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

Daily Morning Lesson: July 23, 2025 

Part 1: Recorded Lesson October 25, 2021. Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land, lesson 2

Reader: Friends, from the first part of the lesson, we’ll learn from the lesson of Rav Laitman from the 25th of October, 2021, Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 34, the writings of Baal HaSulam on page 547 in the Hebrew version, “The Advantage of a Land.”

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Reader: Hello, we are reading the writings of Baal HaSulam, the articles of Shamati. Shamati, 34, “The Advantage of a Land.” You can find the study material in the Arvut system and the study material button and on the site you can also send questions. Selected questions will be asked during the lesson. 

Rav’s Introduction: A very important article – actually all the Shamati articles are – why? It explains to us how to advance towards the goal where our advancement toward the goal has to be through two opposite things, left and right, left and right. But each time we're actually advancing, it seems to us like we are in a state that is disconnected from spirituality. And it's not disconnected from spirituality, it's seemingly opposed to spirituality; they show us the coarseness of the next degree. And we need to try and reveal or show the correct attitude towards it. That's why we, each time, advance on the left, then on the right, and this way we are marching forward. If a person understands that this is how we should walk in each and every moment when something new appears to him, it appears as a thing and its opposite where first the left appears to him—the will to receive the Creator created—and then a person needs to try and attach this new will to receive, this broken will to receive, because he is a result of the shattering of the general vessel. He has to attach this broken state to correction to the left. And it turns out that left right, left right, that's how we are advancing toward the end of correction. Nothing appears unless through these two states, and as a result of them, the middle line. 

So let's read how we should accept those things and you can ask, you can discuss, these are very practical things. The problem is that when we receive the left line, we don't think we're advancing by it, rather, physically we are retreating. And it's incorrect because the Creator only always shows us the future states, and we are in bad states, terrible states, states of helplessness and confusion. In short, both in our brain and heart when we're disconnected from our path and we find ourselves immersed in various corporeal states. Nevertheless, we have to build such an atmosphere in the Ten that will hold us, each and every one of us, each one in his individual states. And he'll be able to, quickly, from the states that he was thrown into, to understand he was thrown from the connection with the friends and there's nothing truly individual or private here. As quickly as possible, he must return to the connection with everyone to the entire Ten and that's how he advances. 

Meaning, we have to try and understand that the state that we are in, the state of separation between us; and coming closer to the Creator is through the effort to come closer internally with the hearts between us. That's how we need to advance, meaning it's not the good and bad that we scrutinize or what is understood or not understood. Rather, we need to decipher it as in the form of, we are distant from one another or we're close to one another and accordingly distant from the Creator who is between us and close to the Creator who appears between us. In this way, we will direct ourselves correctly towards the goal and it will be near to us and clear and felt more and more.

Reading: (06:14) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

I heard on Tevet, 1942

It is known that nothing appears in its true form, only through its opposite, “As the advantage of the light from within the darkness.” This means that everything points to another, and by the opposite of something, the existence of its opposite can be perceived.

Hence, it is impossible to attain something in complete clarity if its parallel is absent.

M. Laitman: Meaning, there's no choice here, we must feel these two states and their opposition from one another. And when we feel one from the other—negative from within the positive, positive from within the negative. When we stop labeling them as negative and positive, rather this is one state and this is another. Because it's clear to us that we cannot be in a good state and a bad state, we simply label them as such according to the feeling in our corrupt will to receive. But in our corrected will to receive, it is written, There is no one cruel in the King's palace, nothing bad exists in the Creator's world. Rather, everything exists in order to scrutinize the things that are opposite to it. Otherwise, it would not have been revealed.

Reading: (08:10) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

For example, it is impossible to estimate and say that something is good, if its opposite, pointing to the bad, is missing. It is the same with bitterness and sweetness, love and hate, hunger and satiation, thirst and saturation, separation and adhesion. It turns out that it is impossible to come to love adhesion prior to acquiring the hate of separation. 

M. Laitman: That is a rule: It is impossible to come to love adhesion, prior to acquiring the hate of separation, where the hate of separation is the foundation, our basis on which we build love for adhesion.

