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

Daily Morning Lesson: August 17, 2025 

Part 1: Recorded lesson - November 2, 2021

Baal HaSulam. Shamati 45. Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work.

Reader: In the first part of the lesson, we are going to study from a lesson from Rav Laitman from November 2, 2021. The article is from the writings of Baal HaSulam, the articles of Shamati. This is article number 45, “Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work.”

Now we are going to read the article, the article of Shamati, 45, Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work. 

Reading: (00:37) 45. Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work

I heard on Elul 1, September 5, 1948

There are two discernments in the Torah, and there are two discernments in the work. The first is the discernment of fear, and the second is the discernment of love. Torah is called a state of wholeness, meaning we do not speak of the state one’s work is in, but we speak with respect to the Torah itself.

The first is called “love,” meaning that one has a desire and craving to know the ways of the Creator and His hidden treasures, and for that he makes every effort and exertion to obtain his wish. He regards everything in the Torah that he extracts from what he has learned as having been granted a priceless thing. According to the appreciation from the importance of the Torah, so one gradually grows until he is slowly shown the secrets of the Torah, according to his labor.

The second discernment is fear, meaning that he wants to be a servant of the Creator. Since “He who does not know the commandment of the upper one, how will he serve Him?” he fears and dreads not knowing how to serve the Creator.

When he learns in this way, every time he finds a flavor in the Torah and can use it, he is elated and excited according to the appreciation of the importance from having been granted something in the Torah. And if one persists in this way, one is gradually shown the secrets of the Torah.

Here there is a difference between external teachings and the wisdom of the Torah: In external teachings, the elation lessens the intellect, since emotion is opposite from the intellect. Thus, the elation diminishes the understanding of the intellect.

Conversely, in the wisdom of the Torah, the elation is an essence, like the intellect. The reason for this is that the Torah is life, as it is written, “Wisdom preserves he who has it,” as wisdom and life are the same thing.

Hence, as the wisdom appears in the mind, so the wisdom appears in the emotion, since the light of life fills all the organs. (It seems to me that this is why one should see that one is always elated over the wisdom of the Torah, since in the elation there is a big difference between an exterior teaching and the wisdom of the Torah.)

It is likewise in the work, considered the left line, because it is discerned as reception. The matter of reception means that one wants to receive because he feels a lack, and a lack is regarded as three discernments: 1) the want of the individual, 2) the want of the public, 3) the want of the Shechina [Divinity].

Any want is regarded as wanting to satisfy the deficiency; hence, it is considered reception and left line. Torah, however, means that one works not because he feels a lack that must be corrected, but that he wants to bestow contentment upon his Maker (through prayer, praise, and gratitude. When one engages in a way that one feels oneself in wholeness and does not see any shortcoming in the world, this is called “Torah.” However, if one engages while feeling some shortcoming, this is called “work”).

Also, we should make two discernments during the work: 1) due to love of the Creator, when he wants to adhere to the Creator and feels that this is the place where he can bring out the measure of love he feels and love the Creator, 2) because of fear, when he has fear of the Creator. 

Reader: And now we will move to the lesson. 

Question (Turkey 3): (07:40) What should the group add to its collective effort to increase longing and love for the Creator every day? 

M. Laitman: Yearning and love every day, he needs to add. Search, relative to yesterday, what we can add today. Add demand to the Creator. Add, how should we say, add feeling, understanding, awareness that without the Creator we won't be able to. He is actually first and He is last. He broke our Kli, He has to erect it. Is that clear? 

Question (ITA 1): (08:51) You said to read and read again the articles of Shamati between us, and to share between us that when we share our views, our opinions, we can confuse each other. Isn't it dangerous for each and everyone's soul? 

M. Laitman: We don't talk so much between us about what each feels and understands. We talk about how we can connect between us. Meaning, I'm not looking inside what I have inside me. I'm looking at the point of connection that there is outside me towards the friends. That's what we talk about more.

Student: (09:50) Maybe to help continue the friend's question, he related to how we read the Shamati articles between us during the day. So, he says, when we read the article, and then we speak and we share our discernments about what we read, can my personal discernments confuse the friends, what I understood from the Shamati article?

