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

Daily Lesson (Morning) June 22, 2024.

Part 2: Rabash. Letter 40.

Reader: We are reading from “The Writings of Rabash,” this is letter 40. You can find the material in the study materials tab in the Arvut system. You can also send questions live. If you ask a question here in the hall, make sure you have a microphone, stand up and ask loud and clearly into the mic. We are reading from the Rabash letters, Rabash letter number 40.

Reading Letter 40: (00:35) 

31st day of the Omer Count, May 6, 1958, Manchester

To the students, may they live,

I received a telegram from ... that we won. Let us hope that we will win the war on the inclination, too—that here, too, we will succeed and achieve the goal of bringing contentment to the Maker.

It is about time that we started moving forward toward our sacred goal like mighty strong men. It is known that the paved road that leads to the goal is love of friends, by which one shifts to love of the Creator. And in the matter of love, it is through “Buy yourself a friend.” In other words, through actions, one buys one’s friend’s heart. And even if he sees that his friend’s heart is like a stone, it is no excuse. If he feels that he is suitable for being his friend in the work, then he must buy him through deeds.

Each gift (and a gift is determined as such when he knows that his friend will enjoy it, whether in words, in thought, or in action. However, each gift must be out in the open, so that his friend will know about it, and with thoughts, one does not know that his friend was thinking of him. Hence, words are required, too, meaning he should tell him that he is thinking of him and cares about him. And that, too, should be about what his friend loves, meaning what his friend likes. One who doesn’t like sweets, but pickles, cannot treat his friend to pickles, but specifically to sweets, since this is what his friend likes. And from that, we should understand that something could be unimportant to one, but more important than anything to another.) that he gives to his friend is like a bullet that makes a hollow in the stone. And although the first bullet only scratches the stone, when the second bullet hits the same place, it already makes a notch, and the third one makes a hole.

And through the bullets that he shoots repeatedly, the hole becomes a hollow in his friend’s heart of stone, where all the presents gather. And each gift becomes a spark of love until all the sparks of love accumulate in the hollow of the stony heart and become a flame.

The difference between a spark and a flame is that where there is love, there is open disclosure, meaning a disclosure to all the peoples that the fire of love is burning in him. And the fire of love burns all the transgressions one meets along the way.

And should you ask, “What can one do if he feels that he has a heart of stone toward his friend?” Forgive me for writing, “Each and every one feels that he has a heart of stone,” I mean except for the friends who feel and know that they have no objection that their friend will love them and will give them presents (not necessarily in action, but at least in good words and special attention only to him). I am referring only to those who feel that they have very cold hearts in regard to loving their friends, or those who had a heart of flesh but the coldness from the friends affected them, as well, and their hearts have frozen still.

The advice is very simple: The nature of fire is that when rubbing stones against each other, a fire starts. This is a great rule, since “From Lo Lishma [not for Her name] one comes to Lishma [for Her name].” And this is so particularly when the act is Lishma, meaning imparting a gift to one’s friend, and the aim is Lo Lishma.

This is so because one gives a gift only to one that we know and recognize as someone we love. It follows that the aim of the gift is like gratitude for the love that his friend gives him. However, if one gives a gift to a stranger, meaning he doesn’t feel that his friend is close to his heart, then he has nothing to be grateful for. It follows that the aim is Lo Lishma, meaning ... the intention that should be.

Ostensibly, it could be said that this is called “charity,” since he pities his friend when he sees that there is no one who is speaking to him and greets him, and this is why he does that to him. Indeed, there is a prayer for it—that the Creator will help him by making him feel the love of his friend and make his friend close to his heart. Thus, through the deeds, he is rewarded with the aim, as well.

But while at the time of doing the giver of the gift intended that the gift to his friends would only be as charity (even if he is giving his time for his friend, since it is sometimes more important to a person than his money, as it is said, “One cares for his lack of money but not for his lack of time.” However, regarding time, each has his own value, since there are people who make one pound an hour, and there is more or less. And likewise with their spirituality—how much spirituality they make in an hour, etc.), then one is testifying about himself that he isn’t aiming for love of friends, meaning that through the action, the love between them will increase.

And only when both of them intend for a gift and not for charity, through the friction of the hearts, even of the strongest ones, each will bring out warmth from the walls of his heart, and the warmth will ignite the sparks of love until a clothing of love will form. Then, both of them will be covered under one blanket, meaning a single love will surround and envelop the two of them, as it is known that Dvekut [adhesion] unites two into one.

