https://kabbalahmedia.info/en/lessons/cu/KWazG8dF
The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Afternoon) October 13, 2024
Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Lesson on the topic of Memorial Day
Reader: Hello everyone, today we're reading selected excerpts about the Baal HaSulam, Rav Yehuda Ashlag. The study materials you can find on our websites, and you can ask questions live.
M. Laitman: Let's start to read the articles of Rabash that was writing about his dad, Baal HaSulam, about his actions, his activities, about him himself, about his attainments. I think that will be light to our way.
Excerpt 2.
Reading: (01:03) Baal HaSulam made it so that if an ordinary person follows his way, he can achieve Dvekut, adhesion, with the Creator, just like a dedicated wise disciple. Before him, one had to be a great wise disciple in order to be rewarded with Dvekut with the Creator. Before the Baal Shem Tov, one even had to be among the greatest in the world or he would not be able to attain godliness.
M. Laitman: So, we see that during time, the same demand to come near the Creator and to understand Him and to enter a connection with Him becomes easier. Therefore, in our times, each and everyone needs to try to come to adhesion with the Creator and therefore we study according to Baal HaSulam and Rabash how to do so.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:32) What is before Baal HaSulam? He writes that in the period from Baal Shem Tov to Baal HaSulam and after Baal HaSulam. So, what changes have occurred?
M. Laitman: The change was very great, very big. Until Baal Shem Tov, it wasn't clear how to advance towards the Creator, to come in connection with Him, to come near Him. Only from Baal Shem Tov and afterwards, Baal HaSulam, this thing became a little clearer, but as well, not for normal people, private people, only for people who really were great in Torah and invested themselves in everything they could. There used to be big restrictions, and after Baal HaSulam, that thing became a bit easier to attain, and even though the students of the wise, even if they were not wise, even studied a little bit from the wise people, they were already able to study and come closer to the Creator, to the revelation of the Creator, and that's what happened thanks to Baal HaSulam.
Student: What is the single person? He's writing even for a single person?
M. Laitman: It means that it's not from our skill. There are people who work and study and are not too deep in the Torah. They don't know it from A to Z, like it used to be in the period until Baal Shem Tov. Therefore, the wise people's students were limited, only a few that used to come to adhesion with the Creator, and from Baal Shem Tov and onwards, the things started to become easier to many people, and by their desires, their yearning, they were already were able to go through the fence and enter in contact with the Creator, to the point that with their prayers they reached the Creator.
Student: But why does a person have to be immersed in the Torah for the whole day, and the whole life? Why are there discounts today for the people?
M. Laitman: It's not a discount. It's how the world is running. It's the nature of creation, that it's more and more being revealed. That's one thing. And the second thing, more people start to understand and attain, and that's truly the desire to acquire the Creator, to connect to Him, more and more being revealed in the normal simple people, that they were not students of the wise people, of the sages. It's been revealed in them in a way that they acquired, and then came to the wisdom of the Kabbalah, and by that, revelation of the Creator.
Student: What's the minimum that an ordinary person has to do in order to get to adhesion with the Creator?
M. Laitman: He needs to have a heart, just to feel that his heart needs it.
Question (Petah Tikva 6): (08:40) I heard now that you only need a heart. What does it mean?
M. Laitman: Desire. Simple desire as big as possible sothat a person can feel that the one that draws him to the Creator.
Question (Women Moscow 5): (09:18) A certain kind of ego gets a certain kind of teacher? How does that happen eventually, at the end of the day? How does our ego develop so that specifically Baal HaSulam has come to give us the method?
M. Laitman: We will scrutinize it later on. We can't reveal it now, today. It truly needs to be a special person, special times, that we receive a reward from the Creator, and be able to draw the knowledge of the Creator. As a matter of fact, the whole of humanity.
Question (Women Turkiye 7): (10:10) What is the situation that allows Baal HaSulam to reach more people through his method?