M. Laitman: It could be that it's confusing, but it also connects. It can't be that we will talk in a nice and some kind of clarified, finite way in talking between us. No. Rather, what can we do? We are all in the shattering. Each talks from his shattered vessels. None of us is corrected or right or righteous, but nevertheless, we need to understand this and relate to one another in the right way. This is our vessel. Let's say, if my friend is talking nonsense, then first of all, I need to see in this two things. First of all, that certainly it's natural he's talking nonsense. It's also a natural thing that I hear nonsense from him, yes? And also, it's a natural thing that in such a way, we still relate to one another, because we're in the shattering. I have yet to hear from a mother that her baby is a fool or stupid. What are you laughing? No, really. I never heard that. On the contrary, he's wise, he understands, he feels, he's really trying to answer me with all his movements. He doesn't even know how to talk yet, yes? But you look at him, how, what eyes, what expressions, look at what a mother thinks. You're looking at this little lump of flesh, and you're thinking to yourself, well he's really, it's like you're buy in the store, like a piece of meat, that's what he looks like, yes? And how impressed she is by him. 

Meaning, it all depends on love. So, if you look at your friend, and you understand that you're seeing in him all repulsive forms to you, then your ego is not letting you, it's not letting you see beauty in the friend. Because if in place of you, the form of Bina, the upper Ima would be here, she would be impressed by him, and how beautiful and wise this baby is, and how much he's growing, yes? And you're like that. So, we need to see these negative things, and to depict ourselves positive things that need to be. That's called, love will cover all crimes. In the gap between that which I depict in my ego, in Malchut, and what I can depict in my desire to bestow of mine in Bina, if I can cover, meaning make a sandwich between Malchut and Bina, then from that, I grow and raise the friend as well. And this is how we correct ourselves, therefore, this is our work. 

Question (French): (14:41) To what extent, if we relate the right relationship above reason, can it bring the world to a state closer to a state of peace? 

M. Laitman: Above reason really leads us to peace. Peace is Shalom, Shlemut in Hebrew, meaning perfection or completeness. It can't be that we want to sign some documents there or some contracts about climate, or peace, or this and that. We understand that there is no concept of peace there. Peace is called perfection, where we can depict to ourselves the next state that we want to reach, and we agree on the steps that we need to use in order to get to that state, and we call that the whole state, the complete state. Meaning that we complete one another. We each concede in order that in the connection between us, we can build a more whole state. And then it's called peace.

Question (Turkey 4): (16:02) How can we be happy even during the period of longing and yearning? 

M. Laitman: There's an article. Where is it, I don't remember, where he says, a person that received blows, maybe it's from the introduction to the study of Ten Sefirot, where it's too bad that he only gave me five blows and not ten blows. Maybe from that, no, we won't read that, or other things like that. If I know that through the blows, I benefit, if I know that through these tears, I'm advancing and coming closer, then for me, those blows and those tears are medicine. Just like we pay a doctor that performs a surgery, and he cuts open your body and starts doing something there like some kind of mechanic. And there're machines, yes, and then he does things that he’s something like a machinist. He does the same thing with my machine inside there, yes? Cuts and throws out and connects, but we understand that that's how it needs to be. Therefore, for that suffering, we pay, and we only consider the result of that work. We have many such things in life, and if I go to study now, I don't know, I studied, let's say, for 20 years, well? So what do I have in this life in those 20 years? Did I enjoy that? Certainly not. But for what? So that later I'll be able to use it. The same thing here, it can't be any other way, you can't do it another way. So what are you asking? 

Student: I don't know, Rav, sometimes I am turning crazy, I am really, really turning crazy, because you shattered me, the Creator, and I want to be corrected, I want to be in constant connection with You, and I don't want to be separated even one second. I want this, and He has to fulfill me. 

M. Laitman: Nice, well? And do you come to states in which He can do that? According to what I understand of the Creator, He is willing. The problem is only that you don't have a vessel. 

Student: How can I have a vessel? 