And when one begins to feel the love of his friend, joy and pleasure immediately begin to awaken in him, for the rule is that a novelty entertains. His friend’s love for him is a new thing for him because he always knew that he was the only one who cared for his own well being. But the minute he discovers that his friend cares for him, it evokes within him immeasurable joy, and he can no longer care for himself, since man can toil only where he feels pleasure. And since he is beginning to feel pleasure in caring for his friend, he naturally cannot think of himself.

We see that in nature, there is love until the yearning becomes unbearable. And if you wish to ask, “How can it be that through love, a person will develop a desire to revoke his own existence?” There is only one answer to that: “Love spoils the line,” meaning it is irrational, not in line with commonsense. This is called “spoiling the line.”

Only then, when there is such a love, each and every one walks in a world that is all good and feels that the Creator has blessed his share. Then the “blessed adheres to the Blessed” and he is rewarded with Dvekut with Him forever.

And through the love, one is willing to annul his entire reality. It is known that as a whole, man divides into two parts: reality and the existence of reality. Reality means that a person feels himself as a deficiency, a desire to receive pleasure. The existence of reality is the delight and pleasure that he receives, by which the body is nourished and can persist. Otherwise, he will have to destroy himself and become absent from the world. This is the meaning of, “Which God has created,” meaning the reality, “To do,” referring to the existence of reality.

The existence of reality divides into three parts:

1) Necessity, without which reality will be cancelled. In other words, he must eat at least a piece of dry bread and a cup of water a day, and sleep for a few hours on a bench, with his clothes on, and not even at home, but outside, on the street or in a field. During the rains, to avoid getting wet and cold, he should go inside some cave to sleep. His clothes, too, can be rags, and this is enough for him because he wants only the existence of reality and nothing more.

2) Being ordinary, important bourgeois—having a home and furniture, household appliances, respectable clothes, etc.

3) Having a desire to be like the well-to-do who have many houses and servants, fine-looking furniture, and fine-looking paraphernalia. And although he cannot obtain what he wants, his eyes and heart aspire to it and his only hope is to lead a life of luxury, and he toils and labors only to achieve the level of the well-to-do.

And there is a fourth discernment within all those three above-mentioned discernments: If he has already made enough for the day, then he no longer cares about tomorrow. Rather, he regards each day as all the years of his life, like seventy years. And as man’s nature is to care for his necessities for all his seventy years, but not for the time past his demise, each day is regarded by him as his whole life and he thinks that he will not live longer than that.

And if he is revived the next day, it is as if he has been reincarnated and must mend what he corrupted in the first incarnation. That is, if he borrowed money from someone, he has become indebted. So tomorrow—in the next life—he pays him, and it is considered a merit. In the next life, he primarily mends all the debts that he caused others or that others have caused him. And the day after tomorrow is considered a third incarnation, and so on.

And now we will explain the above-mentioned matter, that through love, man is willing to make concessions. Sometimes, when a person has love for the Creator, he is willing to relinquish the third discernment, meaning the life of luxuries, since he wants to dedicate time and energy to give some gifts to the Creator by which to buy the love of the Creator (as mentioned above regarding love of friends). In other words, although he still doesn’t have love for the Creator, it shines for him as surrounding light that it is worthwhile to acquire the love of the Creator.

Sometimes a person feels that to buy the love of the Creator, he is willing, if necessary, to concede the second discernment, too, meaning the life of important bourgeois, and to live on necessity alone.

Sometimes one feels the greatness of the love of the Creator to an extent that if need be, he would agree to relinquish even the first part—the basic needs of life—even though by that, his own existence would be cancelled if he did not give the body the nourishment it needs.

And sometimes a person is willing to give up his very existence; he wants to give his body so that through it, the name of the Creator will be sanctified in the masses, if he had a chance to carry it out. It is as Baal HaSulam said, “One should follow the quality of Rabbi Akiva who said, ‘My whole life, I regretted this verse, ‘With all your soul.’ When would I come to keep it?’”

Now we can understand the words of our sages, “‘And you shall love ... with all your heart,’ with both your inclinations. And, ‘With all your soul’ means ‘even if He takes your soul.’ ‘And with all your might’ means ‘with all your possessions.’” As we said above, the first degree of love is the existence of reality, meaning the nourishment of the body by property and possessions, means relinquishing the three above-mentioned discernments in the existence of reality. The second degree is, “With all your soul,” meaning conceding one’s very existence.

And we can keep that through the good inclination, meaning by coercion, when one lets the body understand that there is more delight and pleasure in delighting and giving to the Creator than in delighting and giving to oneself. However, without delight and pleasure, one cannot do anything. When one afflicts himself, we must say that in return he receives some kind of pleasure, or that he feels or hopes to feel the pleasure during the act, since suffering cleanses, so afterwards he will be rewarded with a wonderful pleasure in return for the suffering. In other words, either he will obtain pleasure in this world or he will take pleasure in believing that he will receive pleasure in the next world. Put differently, either he has pleasure in the form of inner light or in the form of surrounding light—from the future.