M. Laitman: That Baal HaSulam wrote to us in all of his articles and prefaces. What he wrote is how we can come closer to the Creator, under which conditions we have on the path in order to acquire the Creator, how we cannot be wrong, and each and every time we correct ourselves, and by that we will reach our purpose of life.
Question (Women MAK): (11:22) Are Kabbalists, the generation of Kabbalists, somebody attained in the mind, somebody in the feeling like Baal Shem Tov. The last generation have to reveal the Creator both in the mind and in the heart, so what is the adhesion in both mind and reason?
M. Laitman: This is when a person feels himself completely ready for adhesion with the Creator.
Question (Women Polish): (12:07) I understand that we have no right to think about what is written in the Torah before we attain it.
M. Laitman: Yes, that's true, that's correct.
Question (Turkiye 2): (12:35) From what stage of interconnectedness do I have to achieve with you, Rav, in order to be able to become this adapter to the world?
M. Laitman: We'll walk together and create this connection that through us the whole of the world will be able to connect through it to the Creator.
Question (Nikolaev-Sochi): (13:06) We, the world Kli, can be considered these ordinary people that want to achieve adhesion with the Creator through the method of Baal HaSulam. Before, people would study personally in solitude, and in our time we have the possibility to always be together with you, with the friends through Zooms, and we don't have enough time for reading. Maybe that's the reason why we are becoming slower, and we cannot understand the method. We do not work enough in solitude, the way people used to do before.
M. Laitman: I don't think that that is the reason. It looks to me that the reason is because we are not investing enough. Reason and mind do not deepen enough in our connection with the Creator. But, in essence, we are going towards it, that all of this will be revealed.
Student: What do you think, in our time, now that we have been given all the conditions, we have the phones, and we have everything inside of our phones, the connection with the friends, but at the same time, the Creator adds ego, and the conditions in the outer world are worsening. How can we find this point of balance in our time, or from you? Where do we take it from? From Baal HaSulam, maybe?
M. Laitman: I think the Creator gives us everything. It's just that we fulfill His demands towards ourselves, not in a satisfying way. It's not in a full heart, and this is why the upper world hasn't been revealed to us. That's why we need to be in connection between us as one man with one heart, and to try to yearn out of this connection to the Creator. And then we will feel how much He was waiting for us and has been expecting us in happiness and joy.
Question (Women Turkiye 7): (15:49) What will awaken the desire of people in the world to come closer to their Creator?
M. Laitman: Just like how we want to come near the Creator, to reveal Him, to reveal the connection with Him. Also, the nations of the world, slowly, slowly, will feel how much they lack the connection with the Creator.
Question (Women Moscow 5): (16:32) We always hear from you, a person with a heart, if the heart's desire is as far as I understand what heart means desires. Isn't the whole world Kli desiring to reveal the Creator? So, meaning, what else do we lack to become one man with one heart, with one desire to attain the Creator?
M. Laitman: What we lack is only to aim our hearts in the right way, to strip it from all other things, and to tie everyone in one heart, and by that, we will come to a connection with the Creator.
Student: Did we not grow enough, or are we lazy, or we're not supposed to reveal it yet?
M. Laitman: Maybe we are not ripe enough, but in essence, it is our problem that we cannot convince ourselves that we need to rise above ourselves.
Student: I can only judge by myself. I'm feeling very comfortable in our society. It's so good, it's so loving, it reveals, it opens the heart, truly, in this cocoon of love. Why do I need to move further? And it means that I'm limiting myself in my ego, myself. How do I move forth? Where's the result that we were talking about today? Just to break through, and that's it?
M. Laitman: That's a problem. You are speaking correctly, but there is a problem. The point is that we need to break the shell that we are in by force, and to try to get out of it to the open air. And this is something that everyone needs to do.
