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

Daily Lesson (Morning) January 15, 2025.

Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]. #10.

Reader: Hello, today, we'll be reading from the writings of Baal HaSulam. We'll be reading the article “Matan Torah” [The Giving of the Torah], continuing from Item 10. You can find all of our texts on kabbalahmedia.info, as well as the Arvut system where you can also send us questions. 

Reader: TheWritings of Baal HaSulam, Matan Torah – The Giving of the Torah, Item 10.

Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah] 10

Reading: (00:47) This is what gives us the foul taste of shame and impatience when we receive from others by way of charity, because in the Creator there is no such thing as reception of favors, as from whom would He receive? Because this element does not exist in our Root, we feel it as repulsive and loathsome. On the other hand, we feel delight and pleasure every time we bestow upon others since that conduct exists in our Root, which gives to all. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:22) Something that is the conduct of our root, is that something we ascribe to Him or is that something we should? 

M. Laitman: We have to connect to our spiritual root — that's the Creator, and then we'll feel how much more steps we need to make to reach the root. 

Reader: Next, Item 11.

Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah] 

Reading: (03:05) Now we have found a way to examine the purpose of creation, which is to cling unto Him, in its true appearance. This exaltedness and Dvekut, which is guaranteed to come to us through our work in Torah and Mitzvot, is no more and no less than the equivalence of the branches with their Root. All the gentleness and pleasure and sublimity become a natural extension here, as we have said above, 1) that pleasure is only the equivalence of form with the Maker. When we equalize in every conduct with our Root, we sense delight. 2) Everything we encounter that is not in our Root becomes intolerable, disgusting, or considerably painful to us, as is necessitated by that concept. And we naturally find that our very hope depends on the extent of our equivalence of form with our Root. 

M. Laitman: Meaning, this is the path that each and every moment, we have to try and get closer to our root, to the Creator. Accordingly, we feel how much we become included in Him and how much have we done. That's the only thing we should be concerned about. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center):(06:02) He describes a state, as I understand it, where the pleasure and the suffering are one-to-one with bestowal and reception. Bestowal generates pleasure and reception generates suffering. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: What about all the intermediary stages where the system isn't yet arranged that way, it's actually the opposite? Bestowal generates suffering meaning it's felt as suffering, as a lack because the receiver doesn't want to bestow. In the same way, reception gives one pleasure. The system isn't yet arranged such that the lie is bitter and the truth is sweet but the other way around. What about that stage, how does the inversion of these values occur?

M. Laitman: We have to make exercises – to do exercises – that even though reception brings us pleasure and bestowal the opposite, we have to still try and be drawn to actions that are spiritual, that will bring us closer to our root. Then that will be pleasurable to us; the opposite actions, that we’ll feel them as sorrow and unpleasantness. 

Student: What exercises could those be, because the sweetness and the bitterness, they're felt within the desire. You don't need exercises for that?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: How to perform such exercises which go against how you feel which, that's all we have in our current perception of reality? 

M. Laitman: We are not talking about doing exercises that are actually against our nature. Of course, we're still weak for that but, rather that we have to perform such exercises that reception of pleasures will happen in getting closer to the Creator. And the opposite will be moving away from the Creator.

Student: You need to work in a positive manner, not to reject the pleasure?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Rather to perform such exercises which will make me feel pleasure in bestowal, that's the only direction? It's not worthwhile to go?

M. Laitman: I understand that if we bring pleasures closer, we'll feel bitter. Then, in reception we'll feel bitter and in bestowal we'll feel sweet.

Student: Is it worthwhile to perform such exercises, as well? 

M. Laitman: This needs to be among the friends who are in a single society and then they can do that, one towards the other.

Student: Both directions, both approaches, are viable?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Now, on a practical level, how should such an exercise look? 

M. Laitman: Let's say, from this moment on, we try to establish a state where getting closer between us, in thought or in practice, brings us a sense of pleasure; and moving away brings the opposite. 

Student: Right, and what should the society tell me? We need to talk about this? Do we need to…

M. Laitman: We need to talk about it and we need to do it. 

Student: At the stage where it still felt opposite, not the way we want, where bestowal is felt like pleasure?

M. Laitman: So, we're going to work against the pleasant things and try to find that pleasantness in getting closer to each other.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:22) Baal HaSulam says that there are matters which apply to our roots and matters which don't exist in our roots. In the process of equivalence of form, what exactly happens? Do the opposite qualities vanish, those which do not apply to the root? Or do they remain but take on a new form? What exactly happens throughout the process?

M. Laitman: When we begin to get closer to each other and we want to bring closer the states where we are naturally far from each other. Then it's clear to us that we need to do some actions here that will give each one a correct impression. That, the more we become close to each other, that will give us pleasure. And the farther we are from each other, opposite to each other, that will be felt in us as the appearance of troubles. And if so, we can act it out between us; and therefore, this is how we can reveal pleasure and suffering, respective to our closeness or remoteness from each other. Then we will do sufficient exercises, so that nature will dwell in us.

Student: That's the equation, we need to feel pleasure from connection and suffering from a lack of connection between us?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: If I feel, well, not suffering but I also don't feel pleasure in the connection? 

M. Laitman: To the extent that you will try, forcefully, to feel that, by that, you summon the upper light that will work on you and change your nature. That's how you'll enter a world of relationships, that's built on getting closer rather than farther.

Student: What exercises should we do so as to get closer to feel it?

M. Laitman: Love their friend as thyself. 

Student: What happens with the opposite qualities? What happens with things which do not apply to the root? What happens with them; what will happen with them when we connect? As he explained here, he mentioned impatience. What, it should invert somehow when we connect or vanish? 

M. Laitman: This needs to slowly disappear and we also need to feel them, to feel them, as we get farther away from that. 

Student: So, it's not a thing that remains, that we rise above? It's something that disappears completely? 

M. Laitman: It remains and we rise above it until it disappears. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:34) What is the purpose of the exercise? 

M. Laitman: That, we will feel, taste, what are actions of connection and against connection. So it's clear to us that we are able to transform the form of reception to the form of bestowal.

Student: The exercise will always be contrary to our nature? 

M. Laitman: We'll see, we will have to push our way into the relationship of the desires to bestow. And come out of the control of the desires to receive. 

Student: If I understand correctly, what characterizes this exercise is that we take something from Baal HaSulam or Rabash, and we try to act it out in the relationships between us?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It doesn't matter if we're in that right now or not?