However, one should not think that one can do anything without pleasure. In fact, (one should know that) there are many discernments in Lishma, meaning in bestowal: “bestowing in order to bestow” means receiving pleasure from giving to the Creator. “Bestowing in order to receive” means that he gives to the Creator and by that will receive something else, whatever it may be—this world, the next world, attainments or high degrees.

However, one should be bestowing in order to bestow, meaning derive wondrous pleasure from giving to the Creator, as it truly is for those who are rewarded with it. One should plead to the Creator from the bottom of his heart to give him this feeling of loving the Creator because of His greatness.

And if he is still not rewarded, he should believe and compel his body that this is a wonderful pleasure and of great importance, and to love the Creator because of His greatness and sublimity. But one should know one thing: without pleasure, one cannot do anything to the fullest.

Let us return to the above-mentioned, “‘With all your heart,’ with both your inclinations,” meaning that one should be complete in the love for the Creator; that is, that the evil inclination, too, will agree to bestow upon Him.

I will be brief due to the approaching Shabbat. I think that ... will be able to get answers to two letters that I received from him, and which I truly enjoyed. I am surprised that ... who was used to writing me letters, it’s been a while since I received a letter from him. Please let me know if he is well and healthy. Also, many thanks to ... for his letters, which I receive from time to time from him, and to ... for the telegram. I suppose ... doesn’t have my address.

Your friend,

Baruch Shalom, son of Baal HaSulam, the Rav Ashlag

M. Laitman: Any questions? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:10) Yesterday, we had a meeting in the Ten. We read the article and wrote a few questions. With your permission, I'll begin with the first one. The first question is: In the beginning of the letter, he writes that even though he sees that his friend's heart is like a stone, it's not an excuse. And if he feels that he's suitable to be his friend in the work, then he should buy him through actions. Question is: How to feel that he is suitable to be his friend in the work? How to come to such a feeling? 

M. Laitman: That depends on the type of connection you have between you. Do you know what his relation towards you is in the good times between you and when it's not as good? And you see that his attitude is truly always in a good direction. So, that's something that must happen. 

Student: Should we be looking for this feeling that the friend always wants my best in any situation? 

M. Laitman: Otherwise, you'll never know what his true relation towards you is. 

Student: Okay, thank you very much. Another question if I may. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: It is written, two paragraphs later, it is written, therefore, he should be saying that he cares for him, and in that too, what his friend likes, meaning what is sweet to his friend. How can we know what is sweet to our friends? 

M. Laitman: Ask that the Creator will show you. 

Student: The Creator?

M. Laitman: Yes, the Creator should tell you what's his friend's taste from what you did for him.

Student: He gives the example that even if there are things that to me are not important but to my friend are very important.

M. Laitman: Correct. 

Student: Then I have to know about it. And I ask, I should ask from the Creator, not from the friend.

M. Laitman: No, the friend might not be in such scrutinies, and you can't confuse them with your scrutinies. 

Student: Meaning, it's inner work. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: To ask from the Creator to know what is good for the friend, and then ask from the Creator to give to the friend what he needs, or is it the same request?  

M. Laitman: Well, let's say it's that way. No, you just have to keep going. 

Student: Keep going, okay. We have another one. How to give to the friend a gift not as charity but from love? 

M. Laitman: That's also something a person has to check, and to wrap his giving as a gift and not as charity. Meaning, wrap it in love. 

Student: He writes that only when the two of them intend for a gift and not for charity, then through the friction of the hearts, even if they are strong ones, each one brings out warmth from the walls of his heart. How do we come to a state where we feel this kind of reciprocity that I give to the friend as a gift and not as charity, and that he gives to me as well? How do we create this duality?

M. Laitman: First of all, it's not exactly duality. Duality is something else. Here, you want your friend to feel your gift, to feel your giving as a gift, as something precious, just like you want him to feel. And what next? 

Student: So, he writes, only when both of them intend for a gift and not for charity. What does that mean? 

M. Laitman: That they both intend to a gift, mean a gift.

Student: So, it's not a matter of duality? Maybe I'm missing something. 

M. Laitman: No, that's okay. That the other one that is now giving the gift to the friend, he feels that he's giving a gift, and he feels from the friend that he accepts it as a gift, and the friend's attitude towards him, to the one giving, is the same that should be from the receiver, and also the way he wants to answer for that gift, to respond.