M. Laitman: What will you do? The correct desire, a vessel is called, I want to be filled with that which the Creator wants to give. The Creator wants to give only the force of bestowal, because that's what there is. Besides, the force of reception exists only in us, the small force of reception, so that we will feel how disconnected, how contradictive we are, and we will want to invert it. The force of bestowal is, the filling for the force of bestowal is actually the fulfillment of the Creator, opposite our world. So we need to prepare ourselves to this. Our preparation for this is in the Ten. It's written about that in every place. Look at what's in the Book of Zohar, it's written about this all the time. Love thy friend as thyself. Everyone in the world agrees to that verse. I don't have anything more to bring to you. Only the things that you can read everywhere. Other than that, if you read in English, as I understand, then you have the entire wisdom of Kabbalah in English translated. You can take all the Zohar books in English, and to see there everything. To correspond in English also there with them. I don't have anything more to say. I'm willing to help you in anything.

Student: You say that the main thing is connection with them. So I have to turn to my Ten to serve them, want to fulfill them, and through an intention towards my Ten, and that in that period that I get the frequency?

M. Laitman: Yes, specifically in the Ten, even though it appeared to us as it's the path that leads us to the spiritual world. What is there in the Ten for the spiritual world? None of them is spiritual. They're all broken. They all appear to me that they're even less than me. Automatically, everyone feels that way towards others. And the situation is known. That's how it is with each and every one. So what can the Ten add for me? In truth, in the Ten, none of them can add anything for me. The connection between us that we want to build, that's the new thing that does not exist in reality. And it we need to build above the rejection between us. As each of us has different forms of rejection towards others, and we need to understand that we must be in one desire towards the Creator, in one yearning to the Creator. And only in such a way we will build the vessel that the Creator will begin to fill. And to be in this more, and more, and more. Try like this a few days, and you will see the extent in which you all of a sudden discover that you're building a new reality that didn't exist before. 

Question (Tel Aviv 4): (23:20) From our lesson, I understand that we will never reveal the Creator Himself, but only His relation to us. 

M. Laitman: You can reveal the Creator. It's a concept that's called Boreh [come and see], where if you build the vessel of bestowal, and you work with it, then you will discover what the Creator is, and to that extent you're adhered to Him, because you made Him. You made Him. The Creator doesn't exist. He only exists to the extent in which the creature makes Him, invites Him to be revealed. Otherwise, the Creator does not exist. 

Student: So what's the difference between discovering His relation and Him, the Creator? 

M. Laitman: You can discover His attitude without revealing Him, because He spins all of reality. But you reveal Him only to the extent in which you build qualities that resemble Him. And then you discover that you built something that's called Boreh [come and see], Creator. 

Question (PT 35): (24:56) Is opening your heart in the Ten, despite anything that can appear between the friends, is that showing the Creator how much we want Him to make the correction? 

M. Laitman: First of all, it's best to be with an open heart in the Ten no matter what. Don't worry whether you're giving an example that maybe it's not correct or something. Open, and see what's happening to you with this. That's it. And the friends also will receive this gradually. Just do it in a way that is acceptable.

Question (PT 31): (25:41) In what constant search we have to be, like a radar to perceive reality correctly, and through that we can get to know the Creator? 

M. Laitman: No, I don't need to be with a radar towards reality that I don't know or understand. I'm not like the astronomers who are looking up in the skies and looking for things amongst the stars there. I don't need to work that way and there's nothing to search for there anyway. I look inside the society and want for us to come as close as possible to one another. And of course, every given moment I feel the extent to which we are distancing from one another. And then I understand that I'm in this work with the Creator. Where more am I in contact with the Creator? By me wanting to bring all the friends closer to be as one man in one heart, and by the Creator constantly making our hearts tougher and harder and distancing us in such a way. So, by distancing us from one another, He is doing His work. And the fact that we in the group do opposite work by bringing ourselves closer to one another, then we are against Him. And therefore, this concept is called a help against Him, where when the Creator distances between us in such a way, He helps us more and more to invest our forces in connection until we will accumulate all these forces. And He says, that's it, my sons have defeated me, and we reach connection and the revelation of the Creator between us. 