M. Laitman: It doesn't matter. 

Student: Most likely, we're not there yet?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: We want to take that and put it into practice?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: As part of that process, is there some stage where we find that we're not there yet, that we're not applying this? 

M. Laitman: Of course, it will be the case to begin with. Even before we try, we already feel that it's against us. But to the extent that we do want to determine such a relationship between us, then we will also feel how much we could bridge or rise above the disparity between us and achieve equivalence.

Student: What is our work when we discover that we're not there yet, in that state Baal HaSulam or Rabash describe? 

M. Laitman: Continue with, forcefully. 

Student: If you can perhaps define what “forcefully” means.

M. Laitman: “Forcefully” means that, even though I feel how difficult it is for me to be close to the others, I try to be close with him and cancel the concept of others. 

Student: Doing this forcefully, that attracts the reforming light?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, it's like an equation: We set the desired state, we find the contrast between us and the desired state. We act forcefully, and then we draw the reforming light and we return again and again. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:21) I heard you say that despite feeling how difficult it is for me to be close to others, I try forcefully to be close to them and to try to annul the concept of other. Forcefully, to come closer, that much I can understand from our work, that is the work. What does it mean to annul the concept, to cancel the concept of other? What, I'm supposed to feel that he is me? 

M. Laitman: No, no, that he's close; that he's a friend, that we're close. 

Student: That we share the same goal, even if he seems opposite to me?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Alright, I understand. 

M. Laitman: Every one of us has such examples in our relationship with others.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:34) I'm actually concerned about the people who are far, far away, who don't arrive here, who don't follow the lesson schedule and so on. You said that we need to perform actions when we feel distant. What actions should we perform when we feel distant? 

M. Laitman: As if we are close.

Student: But he's distant, I call him, I try to find out what's happening with the friend, how I can help him. But I see there's no reply, I pray also in a way which I think can bring the friend closer to me, to the Ten. You said I need to receive certain impressions from these actions by which I want to bring the friend closer, bring the friend close to here. What kind of impressions – a personal impression, private, or for the whole Ten?

M. Laitman: That you get closer to a friend, and you embrace him, and you try to bring him closer to those values that you're in. Then, together, you're embarking on a new path.

Student: He writes, here, that we're guaranteed, if we perform the actions of Torah and commandments and so on. He promises that we get to Lishma.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How can we strengthen that guarantee? How can we tell each other that, yes, this is what we're promised, this will happen, let's just go for it? This confidence, maybe it's faith, maybe it's borders on faith, right? If we all together believe that what he promises us here will happen, it’ll happen. We just need to make the efforts.

M. Laitman: What he writes, we can do between us.

Student: Yes, so there are friends who you see believe this more and do everything possible. And there are friends who let go - whatever comes, comes. I'm in a certain state and whatever happens, happens.

M. Laitman: But when we are in a single group, several dozens of people, then we can determine this kind of custom among us, habit. That we try to bring each one closer to the circle.

Student: What outcome should we see from these exercises, by which we want to bring those who are distant, closer?

M. Laitman: That we will feel like we are all existing in a single circle. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:57) I wanted to ask about the matter of pleasure. What is pleasure? Is it the intensity of connection we reach through equivalence of form? Or is it force drawn from the Creator which stands on its own? 

M. Laitman: Pleasure is the fulfillment of the desire. 

Student: What is the desire filled by, the connection itself or is it the Creator doing it?

M. Laitman: What he's drawn to, that's what fulfills him. 

Student: Is there fulfillment for the desire in reality, in existence, a force that fills it? Or do all pleasures actually come from connection? 

M. Laitman: All of the pleasures are the essence of the connection that can only be between the Giver and the receiver. 

Student: Why do we have such a strong illusion that we're being fulfilled by something tangible and not by the relationship between the Giver and the receiver? 

M. Laitman: Well, that's our nature. It's difficult for us to believe that we can be in pleasures of bestowal. That's the main thing, it's opposite to our nature.

Student: The last thing—because it's truly a very strong illusion—how can it be that the desire is fulfilled by connection and not by substance, something tangible? It's the will to receive?

M. Laitman: That we have examples for even in our world, for sure. Friendship, friends who fulfill each other by their connection. They do something together, they hang out, they have a good time. 

Student: In our world, let's say, you give someone a gift - you gave him a thing. And then the receiver is focused on what he's receiving. It's very hard for him to rise towards the one who gave him the gift, to identify that?

M. Laitman: It's possible, though. 

Student: It's possible, so I'm asking how to build a relationship around that and not things, items, that we pass to each other, so to speak?

M. Laitman: It all depends on the subtlety of the soul of the person. Perhaps, he doesn't feel anything that is done for him, typically, that's difficult people. Bit by bit, they begin to become refined and then they feel relations from their friends, even in very subtle things. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:35) I heard you say that, by nature, we cannot believe that we can enjoy pleasures from bestowal. How can we make ourselves believe that? 

M. Laitman: Just to cause that. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us to gather in a single society and try to determine such a relationship between us, that we will give fulfillment. Each one to his friends, as much as possible.

Student: Then the influence of the environment causes that to happen? Pleasures from bestowal that feels egoistic because I enjoy bestowing upon someone. It's inside the ego, no?

M. Laitman: Yes, yes. Go ahead.

Student: So, what's the difference between an egoistic pleasure from bestowal and spiritual pleasure from bestowal? 

M. Laitman: Pleasure from bestowal is, let's say, permitted pleasure, let's define it that way; and pleasure of reception is forbidden. The more we do similar exercises, then we will feel the connection between us, the oppositeness between us. And we'll truly get closer to bestowal and reception. 

Student: But, bestowal, nonetheless, is such that I bestow and I enjoy bestowing? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:37) A person has all sorts of circles around him in his life and he relates to each circle differently. He has his close family, friends from work, childhood friends, and so on, many circles. There's a very special circle called the friends in the Ten. The attitude, the relationship with them is different. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It's very much felt that it's a different kind of relationship. Can you perhaps explain what's unique about that relationship, opposite every other circles in life? 