Student: Is it possible to give a gift without the help of the Creator?

M. Laitman: No. 

Student: So, the real gift is a request from the Creator for the deficiency of the friend?

M. Laitman: The true gift is a gift to the friend that the Creator will join in there. 

Student: Can it be said that this whole movement is a gift to the Creator? Because if we elevate a deficiency of a friend to the Creator, then the Creator enjoys it, that He has someone to fill, to satisfy now.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:05) Teacher, let's get down to basics. How do you come to even feel that you have friends, that you need to give them anything? Use this word, friends, casually, but… 

M. Laitman: Friend, Haver, comes from the word Hibur, connection. And we need to try and see in our environment, an environment of friends. And that depends on the way I relate to them. It depends on me first of all. Doesn't it happen to you that sometimes you're in an argument with someone, and then suddenly it just goes by and you become close, and maybe it gets ruined later on again?

Student: What do you mean that it works out? What do you mean it works out? There are interests, there are different desires, and then you can come to some compromise.

M. Laitman: Yes, okay. 

Student: Maybe, are you talking about this? Because the feeling of friends, there are no friends. I don't know what you mean by that.

M. Laitman: I mean that there are people, that I look at them in, through good eyes, and I want them to come closer to me, and I want to get closer to them, and we'll feel one another in a more internal way, each one the other. And in this way we'll get closer. Until we reach a hug and feel that between us, there's nothing but this connection between us, that in it we can feel the Creator that hugs us, and wants us to keep going in this direction.

Student: I, I am not getting… I am not with you.

M. Laitman: So, who are you with? 

Student: When you read this book, you assume that you have friends, you know what it's talking about, our terms are the same. But it's not like that in reality. Not everyone relates it the way you say it. Even if you care, and you try, but it doesn't mean it automatically comes back to you. 

M. Laitman: No. But, still, if I want to feel this way, I gradually come closer to feeling it.

Student: Let me ask this, do you have such people that you'll love unboundedly, without any partitions, or?

M. Laitman: No. No.

Student: You don't have such people? 

M. Laitman: No, I don't. But if I start calculating, if I want to relate to them in this way, so I try, and I invest forces, and then I discover their closeness to me. Otherwise, it won't be. No, otherwise it won't be. The evil inclination will always erase the connection between us.  

Student: That's true. It always erases.

M. Laitman: Yes. That's in order for me to renew that good connection between us every day.

Student: But you don't always have such partners, the way you describe that the evil inclination is revealed, and then they come to correct with you. Everything you see with your biological eye is that he is a cunning traitor, a liar.

M. Laitman: That's not me looking at the friends, it's looking at myself that this is how I see them. This is how I see them, that they are like that, that they're wicked, thieves. That's my observation. It's not the way they see it. Now here, it says how I can determine that all my friends in the group are good. How can I do that? So, he says this: don't look at them, don't calculate towards them that he always did good to everybody, and he always did bad, and he's a cheater, and he's a thief, or no matter what. You have to bring them in your feeling, in your inner awareness, that they are all good. 

Student: Based on what are you saying this? 

M. Laitman: On whatever I want. On whatever I want. Just like that. I start from determining that they're all good. Why? Because they all have a connection with the Creator. And if I relate to them as if through a looking glass, I see the Creator behind them. That's it. And if a person behaves towards me not exactly like the Creator, so that looking-glass is dirty.

Student: But you can say that about anything. 

M. Laitman: About anything, correct. Because that depends on me. 

Student: Yes, but there are types of people. There are external people. There are people here. You don't treat everyone equally.

M. Laitman: I don't want to determine anything, except for one thing. That the world, you know what, at least my world. Let's say there's 250 students here. They are all people who are connected to the Creator, and they're all good. This is what I want to accept. I'm not checking them. I'm accepting them in this way.

Student: From what you say, then there's no value to a word, to behavior, nothing. You can say that it's the Creator about everything. 

M. Laitman: Towards what I determined, that is true. That's it. Where can you take a different truth from? Look this way, that way. Everybody, everybody is thieves, criminals, liars, and so on. Right.

Student: It's the whole, all of life is like that. There's no real truth and no meaning to anything in this world.

M. Laitman: You are very right. But you can also raise them in your eyes and say, I accept them as good. Why? Because they are all Bnei Adam, sons of Adam. The Creator created them. That's why I want to see in them that the Creator is in them. That He is conducting them. He is escorting them. That's something I want to see in them only. Why can't I do it? 

Student: Because life teaches you otherwise.