Question (Moscow 4): (19:10): This time, Yom Kippur, we were preparing a lot at first, and we were putting a lot of efforts. It was a gift from the Creator. The difference between the requirements of the Creator to me, to us, towards everyone, and between what I can reply to Him with.
I've been shown that the second day I don't feel comfortable, that I don't do enough, and I just find myself in such a state, that specifically a distance between the requirements of the Creator towards me, to us, and between what can I reply to Him with. What do I do with it?
M. Laitman: What you've been receiving is a great revelation. This is a certain height of attainment, not that you attain it, but someone revealed how far you are from the Creator.
And from now and onwards you need to work that all of your opportunities, all of your activities, actions, somehow to come closer to Him, to take off the shell, to take the shell off you, to peel it. And with this emptiness, this nothingness, to come closer to Him, to run to Him, to yearn to Him.
Student: I feel the value of each day that I live through, from the morning to the evening, specifically the day becomes so juicy, big, and I have gratitude for the day I have gone through towards the Creator. It's also a change.
M. Laitman: It's a sign of advancement.
Question (MAK 27): (21:50) We all sit here, and we want to reveal the Creator. Let's say my friend, for example, reveals the Creator. He will bring me huge contentment, because I love my friend. And I will reveal the Creator for the sake of my friend, because through this I will bring him huge contentment. Then I'm not ashamed to reveal the Creator, because I'm not doing it for myself. Therefore, the more there's love between the friends, the more the Creator is revealed in every one of us. Did I put the rule, a friend will help his friend, correctly?
M. Laitman: Yes, that's true, that's correct. Continue and don't stop.
Question (Women Kyiv): (23:00) The examples of previous generations of Kabbalists show that a person has a strong yearning towards the Creator. In your example, how you came to study Rabash, Baal HaSulam. A person has some strong, innate moving power, and in the Ten we have discussed that we don't have this kind of power at all. We don't have this yearning for the Creator. Everyone comes with their own goals, due to a bad life. So, we have those requirements towards us by the Creator and the world. On the other hand, we don't have this moving force. So, it's not clear how you can demand something from us in this state.
M. Laitman: You need to start to connect. Start to connect between you, between the friends, and then you'll feel that you can do something.
Student: So, is this yearning for the Creator only given to some special souls?
M. Laitman: No, it's not for many earthly reasons.
Student: So, the fact that we study due to the earthly reasons is okay?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women Moscow): (24:38) You were just saying that we have to go outside towards the fresh air. So, what exactly do you mean? What's this freshness about?
M. Laitman: With new desires, in revelation of a new yearning to the Creator.
Student: But the goal is the same. We have to unite in the Ten. We have to reveal it in the Ten. It just sounds like it's something outside, something, this fresh air, turns out it's inside.
M. Laitman: In essence, it's new, yes.
Student: So, we do it in the Ten, but what do we put an emphasis on for it to be the fresh air? Or is it the internal work of everyone?
M. Laitman: It's each and everyone's internal work.
Student: We have to make an agreement, because I cannot ask, because I cannot demand from the friends to be fresh and to bestow. How do we do that?
M. Laitman: You rise above yourself to the new degree and feel in the new degree that you are in an ascent, and from that state, start to connect with each other, and in this connection, turn it to the Creator.
Student: How do I do that if I don't see that it's relevant for the Ten right now?
M. Laitman: You need to work on that. It will never be actual. It will be actual only in your exertion, that each and every one comes out of it, and connects with the other friends, and connects with that from your mutual desire to the Creator.
Student: When you say that you have to, and let's say a person feels that they are not able to do it right now, so it says to jump into this water, right? Jump like Nahshon. I feel that I cannot do it, but I have to do it, right?
M. Laitman: Yes, that's correct.
Question (Lithuania 1): (27:25) Connection with the Creator becomes easier, simpler, and what can it mean in the future?
M. Laitman: I don't know what it says about the future, but we need to know that with the help of the light, it will shine on us. We will be able to attain a connection with the Creator, and connection with the purpose of creation.