M. Laitman: In all the circles, the person relates to his friends according to corporeal pleasures. As much as he can enjoy along with them, in all the pleasures that he can find in circles with friends on the path. Then he stops taking into account how pleasant or unpleasant he feels but rather how much can he push himself forward towards closeness to the Creator, towards getting close to the Creator. Or with respect to pleasure, that's how he advances.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (32:47) Yesterday, quite often, actually, in recent times, you mentioned how the connection between us is all about love, ultimately, we need to reach love. Can we say that this is the thing that's so special about the connection with the friends? That our goal is to reach a state where you have these people who are completely foreign to you, strangers, who have been connected together as a group and ultimately need to feel love for them, right? Can you say that that's the special thing? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Now, this love, can you perhaps talk about it a bit? Elaborate, tell us what this love is?

M. Laitman: No, I won't be able to explain it because it comes by upper influence. 

Student: The word “love”, we use it in a million different situations but this is a different kind of love. 

M. Laitman: It's a different love and the attitude is also such that we take it from different places.

Student: Now, we discussed exercises, and one of those exercises we try to do in the Tens is where the desires, the needs of the friends become important to me. Every little thing, let's say, a person even lacks income, right, his income is low or whatever, I try to relate to the friend and above my own situation. 

M. Laitman: Right. 

Student: When we do that and I try to care about the friend because he lacks income, so, do I need to think about how I'm doing this to get closer to the Creator all the time. Or should I actually think about just the friend, so it's better for him? What is the right intention here?

M. Laitman: The right intention is that you include, if we can put it that way, the Creator. That the Creator is present; that in your intention you wish to include His force towards unity and love. 

Student: Is it right that the Creator should be the goal and not the friend? That's what confuses me a little.

M. Laitman: Yes, yes.

Student: That's what turns these relations in the Ten spiritual, that our intention ultimately is the Creator? We have the friends, here, but is it right to say that? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:42) Perhaps to focus more on the question: What's the difference between wanting bestowal and wanting pleasure from bestowal?

M. Laitman: To want bestowal means you want to resemble someone who's making such an action and you too want to resemble it, to be in the same action. And the pleasure of bestowal is already according to the subtlety of the vessels — to what extent you can have the same feeling as he does, and try to advance.

Student: You could look at it as though pleasure is just just an outcome because the purpose of creation is to do good, to please the created beings, so the created beings feel pleasure from, as Baal HaSulam tells us, equivalence of form. I hear what you're saying but, still, it's hard for me to understand. Because what, ultimately, draws the person, attracts the person, is pleasure, even if it's from bestowal. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: To delight the Creator and so, ultimately, it all becomes one, all this?

M. Laitman: When a person enjoys the pleasure that the Creator sends to him, it turns out that this makes them close.

Student: So what the friend asked before, is it the kind of, it's a feeling that you described? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:00) Is it permitted to ask for pleasure from the connection, from bestowal? 

M. Laitman: Everything is permitted, what do you want? Does it get you closer to something?

Student: There's no other incentive and I know that if pleasure will come from the connection, maybe, I'll advance there. 

M. Laitman: Of course. 

Student: Alright, so in that case I can ask for it, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:47) When we connect together, do we receive from each other? 

M. Laitman: Of course, we influence each other in various ways but ,if we want to connect between us and thus awaken the force that awakens us, the upper force, then this is our work.

Student: In order to truly connect, we also need to receive from each other?

M. Laitman: Yes, of course.

Student: Let’s say, a friend wants to give something to me and I begin to feel, what he writes here, the shame and impatience, what should I do then? I understand that it's a proper measure, it's correct that I feel that. But then I'm called “the receiver”, but I want to be the bestower.

M. Laitman: That depends on, what do you receive for? If you receive from the Creator in order to advance spiritually, in order to resemble Him, then that reception will become bestowal. 

Student: These feelings are unavoidable, right? You cannot avoid receiving from the friend. I can't say, I just, I only want to bestow to the friends and that's it. I have to be in contact with the friend, to feel how he wants to give to me. And to feel all these emotions and somehow overcome them with bestowal?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Is that the proper measurement and what's the next step?

M. Laitman: What you see before you, you should sort it out and see what will advance you towards the goal and what won't.

Student: After all these measurements, is there anything else? Is there a goal?

M. Laitman: The goal always has to be in front of you; that you wish to reveal the Creator in all the connections that are before you with the friends. 

Student: After this measurement, after this action, do I need to feel pleasure?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: If I don't feel pleasure? 

M. Laitman: That's a sign that you are not scrutinizing things that actually relate to connection with the Creator. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (42:03) Here, he wrote that reception does not apply in the Creator because who will He receive from? It's written that more than the calf wants to suckle, the cow wants to nurse the calf. It's written about how He has a tower full of abundance and treasure but He has no one to give it to. In the book, “The Magician”, you wrote, how it's very difficult for Him to be alone. If the Creator doesn't receive, I don't understand what good deeds mean. Who do I do them for? It's written that beyond one's skin, only the Creator exists and that There's None Else Besides Him. So, I don't understand what it means. He writes, you are partners with Me. There's a lot. Seemingly, the Creator, "I to my Beloved, and my Beloved to me". The Creator needs my action, so what does it mean when he says that the Creator doesn't receive because who will He receive from? What am I even doing? 

M. Laitman: You want to resemble the Creator and, therefore, you're thirsty to get all sorts of examples by which you will be like Him.

Student: Right, that much I understan but what I don't understand is between me and the Creator exist those examples. Where it's not the Creator, it's not the truth, so to speak; it's, seemingly, me, I'm, seemingly, acting for my own benefit, for myself, with this action. It's egoistic because if the Creator doesn't receive anything from my act of resembling Him, then this is all false, imaginary. It's not a true action, it's mine, it's an action that I do for myself.

M. Laitman: Let's say so. 

Student: How do I develop the desire to do, to perform an action, whereby I reach bestowal with no conditions. Because seemingly what exists between me and the Creator, that's all a lie because I don't work opposite the Creator. I work opposite the will to receive that needs me, seemingly, it needs me. So, I don't understand what it means to work with the Creator?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: But it's written that the Lord is one, I need to straighten the line, not to deviate, I need to reach the goal. So, I don't understand how to calibrate myself, direct myself such, that if He doesn't need me, if I don't do anything for Him, there are no good deeds He receives from me according to what's written here. Because who will He receive from, right. So how do I act in order to focus myself in His direction and not everything that's between us which isn't real?

