resemble the light, in the time of the purification and from the same intermediate forces we already become bestowing upon them. Then we reach the first form, and the first form is equivalence of form.
R. We come to the form of bestowal, pure bestowal.
S. When can you say that the ego, this wall of the ego is broken down?
R. We destroy this wall only at the end of correction.
S. Is this the work that is always ahead of us?
R. Yes.
21. S. (01:00:25) You said that we need to be grateful for the ego, for the evil inclination, because it's the foundation of the building. On the other hand, we have to be sorry for not being willing to receive the illumination in order to bestow. How to correctly find the form of using the ego and bestowal.
R. We need to use the entire force of bestowal and eventually the entire force of reception in order to adhere to the Creator between us. There are such conditions between us in which the Creator is revealed, and we will be connected with Him.
S. In this connection of the correction with the Creator, how can I receive this part from Him and this part not to be able to receive? Do I need to be able to receive or become further from Him or to be only with the intention?
R. You feel it according to what is revealed in you.
S. What needs to be revealed in me for me to feel this?
R. Knowledge, reason, and dots have to be revealed in you.
S. Does the Creator help in that? He shows it to a person?
R. Of course, you would not be able to advance without it.
22. S. (01:02:04) He says that we need to purify ourselves, we have many desires that we can't be purified from in our life that we pray for that we still have not gotten rid of. What does it mean to purify ourselves as a Rabash is telling us to do? Because we don't feel that we are purified?
R. Yes, you have to continue, you have to keep going. We have to keep going until we feel ourselves without any connection to our ego.
S. What do we need to do with the thoughts that we cannot let go of in the desires even if we tried to do it many times?
R. If you advance towards that, you will begin to understand what the options are here. To move away from them, to invert them, to destroy them, all kinds of forms of correction.
23. S. (01:03:35) What are the transgressions and hell?
R. Iniquities and Hell are those desires to receive that are unable to be corrected for the time being and they remain in the posterior to our vessels. This is how we advance and gradually they also enter corrections and are incorporated there.
24. S. (01:04:12) Why does the Creator only turn a complete wicked to a complete righteous?
R. To the extent that person reveals his vessels and raises them to be corrected, accordingly he sees himself more as a righteous and as a wicked. It all depends on the discernment in the person.
25. S. (01:04:56) How to correctly give a part that belongs to the Sitra Achra? There are times when you just cannot move.
R. If you cannot move then come closer to your friends. You will have the power and the discernment, and you will be able to move.
S. But this intention is like with the last waters. How to correctly give the Sitra Achra, the other side?
R. How to give it? A person who is going through states, where he needs to reveal the Sitra Achra, the other side, and how he is organizing it. You can see how you do it, it has to be arranged as the posterior of the good state of the correction.
26. S. (01:06:11) Can we say that the wicked is in connection with the Creator where you feel your oppositeness from the Creator?
R. Yes.
S. If Lo Lishma is the evil then Lishma is the righteous?
R. Yes.
S. No translation.
R. Lishma in order to bestow.
S. But our work is stabilized so that we need to be with intention in order to reach the love of friends and to reach Lishma. How to not get confused between these two things and how to connect them together?
R. Of course they connect together there's no contradiction between them.
S. Reaching the love of the friends is that reaching for Lishma?
R. Partially.
S. After this we reach the love of the Creator which is the complete form?
R. Yes, that's what it says.
27. S. (01:07:40) Does a person feel shame on the table of the Creator?
R. No, only at the Creator's table he does not feel any shame, only adhesion in the Creator. And a great gratitude to the Creator for bringing him closer. It is a little like what kids feel when they are next to their parents. They feel no shame. This is how a person feels, not exactly, but you see some similarities.
28. S. (01:08:38) Those of us in the path of the Torah, what level are we at complete righteous, complete wicked, or are we in the middle intermediate?
R. We need to hold ourselves and maintain ourselves in the state of the wicked, except to make sure that this state does not drop us so that we will not feel ourselves totally powerless.
29. S. (01:09:31) The question is about the last waters, if we put the intention on the action and at the end, we will feel that we succeeded 90% and 10% remains that we did not succeed. What am I praying for because I want to succeed and cancel the remaining 10%? We are actually not blessing them. Why do I need to give them, I want to overcome them as well.
R. You bless over what the Creator has done for you, and to you because what He has done for you is exactly what is right and is measured exactly so that you cannot receive more than you have no power for it, no vessel for it, but what you did receive is exactly what you needed in order to advance and take the next step.
30. S. (01:10:44) In this article what words does he say about the middle line if he even says?
R. I don't know, he does not say.
31. S. (01:11:04) We usually learn about what we haven’t yet attained. The question is, what else are we lacking in order to be rewarded with attaining the study?
R. We don’t know.
32. S. (01:11:30) What is a person's sustenance of a complete righteous, his living?
R. A complete righteous, his sustenance, his nourishment is when all the lights that come to correct, to scrutinize the created being they all pass through him; he receives everyone's reward.
33. S. (01:12:05) How to keep the intention in the lesson if the Creator sends me disturbing things?
R. Whatever the Creator sent is not a disturbance even though it might seem to you like that, rather it is help from above, so accept it, try to listen, to see, to feel the Creator's attitude through the disturbances, disturbances in quotation marks.
34. S. (01:12:57) How should my heart be as a temple?
R. In my heart I need to try and connect with the whole world, at least start with my friends and thus, in this way, this means that my heart will be a holy instrument, a holy means in connection with others.