Reading: (09:10) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

To be rewarded with the degree of hating separation, one must first know what is separation, meaning from what he is separated, and then it is possible to say that he wants to correct that separation. In other words, one should examine from what and from whom he has become separated. After this he can try to mend it and connect himself to the one from whom he has become separated. If, for example, he understands that he will benefit from joining with Him, then he can assume and know what is the loss if he remains separated.

Gain and loss are measured according to the pleasure and the suffering. One hates and stays away from something that causes him suffering. The measure of the distance depends on the measure of the suffering, since it is human nature to escape from suffering. Hence, one depends on the other, meaning that to the extent of the suffering, one exerts and does all kinds of actions so as to move away from it. In other words, the torments cause hatred for the thing that induces torments, and to that extent he moves away. 

Question (Tel Aviv 1): (11:25) Can it be said that when we are corrected, then the bad in the system is emphasized even more and not disappear?

M. Laitman: It's possible.

Question (ITA 4): (11:55) Why is it that in order to come to adhesion I have to hate the separation, and the distance between the friends and the Creator?

M. Laitman: This is happening intentionally in creation. In order to bring us to a certain sensation we must understand the opposite quality. How can you feel anything, that you exist, for example, that this is good in this is bad and this is warm and this is cold and each and everything. You attain only because there is an opposite quality to it, so from that, we assemble our vessels of reception. Otherwise, if we didn't have two opposing things in our feelings, we would not be able to feel any one of them, any one. This is called, this warm, this is light, and this is dark – each and everything, this is how it is built. Because what the Creator did is He inverted Himself, He is entirely the force of bestowal and He created. This is the meaning of creation, Beria, outside of His state—He created the opposite state, and by being in both of those states we can exist and feel these two states. Consequently, depict ourselves, locate ourselves in this state that is distant from the Creator, close to the Creator. 

That's how we exist always and only between two states; it's called, light and darkness, in general. But these two states, we these two states consequently divide into many different states, it is the source of all our feelings, our lives, our world; without it we would not be able to feel who we are and where we are. We do not exist on our own, we are just a point which is trying to include in itself two opposite states created by the Creator.  He created light and darkness, and we exist in these two states: light and darkness, good and bad. It doesn't matter how we feel them but from these two states that we include, we feel our existence consequently. We don't feel ourselves, we feel what we sense, which is the difference – the gap between one state and the other. We always feel between that which belongs to the Creator and that which belongs to its opposite. The creation, Beria, means Bar, outside of the degree, that's how we exist.

Question (ITA 4): (15:40) If I understood correctly, you started the lesson by inviting us not to appreciate what is good or what is bad. But what promotes us more towards the goal, that's what I understood. How should we work with relation to the evil inclination? Should we leave those parameters that have to do with our nature?

M. Laitman: We never leave the evil inclination, rather we receive a part of it each time that appears in us, more and more. Against that, we yearn to reveal from the good inclination, and then from these two forms we put ourselves together, as since we include both the evil inclination and the good inclination. That's called the middle line and the middle line is called, Adam, that which we construct inside of us. The good and the bad come to us from the Creator. That's why it gave us an opportunity to be correctly assembled of these two intentions, these two states. That's why it's called, He forms light and He creates darkness, everything comes from the Creator. But a person only has to accept these two things correctly, even equally because the attitude towards them has to be as towards all of creation like in our world. There's no light without darkness and darkness is opposite of light, light is opposite darkness—you can't have it any other way. 

This is how we need to be constructed spiritually. Corporeally, we are in it, in a certain limited range. Where we distinguish between plus and minus in various shapes and forms. This is what makes up our feeling in this world. That's why we feel ourselves as existing in a very limited narrow band out of all of reality called, this world. But we need to build ourselves and we can assemble ourselves into a higher form, where we can place one against the other, as it's written, I created one against the other, ultimately good and evil. To scrutinize the evil from the good, the good from the evil and position them against one another as two lines. And, by that, we construct ourselves as the middle line. This is us, where we are. How do we do it? The middle line is exactly the line of faith above reason; we're going to get to it.

Question (ITA 3): (19:49) The ego always tends not to want to suffer but we learn that in the suffering and darkness is the Creator’s truth. How should we relate to it as a Ten, what is the most effective work, instrumental work to build the middle line that you’re talking about?