M. Laitman: I don't understand this picture.

Student: You said, that the Creator sends me an example, which I'm supposed to emulate. Now, once I've acquired that, He'll send me another example, or the same example to a different measure, or maybe, to model a different quality of the Creator, and so on, until I reach Him. That's fine, no problem with that. My problem is that according to what he says, here, I don't actually serve the Creator. I don't understand how to focus on the Creator while acting in a way that's false. Why don't I act, well, I'm not acting with others who are in front of me. I'm acting for myself, I want to reach equivalence of form and I'm the only one who receives from that, because I get closer to my root. And others will not receive anything from me because the Creator does not receive. So, the example I received comes from the Creator, it's a part of the Creator?

M. Laitman: Maybe, you'll stop this philosophy, stop philosophizing. Stop with this whole approach.

Student: I don't understand how to perform a good act towards others, if it's written that the others are actually the Creator; and it's written here that the Creator does not receive. So, I don't understand what I can do for Him? What good actions can I perform?

M. Laitman: Do what you understand. That, in front of you are the others, and you have to do everything for their sake, that's it. Don't go beyond that.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (47:40) Regarding the exercise, as I understand it, we need to come closer to each other by force. Also, I heard you say that “by force” means, that despite the fact that I feel it's difficult for me to be close to others. I, nevertheless, try to be close to the others and even revoke the concept of other. So, now in my Ten, in the Tens I assume, we try to act according to the rules of Rabash. So, it's not natural that we feel like getting together or that we have this natural friendship, even though after so many years, it's difficult to find the distinction. This new exercise, how to make it more powerful? Because even in the lessons when we come here, we smile to each other, we say things we don't actually feel but we just try not to cause the friend to fail. We're already doing all that, so how to do something new as part of this because we're already performing this exercise?

M. Laitman: Okay, if you want to bring your relationship closer to what Rabash writes, that's excellent.

Student: We've been doing this all these years, we're pressing that point. What's the innovation, what do we need to be more diligent about, you know, to take the rust off so to speak? Because everyone comes here smiling, nobody airs his dirty laundry; but to the contrary, we try to uplift the friend's spirits. We can feel even how the other person overcomes but we want this to become more powerful, more intense. So, that's the question how to add to these rules so it will really penetrate deep and we feel the complete lack, the full lack?

M. Laitman: Just to keep going and go deeper in a way that's more of the heart, more open from each one to others. Try to hide each one's egoistic force and instead of that, to reveal the forces of bestowal. I don't have anything to add.

Question (UK 1): (50:33) When we try to dedicate every moment to our root, how can we tell if we've succeeded in that effort? 

M. Laitman: According to as much as we can, we should carry out the spiritual relation between us and the connection between us, as simple as that.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (51:17) He writes that everything that doesn't exist in our root causes us suffering and pain. Now, this state, is that the feeling of the gap, the difference between the person and the upper one? 

M. Laitman: Well, let's say. 

Student: This pain needs to bring us to a lack, the construction of the Kli, the vessel?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And how to bring such a vessel, such work in the Ten, how to make it a common, collective suffering?

M. Laitman: How? Well, like he writes, to try and unite through mutual actions of bestowal. 

Student: So, only through going towards bestowal you can attain the contrast, right? But how do you build it together in the Ten, this state? 

M. Laitman: I don't know, you should all try. You have to realize it in the Ten.

Student: Let's say, we're at a certain level of this, but it's not, there's no pain or suffering. It's not horrible, not what he explains here. 

M. Laitman: That depends on the intensity of your desires.

Student: How to develop it, how to intensify it, magnify it so it hurts? 

M. Laitman: Speak among you, talk among you about how you can increase the intensity of connection between you so that it's really felt in your desires, in your pain. 

Student: Each one in the Ten is on a different degree with respect to that pain?

M. Laitman: Doesn't matter, that doesn't matter. 

Student: So, still through incorporation, we can build that vessel? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

M. Laitman reading: (54:09) Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah], Item 12 

These were the words of our sages (Beresheet Rabbah 44) when they asked, “Why should the Creator mind whether one slaughters at the throat or at the back of the neck? After all, the Mitzvot were given only to cleanse people.” That cleansing means the cleansing of the turbid body, which is the purpose that emerges from the observation of all the Torah and Mitzvot, for “A wild ass will be turned into man,” since when one emerges out of the bosom of creation, one is in utter filth and lowliness, meaning a multitude of self-love that is imprinted in him, and his every movement revolves solely around himself without a shred of bestowal upon others.

Thus, then one is at the farthest distance from the Root, on the other end, 1) since the root is all bestowal without a hint of reception, 2) whereas the newborn is in a state of complete self-reception without a hint of bestowal. Therefore, his situation is regarded as being at the lowest point of lowliness and filth in our human world.

The more he grows, the more he receives from his environment portions of “bestowal upon others,” depending on the values and development in that environment. And then one is initiated into observing Torah and Mitzvot for the purpose of self-love, for reward in this world and in the next world, called Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], since one cannot be accustomed any other way.

As one grows, he is told how to observe Mitzvot Lishma [for Her sake], which is with an aim solely to bring contentment to his Maker. As Maimonides said (Hilchot Teshuva, Chapter 10), “Women and children should not be told of observing Torah and Mitzvot Lishma since they will not be able to bear it. But when they grow and acquire knowledge and wisdom, they are taught to work Lishma.” It is as our sages said, “From Lo Lishma, one comes to Lishma,” defined by the aim to bring contentment to one’s Maker and not for any self-love, under any circumstances.

Through the natural remedy of engagement in Torah and Mitzvot Lishma, which the Giver of the Torah knows, as our sages said (Kidushin 30b), “The Creator says, ‘I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice.’” Thus, that creature develops and marches upward in degrees of the above-said exaltedness until he loses all remnants of self-love and all the Mitzvot in his body rise, and he performs all his actions only to bestow, so even the necessity that he receives flows in the direction of bestowal, meaning so he can bestow. This is why our sages said, “The Mitzvot were given only to cleanse people.”

That's what happens.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:01:18) He writes that the commandments purify the body. So, we have to connect that with what we heard you said before, when I think about a friend and I feel a lack of connection, a lack of joy in that connection. Does that advance me towards the cleansing of the body? 

M. Laitman: That, too.

Student: When I think about a friend and I actually feel closeness to him, that we share a goal, rising above the will to receive, that we're both in the same direction. What is the work then, is there work to do?

M. Laitman: I think it is written, in order to correct the will to receive in us and bring us closer to the Creator. 

Student: Other than, in such a case, other than the feeling of, well, inner gratitude, there's no real work. So, it follows that the work is with those things that are opposite to me? Or do I need both? 