35. S. (01:13:54) Why let's say before, with a meal, we should clean the filth of the hands after the meal and not before the meal and give this to the Sitra Achra after the meal and not before the meal?
R. Before the meal we didn’t perceive to receive nor to bestow, before the meal we try to receive everything in order to bestow, and because there is a possibility that we did not receive everything in order to bestow and there is something that eluded us and got into in order to receive, that is why in the blessing over the food, we have this blessing over the water as well.
S. Is there a link to washing your hands before you eat?
R. The washing of the hands before the meal is about our vessels, on our vessels on our hands, the vessels of reception that they will be in order to bestow, and after the meal is if we missed what one of the intentions in order to bestow, we wish to correct it at the end of the meal.
36. S. (01:15:52) How can we understand that it is the time to give to the Sitra Achra, to give it what it deserves?
R. We do not want to give anything to the Sitra Achra, but we can’t help it. Besides, there is a thought that it is necessary to nourish her because she helps us distinguish between impurity and holiness, reception, and bestowal, so this commandment applies to everyone.
37. S. (01:16:56) What do we feel when the pleasure goes into the Klipot?
R. The Klipot, the shells want to receive the pleasure from bestowal, for them it is a great asset, so we should try not to receive it.
38. S. (01:17:50) How can I reach a feeling that there is a need to sit at the Creator’s table?
R. It is according to your heart, it is according to your heart.
39. S. (01:18:10) What does the state of sinners or wicked give us that we have to feel we are in?
R. To know exactly how wicked we are.
40. S. (01:18:36) Could we say that we feel the spiritual world when there is completely no pleasure and is it felt like death?
R. Still, if I am in a group, it is possible to advance in it, even from that state.
41. S. (01:19:16) Is it possible to correct a desire that has already left our world and is not in the body?
R. No, it is impossible, it is impossible.
42. S. (01:19:47) If a person has already sinned and fallen into the Sitra Achra, the other side, how to work correctly between the righteous and the wicked in order to take him out of there and correct him?
R. It is possible to bring out the wicked through the righteous.
S. What should I awaken in me at that moment, how should I wake in the righteous one?
R. For this we were given the environment, the friends.
43. S. (01:20:29) How to always hold ourselves in the state of the wicked without falling and feeling that we have no forces?
R. We have to approach the scrutiny from the perspective of the righteous in a person.
S. What does that mean?
R. That he wants to achieve corrections, and this is why he works this way.
S. When the wicked in a person, the evil inclination grows more?
R. There's nothing you can do, only the society can help him from outside.
S. How does a person awaken the righteous point in him?
R. Awaken it?
S. Yes, how do you balance it?
R. Through prayer, through study, through all kinds of states where he wants to connect to holiness. Clear?
44. S. (01:21:43) Continuing the student, when the righteous scrutinizes he discovers that he's wicked, he discovers how everything is taken into the vessels of reception, so how do I come out of this loop?
R. You don’t come out, you were there before as well, you are only scrutinizing how much you have from the righteous side and the side of the wicked.
S. But then you just see how your vessels are developing and developing, what should come against it?
R. Experience, experience.
S. Is there something that we could develop that?
R. Yes, you're given from above all kinds of forms of help, lessons, the friends, and the group, you have many things you can hold onto and advance.
S. What is the point of prayer for a person?
R. That you want to be at the center of the group.
45. S. (01:23:15) You said that we should be cautious that the feeling of the evil won’t knock us down, but how to do it when we have to keep the spirits in the ten and where should we take the forces from?
R. You pray, ask, cry, like that.
S. There is a common state in myself, let’s say I think it's pretty common for everybody, that you do the right actions but even to call it a wicked is a compliment because it's not a wicked, it’s not a righteous, it's just emptiness and it takes a lot of percentages even when you're working in the ten, even during the question that I'm asking now, the heart is empty, it’s not scrutinized, it’s not going left, right or middle, it's not even an intermediate state, it’s just zero.
R. Keep going. My advice is only to keep going and that's it, it's called anything but leave.
46. S. (01:24:38) Continuing what the friends are asking, if a person gets help from the Creator, he gets fear but in his will to receive he feels it as help because now his heart is ready to work and he can do action, but on the other hand he understands that it helps but it hurts in his will to receive and it forces a person to scrutinize how I’m in such a fear that won’t be painful, could there be such a fear?
R. Yes, a person does many things automatically through his will to receive.
S. How do you develop from a state where a person sees that he is imprisoned because the Creator’s pressing him inside his corporeal will to receive and he wants to come out of the state, he wants to develop to a higher fear, how do you develop to a higher fear than that?
R. Higher fear develops in a person through, how should I put it, though, by bringing his heart closer to the heart of the group. That’s it. He is simply drawn on and attaches himself to the heart of the group.
S. Is that also a moment that a person feels that he understands the meaning of fear as much as he needs it for advancement?
R. Yes.
S. So that is the force that helps him to adhere to the group and attain a greater fear, right? Through adhering to the group, he can advance.
R. By adhering to the group he gets help from the Creator and then he advances.
S. But for now in order to be able to adhere to the group he has to use this fear?
R. Yes.
47. S. (01:26:55) It is written, “You cannot see the truth before you enter the work of bestowal.” You cannot see the truth before you enter the work of bestowal, so is that the root of all of our problems?
R. Yes.