Question (W MAK 2): (27:59) What does it mean that the Creator works with us? What is the work of the Creator? 

M. Laitman: What is it that the Creator is dealing with us? He's engaging in us all the time. It depends on our sensitivity to this. As much as we want in the connection between us to build the image of the Creator, the force of bestowal, love, connection, participation, then accordingly we will start to feel how He gives us also forces against it, that evoke our ego, I've created the evil inclination. And then in the connection between us, as we want to unite on one hand, let's say, because we were told that this is the solution for our lives. And we also feel together with that the extent in which we are opposite and don't want. And then in these two forces, one is that we want to come closer to one another, because by that we're closer to the Creator. And the second is the rejection that we get from one another, because that's what the Creator does to us, because he wants to bring us to a state in which we will increase the force of connection between us to the extent in which we’ll have the force of rejection and above that, the force of connection in a sufficient way towards the spiritual degree, and for us to persist in this. And then, between these two states, rejection and connection, this is called the force of clashing or the force of coarseness in a degree, and above that, the force of connection, which is called restriction, a screen and reflected light of the degree. Upon these two things that we are included by those two, we will start to discover contact with the Creator. And then, in that, we will begin to understand how we can be connected to Him. You feel how we gradually, slowly, slowly are building our attitude towards the Creator, our relation, our connection between us and between the Creator. So, the matter of our work, our spiritual work, is coming closer, more and more, to the work in a spiritual Partzuf. 

Question (W Dnepr): (30:54) Why does the will to receive have so many forms? 

M. Laitman: We need to see the structure of Adam HaRishon. There are four phases in there, and then ten Sefirot. And afterwards, these ten Sefirot are divided into spheres of bestowing and of reception, and they're interconnected and intertwined between them until we reach their shattering. And when we reach their shattering, they are in a mixture between them and different kinds of incorporations, and then we need to correct them. These phases, these discernments, how do we connect? According to the qualities in them and to the extent that they can be above those qualities. So, that's why here we have many, many states. The qualities aren't much, but the states are, and we need to try and aim all these states into the connection between us. Why is it so many? Because the vessel, when it wants to reach adhesion with the Creator, it must be shattered into very, very small parts, and except for that, it needs to be mixed. That we’ll do work in scrutiny of what connects to what and suits what, and then how we start connecting these to those and those. You understand, it's like you being before a big box with marbles or little blocks, but here it's millions of them. And you start sorting them out. These are circles. These are squares. These are triangles. These are those, and such, and such. And then after you deal with it for a bit, you start understanding why they're so different, specifically for them to be able to connect between them. But in what can each one connect? Because once you start sorting them out, you understand that no one can connect to the other. So what will there be there? Only when each one annuls his self towards the other, in that point of annulment between them, they can connect. Otherwise, there’ll be corners between them, and there can't be a connection there. So each one is willing, from that little point, that corner, that doesn't want to connect to the other, he is willing to make it into a socket, “here, please, come into me, I am willing to accept you.” And the other does that too, “I'm willing to accept the first one.” And in such a way, that's called a recognition of evil, that's already a state, a very great exalted state, where they ask for the forces of correction, that they will be given an ability, all those forms, shapes in that big box, that they will have an ability to connect to one another. Then when they start connecting, they understand that they don't know how to connect. Where will I find my partner now to connect with him? And him, and him, and him, how should I do it? And then the work of scrutiny starts, and then the work of correction, and in this way, eventually we all connect, but this is all under the condition that we don't throw away that connection between us, but understand that our future is in that interconnection between us. I don't need to love his face, and the way he expresses himself, and his language, and so on. No, I only want to locate in myself, to locate where he has desires that I can fill, and also to open myself to whomever wants to fill me. That's it. And then, it turns out, that on one hand of creation, one side of creation, there's the Creator sending all the fillings through us, and we are connected between us, and through us, all this light flows, and goes back to the Creator, in order to bestow to Him. And that's how we are incorporated in Him.

Reader: In the second part of the lesson, we're going to be studying from a lesson from 2006, from the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, where at #87th.