Question (KabU 14): (28:04) Beyond having the great desire to reach Dvekut with the Creator, and feel the Hissaron of the friends, and adding my desire and using my desire only to give to the friends, how do I reach some level of wisdom?
M. Laitman: From that we acquire the Creator, we will have reason, mind, and fulfillment of wisdom, and we will have it all.
Question (Turkiye 2): (29:32) What is our basic lack to establish this connection? The fact that we will establish the connections together, so that the whole world will be able to connect. So, what did you mean?
M. Laitman: The meaning is that we need to find the connection with the Creator, in all kinds of things that happen, in all kinds of situations that we are in, and from all the discernments that we reveal every day—in the connection between us, the connection between us to the Creator, men, women, everyone. From that we will eventually find the unique connection and reveal there is a place for everyone and everyone together.
Question (Women MAK 98): (30:57): Lately, I had a feeling that there is nothing more important than to achieve the Creator, and everything that is happening around is not important, and we don't have that much time, but at the same time there is such calmness that we will achieve that, simply have to move towards the right direction. So, how do we save this agreement and calmness, but at the same time the yearning together towards the Creator?
M. Laitman: We need to be more connected with each other, the groups, and to pay attention to where our desire is aimed. Our desire needs to be aimed directly to the Creator. Only He can be revealed in a correct connection between us, and only He can help us to feel ourselves and the connection with Him, and then everything will be fine.
Student: For example, before I used to be concerned and angry about things, but now I'm so calm that nothing is important, nothing matters. The only thing that matters is that we have to move towards the Creator, and whatever is happening here, left and right, whatever, it's not important. Is this the correct state?
M. Laitman: In fact, yes, in essence, yes.
Question (Hadera 1): (32:57) For a long time I've been concerned by the question about the writings of Rabash, and every time that I'm reading articles, and I become excited again by the power of these articles, and the depth, and the question arises in me. How did Rabash, without formal education, write such big articles, for which basically deep research is required. For example, the article that we were studying yesterday. It's simply filled, it's brimming with excerpts from the sources, from Psalms, and Talmud, it's full of examples.
M. Laitman: Relax, relax, calm down. It's true that above everything you can depict yourself, and we will continue and study from Rabash's writings, and his actions, his qualities. We will receive everything and integrate with it.
Question (Women Kavkaz 1): (34:27) Baal HaSulam is not simply a high soul and a great kabbalist, but also as an everyday person, he's a philosopher, and a futurist, and a Marx critic, and yesterday during the evening dedicated to him, there was a question for our community. What future, according to the works of Baal HaSulam, do we have to turn to life? How could you reply to this question?
M. Laitman: We need to find the mutual connection between us that's called the general soul, and to find the connection between the general soul to the Creator, to combine between them.
Students: Do we have to perceive articles that are written about the society literally to action, or it has to first reveal as a result of our spiritual attainment?
M. Laitman: This is not important. It's not important how we approach it. Everything will turn upside down, turn around under the influence of the upper light.
Question (Women MAK 25): (35:56) How can we establish an internal chain of connection through our connection with you and Baal HaSulam and Rabash?
M. Laitman: Through your prayers.
Student: And the connection with the Creator, and the connection with the great teachers of the generation, is it the same connection, or is it a different kind of connection?
M. Laitman: It's different. First, the connection with the great teachers, and through them to the Creator.
Question (MAK 39): (36:46) If we say in the words of Kabbalah, so the generation of Ari and the greatest Kabbalists, and then from Baal HaSulam to Rabash, for some reason they are considered the last generation. Basically, we are not expecting any more kabbalists?
M. Laitman: Yes, in essence, we don't need to wait for anyone. All that was revealed before us, all this, is split between us, in front of us, and we can use it all in order to rise together to the Creator and attain through it our upper state.