M. Laitman: Is everyone hearing what he's saying? Anyone wants to respond to that? 

Answer (Petah Tikva Center): (01:03:03) The work with the friends, it's all about what they want to summon. 

M. Laitman: I don't know. 

Student: So, that's the work. It doesn't matter if nature is this way or that way. We sit and we come here and we need to be open to whatever arrives and work with that. So, it's the same way with the friend.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: So, it's not about, I like this one more, I like that one less or this is what I feel, that is what I feel. That's not the point.

M. Laitman: I don't know, you should be asking each other and see what's the general desire, what's the general goal, and so on.

Answer (Petah Tikva Center): (01:04:08) Maybe, in that state where you feel close to a friend, you also need to examine what the intention is, not forget about that.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Answer (Petah Tikva Center): (01:04:21) Correct me if I am wrong, maybe I am wrong. The person's approach in the work,a person should be alert, like he came here to a war, to battle. I can't be all loose, loosey-goosey, and the Creator gave me something good and I enjoy it, I don't enjoy that. It seems to me too much of a, I need to be very alert towards the connection with the friends. Alert towards the connection with the Creator which will come as a result. So, maybe we should help each other, just be alert. You're in a war now for your life. Like yesterday, you talked about finding prey, hunting.

M. Laitman: That's, he's talking about it now. 

Student: Right, so according to the questions, I'm sorry for saying this – I'm sorry for saying this. But it seems like - a person stands up and says: “I enjoy this”, “I don't enjoy this”, “I'm thinking about what I feel right now”. So, we need to emerge from that and just come to war, as though to war? 

M. Laitman: Okay, I heard. Anyone wants to respond? 

Answer (Petah Tikva Center): (01:05:57) I hope I understood the question correctly, but I think, what we heard here, in general, is that a person is always working opposite the Creator. When the friend is revealed to him, he needs to see the Creator behind the friend. And when he works opposite the Creator, he needs to remember that it cannot be that he works opposite the Creator, for his own sake. He needs to work with the Creator to get the reward to the friend. Although it sounds simple but it's not simple, that's our challenge. To always hold the Creator, the friend, and our attitude towards them, in the same place, in the same picture.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:06:53) We held a scrutiny before the lesson also, yesterday. What is that act of purification, cleansing? Some of the friends say, they heard you say, that this purification is like a jeweler, goldsmith, purifying. But, also, some say that purification, that Letzeref in Hebrew, means to join; so, joining people together. If we do that, He will purify us. So, I'm asking, what is this work of purification, Tzeruf in Hebrew? Is it adding more people, bringing people together? I'm asking, in the Ten, what does it mean, Tzeruf, purification? 

M. Laitman: The act of cleansing is to examine the will to receive and try to extract all the waste from it. So it stays clean and become willing of adhering to the Creator.

Student: We talked about this, too, what does it mean to cleanse all the waste? What is waste as far as I'm concerned in the Ten? 

M. Laitman: Waste, for you, is in order to receive, all of your intentions in order to receive. What desires do they cover? 

Student: So, we always need to be goal-oriented so that all the things we do, the exercises you talked about. We need to make sure all of it is directed towards the Creator?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: And what do we do with friends who aren't ardent with respect to the goal? We used to talk about officers, guards, watchmen, and so on, things which aren't related to the goal. How should we behave in those states? 

M. Laitman: Explain to them, that there is a more exalted and special goal, that you are aimed at. 

Student: We can demand that of the friends? 

M. Laitman: I don't know about demanding but I said, explaining.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:09:42) At the beginning of Item 12, Baal HaSulam says something revolutionary. He says, why should the Creator care if someone slaughters from the throat or the nape? After all, the commandments were given only to cleanse people, to refine people. So, in what way do the commandments refine people? We heard that refinement means to refine the will to receive, to try to remove all the waste from it. How do the commandments remove the waste from the will to receive? 

M. Laitman: By working with them, I understand it through the example of the one who makes jewelry. By warming up, say a piece of gold, it becomes liquid, and then, above he has waste and inside is the gold, itself. By doing these actions, he cleanses up the gold and gets the waste out of it.

Student: So, on our path, what does it mean to heat the gold? 

M. Laitman: That, we warm up, meaning that we connect between us, as much as possible and we try to see ourselves as one man in one heart. Then, we further and further reveal our nature – how much we are not like that. And then we raise a prayer and we receive more corrective things. 

Student: The waste is the will to receive, the intention in order to receive. Now, what is the gold, what is that thing which isn't the intention to receive? Is it even in us, do we have it? 

M. Laitman: None. 

Student: What remains if you extract the waste? 

M. Laitman: If you extract the waste, then there's gold left.

Student: What is the gold? 

M. Laitman: This is the matter that we need so as to build the will to receive. 

Student: But it exists in us? 

M. Laitman: It exists. 

Student: Where? 

M. Laitman: I don't know but it probably exists in some places but it's covered by waste. 

Student: There's a pure desire in each one of us that we try to locate through this process? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:13:08) In the stages of bringing these pieces together. First he writes there's a degree of Lo Lishma, and you can't accustom a person in a different way, you have to go through that. So, in Lo Lishma a person does everything for pleasures for himself, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Why can't it be in a different way because all the questions we ask now were to reach Lishma, that's the goal. And here, he's establishing a degree of Lo Lishma that it can't be otherwise. So, what does it build in a person, this place, that the goal is completely opposite. But now I have to do everything for myself, I have to build that degree. 

M. Laitman: Because it stems from the desire to receive in us. It cannot immediately rise in order to bestow, rather this is how it's made. For the time being, we need to work with it, and then later, from it we can move to in order to bestow.

Student: But, it's seemingly opposite, how does that prepare the will to receive, to invert, in order to bestow, the degree of Lo Lishma? It's all for myself?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: You were saying to do exercises between us, that I constantly want to see if I'm enjoying these exercises of Lo Lishma.?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: What does that prepare in me to invert my intention that it will really be for the Creator, for the others? What preparation does it do? 

M. Laitman: This gives the willingness for change. 

Student: I don't understand? 

M. Laitman: Don't understand, you don't need to understand, understand you will when your desire changes. We need to understand just one thing: That through the study and all kinds of means that the Kabbalists bring us. We can change the desire to receive in us, so it will be entirely in order to bestow, that’s it. This is called, that he has went through this purification.