M. Laitman: Everything that is revealed in us, we have to accept it as being revealed by the Creator because There's None Else Besides Him. The other thing is that we need to try and accept it in such a way that we are advancing with what we have, both the good and the evil and ascribe everything to the upper force since There's None Else Besides Him. And to aim everything to Him until, in our effort to ascribe everything completely to Him and we come to the feeling that—yes—all of it came from Him. We're going to continue reading because I see these are just questions, they're not according to the direction of the article, yet.

Reader: Paragraph, “it follows that one…”

Reading: (21:30) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

It follows that one should know what is equivalence of form in order to know what he must do to achieve adhesion, called “equivalence of form.” By this he will come to know what are disparity of form and separation.

It is known from books and from authors that the Creator is benevolent. This means that His guidance appears to the lower ones as good and doing good, and this is what we must believe.

Therefore, when one examines the conducts of the world, and begins to examine himself or others, how they suffer under Providence instead of delighting, as is fitting for His Name—The Good Who Does Good—in that state, it is hard for him to say that Providence is behaving in a manner of good and doing good and imparts them with abundance. 

M. Laitman: When we look at the world, we can't say that the world is good and that the one that manages it, which is the Creator, we can say about Him that He is good.

Reading: (23:01) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

However, we must know that in that state, when they cannot say that the Creator imparts only good, they are considered wicked because suffering makes them condemn their Maker. 

M. Laitman: If a person feels any sense of evil in the world, bad—in whatever shape or form—if he feels himself in the state of bad, in a bad state, he is called, a wicked, and accordingly he condemns the Creator. Because, certainly, what he feels comes to him from the Creator. Then, he has to account for himself how much he has to correct his vessel so the vessel will not give him this corrupted sensation. Because, certainly, from the Creator, only good comes to him. If his vessel is inverted and it turns the good that comes to him from the Creator into bad, the light into darkness, a person needs to understand that, in the way that it is shown to him, he has to correct himself until he comes to a good feeling. This, after all, is great help from the Creator to show us where we are opposite to Him.

Reading: (24:37) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

Only when they see that the Creator imparts them with pleasures do they justify the Creator. It is as our sages said, “Who is righteous? He who justifies his Maker,” meaning he who says that the Creator leads the world in a manner of righteousness.

Question (French): (25:18) When I dedicate the suffering I feel to the Creator, I begin to recognize that it is Him operating and thinking of His creation? How does it impact the Ten? What result does it have on the Ten?

M. Laitman: That's a different question – we'll get back to it. I think we need to read. These questions are still not following the line of the article.

Reader: Paragraph, “Thus when one suffers…”

Reading: (26:31) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

Thus, when one suffers, he becomes far from the Creator since he naturally becomes hateful of He who imparts him torments. Consequently, where one should have loved the Creator, he now becomes the opposite, for he has come to hate the Creator.  

M. Laitman: If we feel bad, naturally, necessarily, without making such a decision, we hate the source of the bad. Therefore, we have to understand what we need to do until we come to love from the hate. There's the beginning of the future state, the corrected state where, at the very least, we have the opposite form of how it should be. And this is great help the Creator is already providing us with; we begin to relate to Providence, meaning to Him, negatively. And, from that, we begin our trail, our path to approach the corrections, adhesion, and the goal.

Reading: (28:29) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

Accordingly, what should one do in order to come to love the Creator? For this purpose we are given the remedy of engaging in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments], for the light in it reforms him. 

M. Laitman: Torah and Mitzvot is the entire complex of all those actions that include connection with the friends, study, dissemination. Everything a person has in order to tie himself to the system, to the network which is, in general, pulling the Creator to be revealed.

Reading: (29:10) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

There is light there which lets him feel the severity of the state of separation. Bit by bit, as one aims to acquire the light of Torah, hatred for separation is created in him. He begins to feel the reason that causes him and his soul to be separated and far from the Creator. 

M. Laitman: Meaning, bit by bit, when we work, each time, on the disturbances, on ascribing the disturbances to There's None Else Besides Him, and how can it be that the disturbances come to us. We ascribe these disturbances to the left line which is how the Creator governs us so that through that we will nevertheless approach the goal.