M. Laitman: Life is whatever way I'll turn them around.

Student: So, let me tell you a story. Don't worry, I'll make it short. I grew up in Moshav, it's a rural settlement. I knew there a girl who was raped multiple times. It became famous. Some people still haven't paid for what they did. Are these good people? Should such people die a natural death? Is everyone good in your eyes? There are much worse people than that. This is just a tiny example. There are many examples.

M. Laitman: I don't know. I can tell you that maybe part of those people, the Creator, is closer to them. And then they feel that they need to pay. And some don't feel that they belong and owe you anything. That's it. 

Student: Man's inclination is evil from his youth. What you're telling me doesn't hold true. In the end, you're telling me everyone's good. But it doesn't work like that. When you walk outside with these eyes, it doesn't work. What do you mean, see everyone as good? The Creator is behind everyone. So the Creator also put in them all these sicknesses, all these warped desires. How can you see everyone as righteous? As soon as you walk out this door, the world behaves as it does, always.

M. Laitman: I don't want to feel a difference between me going out the door and being in Germany or Austria, or whatever. Or if I go into a different door and only see complete righteous. So, I don't want to feel that way. I don't want to see that. I don't want to see people through my evil inclination. I don't want to judge them in such a way. I want to judge them as if they came out of the Creator, pure, cleansed, that's it. That's how I want to see them. Now, how will I be able to hold myself in such a way that I will see the whole world as heaven, that everyone is in love, that depends on me. But I want to see them in such a way.

And then, if I ascend to such a degree that I can really see them in that way, that's called that I've reached the next world. Then I can look at this reality. Obviously, I've seen them all in a wicked form because that's how I saw them, in that form, and not someone else. And in this way, I organize myself in the world, no matter which world. The world has no form. You are the one giving it its form. That's it.

Question (Moscow): (47:35) I'd like to ask, I heard from you that I don't want to see the others through my evil inclination. We learned in the lesson that through the lack of my correction, that through my evil inclination, I could damage others. It's my uncorrected vision through my ego. Is that the damage of calling the others? 

M. Laitman: In principle, it depends what degree we're in in our society. So, we need to correct ourselves as quickly as possible. 

Student: Well, the same question from a different direction. When I look at the friends through other eyes, is that the correction? How do I affect the whole system? 

M. Laitman: You can't say anything about them. It doesn't matter how you see them. You cannot say anything about them.

Student: So, what's the importance in seeing them through good eyes? 

M. Laitman: To correct yourself. To correct yourself. 

Student: Can I have another question? From Rabash articles we learn that we can only ask, we can't ask for a gift but only charity. But if we get a gift from a friend, whether it's good or not, the gift of the friend we accept it as charity?

M. Laitman: It’s not good. In general, it’s not good to generalize what you’ve heard there, and now you are trying to pull it into here. You shouldn’t do that. 

Question (Women Turkiye 7): (50:26) How to organize correctly the relation between a student, teacher, and Creator? 

M. Laitman: Again.

Student: How to organize the relationships, the connection between a student, the teacher, and the Creator?

M. Laitman: The student has to learn how to see this relationship to the extent that his teacher is together with the Creator, and to the extent that he should correct himself, accordingly he will come closer to the truth.  

Question (Women MAK): (51:23) What is the most efficient action in the connection in the Ten in order to awaken love between the friends and towards the Creator? 

M. Laitman: To come closer to everyone. Come closer to others.

Student: There are friends in the Ten that love in a very devoted way, and the lover is always greater, and that awakens more love. How to accept love from the friends correctly? How to love them back and still feel small, or should there be a feeling of equality?

M. Laitman: A feeling of equality. 

Question (Women MAK 26): (52:23) In the letter, it's written when the hearts rub, sparks come out. What is that? The resistance between us? 

M. Laitman: Yes, all the contradictions come out, the inconsistencies between us, like a match in between us.

Student: Where does the warmth come from? 

M. Laitman: The warmth appears where despite all these contradictions, we still want to connect between us. That's clear, right? And from here also stems the physical law. 

Student: This warmth. Is that the Creator? The Creator gives that? 

M. Laitman: The Creator instills it through the contradictions we have between us, and we want to erase them. 

Question (Turkiye 2): (53:41) How can a person get the ability to bestow to the Creator? 

M. Laitman: How does a person get the ability to bestow upon the Creator? From the Creator, from above, through the friends. He gets it. That's it, very simple.

Question (Women PT 33): (54:11) He writes that a person should love the Creator in a way that the evil inclination will be willing to bestow, too. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: That the evil inclination will agree to bestow, too. Does that mean the existence of reality? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, it's only a result. We don't have the ability to implement the realization of reality, or do we? 

M. Laitman: We don't. The Creator does all of it. Okay. All the best to everyone with this lesson, and let's move to the next part.