Student: Should we mark Lo Lishma as an intermediate state to reach? Or am I always directing myself towards bestow the final goal? 

M. Laitman: Towards the final direction. 

Student: So, Lo Lishma is there on the path and I have to go through it? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:16:29) He writes that when you grow and acquire a mind, then you can perform things Lishma. What is this mind and reason that I have to acquire from the environment? 

M. Laitman: That, we will acquire along the way, and from that you will understand what Lishma is called.

Student: Because we learn that we are advancing on the path of faith that is above reason. Here, he is saying that we are acquiring a mind and reason?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Is that connected to the experience a person goes through? 

M. Laitman: Of course, everything is connected to everything. In the end of the day, we come to Lishma.

Student: If now we are in the Ten, and we are with a friend, we are directed towards a goal. We want to wash ourselves with the sources from the Kabbalists, and this friend comes in with all kinds of foreign thoughts and desires. How can we gently, you said not to demand from the friend but to explain. How can we in a delicate way cleanse ourselves from those thoughts and discussions and keep the friend with us, and not that he'll be hurt or insulted? 

M. Laitman: I don't know, I think that you need to be more or less honest with him, not to be afraid to hurt, but not to the point where he runs away. And aim for him to understand the right way that now you have an inversion from the desire to receive, to in order to bestow. And that's how you will advance.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:19:05) What you explained to the friend about cleansing the gold. So, the jeweler takes the gold, warms it up, all the dirt comes out, we said that's the intention to receive that we want to get rid of. 

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: Now, let's say we do actions of the Ten of getting rid or trying to get rid of that dirt, so what remains there? Does it right away get wrapped in the intention to bestow or what remains there? Is like the initial will to receive and then you add the intention to bestow, how does that work? 

M. Laitman: No, the desire to receive, you already had before, it just was mixed with all kinds of forms of waste. By you cleansing it, you warm up the gold until it begins to be as a liquid and then you continue to heat it up until it is completely boiling. By it boiling, it raises its inner form and it covers the gold, completely. Then, you need to take the gold, as a liquid, and to take it out from there and the rest, what remains, is the gold mixed with waste and all those things that you need to discard, to leave it outside. And from the gold that went through the boiling, you can make from it what you want.

Student: So, I'm asking about that stage. Somehow, we move the dirt aside that mix with the will to receive. I put it on the side, I get rid of it somehow, then, what's left in there, how do you do it in order to bestow? Because what remains, it's like the initial will to receive, maybe without the intention to bestow, if there is such a thing. What then do you do, again, I'm not talking about a jeweler, I'm talking about the work between us, what to do?

M. Laitman: In the work between you, you need to find the same desires that can come gradually, in corrections, to Dvekut [adhesion with the Creator]. That's all, all the rest is waste. 

Student: What do I do with those desires? 

M. Laitman: We recognized it. 

Student: There's a desire to adhere to the Creator, what do you do now? 

M. Laitman: We distinguish it or differentiate it from all the rest of the layers that you have in this state that it's boiling in. 

Student: How do you work with them? Now, they're desires, I recognize them, finally, after we did all these actions of cleansing. What do you do with them? 

M. Laitman: What do you do with them? You take them out – those desires, the pure desires – and you put them on the side. From them, you will later do the work. 

Student: These desires, like you said, are desires of greatness of the Creator, to resemble the Creator?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: What do I do with these desires that are all directed to a higher goal, between us, between the friends, I don't understand? I recognize those desires finally. 

M. Laitman: If they are desires, that you discover them as pure, as refined, cleansed. Then from them, you can perform acts of bestowal. Please, do it, meaning, you take them, the totality of what you have and make from them the form - something, teeth, whatever you want. 

Student: How to make this jewelry? It's something we're going to learn on the path? 

M. Laitman: That doesn't have anything to do with the work of the cleanser. That's the work of, what do they call it? I don't know. 

Student: There's a jeweler and a goldsmith. 

M. Laitman: No, those that do all kinds of such things with gold.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:25:48) Going with this example, the work of the goldsmith. He has to boil the materials, only when it's boiling, you can take this example. Can we take this example, what does it mean to boil the gold? There's a state where I can separate, a different state, I can't. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: What is the state where we're boiling it? 

M. Laitman: To bring oneself to a state that you're fed up with being in your nature and you want to rise to another nature.

Student: Can a person initiate this? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah] 

Reading: (01:27:06) If indeed there are two parts in the Torah: 1) Mitzvot between man and the Creator, 2) Mitzvot between man and man, both aim for the same thing—to bring the creature to the final purpose of Dvekut with Him. Furthermore, even the practical side in both of them is really one and the same, for when one performs an act Lishma, without any mixture of self-love, meaning without drawing any benefit for himself, then one does not feel any difference whether one is working to love one’s friend or to love the Creator.

This is so because it is a natural law for any being that anything outside one’s own body is regarded as unreal and empty. And any movement that a person makes to love another is performed with a reflected light and some reward that will eventually return to him and serve him for his own benefit. Thus, such an act cannot be considered “love of others” because it is judged by its end. It is like rent that pays off only in the end. However, the act of renting is not considered love of another.

But making any movement only as a result of love for others, without any spark of reflected light or hope for any kind of reward in return is completely impossible by nature. It is written in The Zohar about this with regard to the nations of the world: “Every Hesed [mercy/grace] that they do, they do for themselves.”

This means that all the good that they do, either toward their friends or toward their God, is not for their love for others but for self-love, since this matter is completely unnatural.

Therefore, only those who observe Torah and Mitzvot are capable of this since by accustoming themselves to observe Torah and the Mitzvot in order to bring contentment to their Maker, they gradually depart from the bosom of the natural creation and acquire a second nature, being the above-mentioned love of others.

This is what brought the sages of The Zohar to exclude the nations of the world from love of others, when they said, “Every Hesed that they do, they do for themselves,” for they are not involved in observing Torah and Mitzvot Lishma, and the only reason they serve their gods is for reward and salvation in this world and in the next. Thus, their worship of their gods is because of self-love, too, and they will never perform an act that is outside the boundaries of their own bodies, for which they will be able to lift themselves even as a hairsbreadth above their basic nature. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:32:49) The change is detected here as something gradual. What does it mean gradual or slowly? 

M. Laitman: It is gradual. There are many stages that the created being in its correction needs to go through. He depicts it like to a ladder, just like a person who wants to go up a ladder. And that's how he depicts the study and the changes that take place in a person, that's all in all. 