Reading: (30:27) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

Thus, one must believe that His guidance is benevolent, but since he is immersed in self-love, it induces disparity of form in him, since there was a correction called “in order to bestow,” and it is called “equivalence of form.” Only in this manner can we receive this delight and pleasure. The inability to receive the delight and pleasure that the Creator wants to give evokes in the receiver hatred for separation.

M. Laitman: Meaning, by the yearning to reach connection in some way, adhesion, and we see that we are unable or we are incapable of pulling ourselves towards this. It turns out that He brings us hatred for separation. We can’t come to adhesion but we can come to hate the separation, certainly.

Reading: (31:46) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

…and then he can discern the great benefit from equivalence of form, and then he begins to yearn for adhesion.

It turns out that every form points to another form. Thus, all the descents where one feels that he has come to separation are an opportunity to discern between something and its opposite. 

M. Laitman: We will hear what's written in the article. We’re going to go over it once and try to think about it, to be in it, at least throughout the day. In some form we will accept it because we are in it – we are in it. We are in bad feelings, bad sensations, unpleasant sensations, unclear sensations. And we need to come from that to good sensations, good, pleasant, clear sensations, and to advance in these two lines. There's no difference between the unpleasant and the pleasant feeling. Rather, our will to receive, is it connected with the Creator or not connected with the Creator? Meaning, there's something very special here: The Creator, through these sensations of pleasant and unpleasant, it begins to construct states in us states  that are more distant from Him or closer to Him and that's how we can advance.

Reading: (34:04) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

In other words, from the descents, one should learn the benefits of the ascents. Otherwise, he would be unable to appreciate the importance of being brought near from above, and the ascents that he is given. He would not be able to extract the importance that he could extract, as when one is given food without ever having felt hunger.

It turns out that the descents, which are the times of separation, create the importance of adhesion in the ascents, while the ascents make him hate the descents that the separation causes him. In other words, he cannot assess how bad the descents are, when he slanders Providence and does not even feel whom he slanders, to know that he must repent for such a grave sin. This is called “slandering the Creator.”

It follows that precisely when one has both forms he can discern the distance between one and the other, “As the advantage of the light from within the darkness.” Only then can he assess and appreciate the matter of adhesion by which the delight and pleasure in the thought of creation can be acquired, being “His desire to do good to His creations.” Everything that appears to our eyes is but what the Creator wants us to attain the way we do, since they are ways by which to achieve the complete goal. 

M. Laitman: Meaning we can't say that what we feel depends on us; rather, the Creator creates that feeling He arranges what we feel. But we only have to establish the correct attitude, the correct reaction, to what we are feeling depends on us. And we have to check and arrange how we respond and react to what the Creator arranges in our brain and hearts, and all our feelings and all of our understanding of our feelings.

Reading: (37:39) Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 34. The Advantage of a Land.

Yet, it is not so simple to merit adhesion with the Creator. It requires great effort and exertion to acquire the sensation and feeling of delight and pleasure. Before this, one must justify Providence, believe above reason that the Creator behaves with the creatures in a manner of good and doing good, and say, “They have eyes but they see not.”

Our sages say, “Habakkuk came and ascribed them to one,” as it is written, “The righteous shall live by his faith.” It means that one need not engage in details, but concentrate his entire work on a single point, a rule, which is faith in the Creator. This is what he should pray for, meaning for the Creator to help him to be able to go with faith above reason. There is power in the faith: Through it, one comes to hate the separation. This is considered that faith indirectly makes him hate the separation. 

M. Laitman: Okay, how do you feel this article?

Question (Focus Group): (39:36) We feel that it awakens many questions, a question about our reaction to the Creator. We heard that the evil that is revealed is help from the Creator to point to the place of correction. What happens in the Ten, it’s relatively clear where to ask. What about the evil that is revealed outside of the Ten, how do we connect it correctly to the connection between us?

M. Laitman: It doesn't matter, we're not talking about technical things, right now. We’re talking about the essence of things and not where they are revealed.

Student: I'm talking about our reaction.

M. Laitman: No, it's not even a question at the level or at the state that we are discussing now. Within the Ten or outside of the Ten, that’s already how we arrange things. Now, we are talking about what is revealed, from Whom it is revealed, and how we respond.

Student: I'm talking about the reaction, the place of the correction is our connection between the friends in the Ten, right?

M. Laitman: You're not hearing what I'm saying, and I'm probably not hearing what you're saying.