Student: The light that reforms, we know it works gradually, 10, 20, 30 years, as much as it will take, a whole lifetime. But the inversion, itself, between the will to receive and to invert for the sake of the Creator. This inversion, it's also gradual or is that instant? 

M. Laitman: No, there is no “in a moment”. It's all slowly, slowly, gradually. 

Student: So, every day I'll bestow a bit more? I come out of the will to receive and start bestowing a bit more? 

M. Laitman: Seemingly.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:34:24) He writes that every movement a person does towards the love of others, it's with the help of the reflected light and some reward for himself. Any burden he does without reflected light, or without hope of getting a reward, completely prevented on behalf of nature. 

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: What's the state of Lishma when a person works in spirituality? What motivates him there? 

M. Laitman: The upper bestowal, the Creator, who is illuminating to him. By that, He pushes a person to rise each time to a higher degree. 

Student: Is that the first point, bestowing? Or does he always start from reception, because that's nature? 

M. Laitman: He starts from reception.

Student: If reception is in his foundation, that's the root that even brings him to some kind of reward. That is his motivation? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: What motivates a person in spirituality? It's not that he starts from bestowing and that pushes him?

M. Laitman: No, no, he starts from reception but he already understands that, that is not the correct state, the correct desire. And he, gradually, comes closer, advances to a desire that is more superior, more exalted.

Student: What's the difference between Israel and the nations of the world, at this point? Because he says also the nations, they do everything for themselves. 

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: So, also Israel works in such a way?

M. Laitman: Yes, but Israel, to begin with, have also a spiritual root in order to bestow, and the nations of the world do not have such a root. Therefore, as it's written, every Hesed, every grace they do, they do for themselves, so, that's it. And then, when they come and study, then through the study, they receive the reforming light. And it, gradually, brings them closer to in order to bestow.

Student: Does a Kabbalist reach a state that he just works in bestowal? Or does it always start from reception? The work is always from reception to bestow? 

M. Laitman: It depends on which state he's in. 

Student: He started this item that there's two parts in the Torah: Commandments between man and the Creator, and man and his friend. What is between man and the Creator? 

M. Laitman: To the Creator.

Student: What does it mean that he's working to the Creator? 

M. Laitman: That he wants to bring contentment to the Creator, to be like Him.

Student: That's between a person and his friend, from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator? 

M. Laitman: A person who wants to resemble the Creator, to be similar to Him, performs actions to be like the Creator. And then, it turns out that his desires go through stages until he comes to receiving in order to bestow.

Student: Why does he separate between his friend and the place? On my behalf, it's the other, it's someone outside of me. What's important is how I work. 

M. Laitman: How do you operate? 

Student: I understand that it's between man and his friend, and from that he reaches between man and the Creator.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: So, that's the form or is it?

M. Laitman: That's the form, that’s the form. 

Student: Now, we're coming closer to the Congress of Lishma. What do we want to be directed towards? The friends, the place, the what? 

M. Laitman: To the Creator. To the place.

Student: And the friends' role here on the path, on the way to the place, to the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Ask the Creator to shine upon us so that this illumination will enter each and every one. And invert the desire to receive in each and every one to become in order to bestow. 

Question (Center 1): (01:40:09) What qualities does a person need to reach the ability to bestow? 

M. Laitman: Measures of bestowal. 

Student: Are there qualities that are equal to everyone? Or each one according to their root? 

M. Laitman: No, measures of bestowal. 

Question (Woman PT 6): (01:40:31) Which actions of bestowal do the friends need of us? 

M. Laitman: The friends need every action that is included from the desire to bestow, from the intention to bestow.

Question (Woman Moscow 6): (01:40:56) What's the meaning of a pure will to receive? 

M. Laitman: The desire to receive? 

Student: Pure and clean. 

M. Laitman: Pure, from to have the intention in order to bestow.

Question (PT 6): (01:41:17) If you tell us that tomorrow we're going to Jerusalem and we're agreeing without any calculation, leaving everything, and coming. Does that mean we're ready for Lishma? 

M. Laitman: I don’t think so, I don’t think so.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:41:49) What separates between the Creator's servants who reach Lishma and those who remain in the will to receive? 

M. Laitman: Again?

Student: He writes, that it was said in the Zohar about the nations that they do it for their own reward. But they're doing everything, not from love of others,but because of self-love. It's because it's outside the way of nature. 

Reading(01:42:30): “Therefore, only those who observe Torah and Mitzvot are capable of this since by accustoming themselves to observe Torah and the Mitzvot in order to bring contentment to their Maker, they gradually depart from the bosom of the natural creation and acquire a second nature, being the above-mentioned love of others.” 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, he points to accustom yourself to perform the commandments to give contentment to the Creator. That, that is what separates between the ones who perform the commandments and the ones who work for their own benefit. That's why they won't ever be able to do anything outside of their own body. For those, they won’t be able from Lo Lishma to reach Lishma.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: So, what is that of getting accustomed to performing Torah and Mitzvot to give contentment to the Maker? 

M. Laitman: Well, you don't understand what that is? 

Student: How can a person really go deep in the inner meaning of this term and not get to give contentment to the Maker? Everybody's trying, everybody's doing commandments to do that?

M. Laitman: Well?

Student: Why isn't that clear, that this is what we're doing it for? We see the gap between us to that.

M. Laitman: We go deeper and deeper until we get there. 

Student: How do we not remain the ones who perform Torah and Mitzvot that the Lo Lishma doesn't bring them to Lishma? 

M. Laitman: That depends on the prayer and the approach to the Creator. To the extent in which they are willing to hold on to Him and not let go.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:45:38) He writes here: Every motion he makes to help his friend, he does it with a reforming light and some reward that will return to him and serve his own benefit. What does it mean that he does it with the help of the reforming light, what is that? 

M. Laitman: That he wants it to bring him, to give him advancement in life and all kinds of ways. 

Student: Meaning, isn’t it the reflected light have to do with bestowal, actually? Some kind of calculation to the Creator? 

M. Laitman: No.

Student: What is reflected light? 

M. Laitman: Simply, reflected light, that he attains from his intentions to bestow, and in that he receives – how do I say it? From that he can get the force of bestowal. 

Student: Why does it end with it being for his own benefit? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: But bestowal in order to receive, meaning? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: But there's also the reflected light that helps him reach to bestow in order to bestow, at least?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:47:08) He's saying at the beginning of the item, that when he performs an act Lo Lishma and not for any mixing of self-love. He will not feel any difference whether he's working to the love of one's friend or to the love of the Creator. Meaning, when he does an act of Lishma, then the friend and the Creator become one, kind of. So, the question: I need to work on trying to do acts of bestowal without anything returning to myself and then when the moment that the friend and the Creator became one, I will know that I reached Lishma? Or do I need to focus on seeing and relating to the friend as if he's the Creator? And that will bring me, in the end, to Lishma and acts that are not for self-benefit. What's correct, in which way to work? 

M. Laitman: It's right to work that it will bring you to Lishma. 

Student: Meaning, to try to relate to the friend as if he and the Creator are one? 

M. Laitman: Let's say so. 

Student: It brings a question because we hear many times, that behind the friend stands the Creator, and that actually outside of a person there's no one but the Creator. And, seemingly, it makes everything very simple: There's my feeling, and there's the Creator, and that's it. But we don't exactly relate this way to friends, our attitude towards friends isn't, not sitting here at the table with the Creator; probably the situation would look completely different. So, the question is why not focus on that? Why am I not trying all day, trying to go with the feeling that I'm sitting here with the Creator, each and every in the Ten here is the Creator for me? Really, I have no games here. But you forget that. You see people, you see deficiencies, you see flaws, you see all kinds of calculations, that you do. You don't relate to them like the Creator

M. Laitman: So, in short, you don't know how to relate to the friend, correctly. 

Student: It could be said. And again I'll come back to this excerpt, to this quote, should I relate to the friend as if it's the Creator? Or simply, try to do acts without any return to myself, acts of bestowal and nearing. And again I'll get to that connection of the friend to the Creator, they will become for you, like he says.

M. Laitman: We'll scrutinize it, we will scrutinize it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:50:36) We always talk about performing actions for the benefit of others. If we aim towards the others not with the goal to bring contentment to the Creator. Does that advance us to Lishma or vice versa, if there's no goal in the end of this action to give contentment to the Creator?

M. Laitman: I guess so.

Student: Meaning, just actions that I think that it's to benefit to the others, that still advances us to Lishma? Or only if the goal is that by this I bring contentment to the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Only.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:51:27) If there's a friend that is not with us in the action, can this harm our action of bringing contentment to the Creator? 

M. Laitman: If he's not with us in the action, so why can it harm him? 

Student: Because he's criticizing these actions - your prayers are the same, you have no innovations. When we have some action that we want to do together for the society, then he has something to say about it, that maybe it's not in place, things like that. Does that put into our spirits? Can it corrupt the spirit in the Ten, the action for the Creator? 

M. Laitman: If we want to accept him as a friend, so no. 

Student: And if he's in the Ten, he's in the announcement, he wants the criticism to pass to us. It's not that he's neutral and we're in the action. 

M. Laitman: So?

Student: So, how could he be with usand we won't consider him as a friend? How can you do that? 

M. Laitman: Let him be with us and we won't consider him. 

Student: So, how to consider him because there are several friends that do want to do that action, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: They want to perform the action and he's bringing his critique. And instead of engaging in the action, how to realize that, some friends are engaged in these wasteful discussions with him, to explain to him why it's important to make this and make that. And it's kind of redundant, it's wasteful, instead of dealing with the action itself in advance and drawing more friends, we're engaging in such kind of side things.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: What can we do with this as a Ten? 

M. Laitman: As a Ten, you can bring the Ten to be as one man with one heart. 

Student: And only this action will actually purify and clean this phenomena? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:54:07) On the topic of pleasure and delight, there are several things that rose on the list today. I want to ask a principle question: Pleasure – is it a goal or is it a mean? 

M. Laitman: Pleasure is a sign for the right intention.

Student: So, it's actually an indication, a measure, but not the goal really, correct? 

M. Laitman: Maybe not. 

Student: Meaning, if a person puts a condition that I want to receive pleasure, even from bestowal. Then he's a little missing the real goal, right, because he put forth a condition? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It's kind of like this coin that passes to the tradesman, we give pleasure, we take the pleasure. But actually we're using it as a measure to how much we're getting this pleasure and we can see how much we're aimed to the goal. That's how it sounds to me?

M. Laitman: Could be.

Student: And what is the real goal beyond the pleasure? 

M. Laitman: You don't know because you can't scrutinize it. 

Student: I understood. So, for the time being we're using the pleasure as a test, the feeling of pleasure. Meaning, whether I condition my action in pleasure or not?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:56:11) Now, going back to the analogy of the refine and the cleansing. So, let's say I'm warming up this mixture and differentiating between the gold and the waste. The moment I differentiate, I say okay, wonderful, that becomes waste already?

M. Laitman: Why? 

Student: Because I gave myself a mark that it's good. 

M. Laitman: So?

Student: That means we will never reach the work of the jeweler? 

M. Laitman: I don't understand you. You boil what you have and you cleanse the waste from above. And you leave more and more of the gold, the pure gold. Yes, so?

Student: This is the problem, the moment I say that the gold is pure, I'm giving myself like a check mark, I did it. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, doesn't that, once again, become waste? 

M. Laitman: No. Why? 

Student: Because I find there the desire to receive; that's pride, no? 

M. Laitman: No. What you succeeded, you succeeded, that's yours.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:57:43) In acts of bestowal, even corporeal ones, simple ones. Sometimes such a coarse, crude intention of in order to receive is revealed. The question is what is correction on the place because according to the request for the correction, it seems so bland compared to the power of the in order to receive, the exploitation of others. So, there's such a thing of to correct something on the spot and the person can deal with it at that moment and correct it? 

M. Laitman: No. 

Student: So, what do you do against that? 

M. Laitman: The moment you want to perform a correction, you're not in the same place anymore. You're not in that same moment. 

Student: What does a person do when he discovers such coarse intentions? 

M. Laitman: He discovers the truth that he is in.

Student: Then he continues with the action and gives it, simply, that's it? It just moves onwards? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:59:03) I wanted to recommend for an ending, there's a nice quote from the ARI about this cleansing that we talked about: “The exile from Egypt was to correct the holy sparks because Egypt is the allegory for a nucleus place where we warm up the gold and separate it from its waste and corrected.” 

M. Laitman: And let's hope we go through that. That's it.