Question (Women MAK): (37:50) Baal HaSulam gave us the Sulam, the ladder, that we can advance through, if we have the desire for the Creator. He added words, meaning until he attains. It was such a huge action from him, and he put his heart into it. So, how important is it for us to enter attainment, so that later we would pronounce the words even? And how important is it to talk in the Ten that we have to, that we need to enter attainment all together?
M. Laitman: It is important for us to come into attainment, to a higher, and then to think that there is no other goal.
Question (MAK 24): (39:00) These days I seriously think about what am I lacking in order to advance towards this big future that Baal HaSulam was writing about. I have figured out this illness that basically, the Creator truly gives us everything in our times, all the conditions, the environment, gives us the ability to act, and I'm acting. And I do all kinds of actions. I perform, and I ultimately reach the state that I truly cannot ask the Creator, as if I don't want to give Him the place to work with me and make me closer to Him. How do I not forget that I have to give the Creator the place?
M. Laitman: This is an exercise in the greatness of the Creator, in the unity of the Creator, His uniqueness, that He is above us and ties us with everything in the world. We are obligated without disconnecting from Him, just like a child that is holding the adult, and he is always demanding and asking. The result is that the adult gives up, and this is how we should do it too.
Question (Women MAK 19): (41:08) When you were answering the question of the Moscow women that we have to break the Klipah in order to get out. Is it our common Klipah?
M. Laitman: Yes, that's our mutual share.
Student: You have often said that we're not supposed to share our states, but in our feelings, based on the questions, we're going through almost the same states, and everyone in his own way, and this is what reveals it. So, this feeling of the desire to act, is it all a place for the prayer of the poor?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women Almaty 1): (41:59) What is this paradox that we, in the last generation, have accumulated the biggest and the strongest ego? On the other hand, Rav said that we have the most opportunities to come closer to the Creator.
M. Laitman: Because we have a big ego, this is the condition to come near the Creator.
Student: How can a person know that he is an incarnation of the soul of Ari, or some other big soul that comes once in a thousand years? How can you know that?
M. Laitman: I don't know how you can know, but I advise you to throw it out of your mind.
Question (Women German): (43:07) What does it mean to want to achieve spirituality?
M. Laitman: It's to be above time and space and to understand the reasons for everything that is happening.
Question (Hungarian, Polish): (43:41) Question not translated.
M. Laitman: To pray.
Question (Women Hebrew 2): (44:39) What does it mean to embody the articles of Baal HaSulam?
M. Laitman: To read many articles and to try to connect through them to the forces that have been revealed, the forces of disconnection, the forces of adhering, all kinds of forces.
Question (Women Turkiye 7): (45:21) What can I do to go above and beyond the condition of complaining and criticizing friends while studying?
M. Laitman: You need to get ready for it. To prepare with your article. It may be something very big. I don't know. I don't know you. but it seems like it can happen. You are not an easy woman. How can you be good with your friends? I don't know what to say, but that's a problem. Try to work on it, and you'll see how it opens up for you everything.
Question (Women Ukraine 2): (46:27) Baal HaSulam for me is... I entered our method through him, through the book called The Kabbalist, and I felt his yearning and the tragedy of his life. It was pushing him always to disseminate, to act somehow. If a person also feels this sadness, this yearning, can this be a moving force to disseminate, to move?
M. Laitman: Yes. Yes.
Student: You said that we still feel the yearning of this world through all kinds of situations. But how do we switch? Is it in person's forces to switch this yearning or to ask the Creator to switch it towards the yearning to the Creator?
M. Laitman: This is why you need to miss the Creator, and meanwhile, we don't miss the Creator. And what we need to get out of it, this is what we...
Student: So, it's some kind of an omen?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women Rehovot 1): (47:51) We in the Ten try to be already more between us, and I can feel... Is there a place for me, for me at work?
M. Laitman: No.
Question (Women Moscow 6): (48:13) You said that it's important to open your heart before the friends. How do I do it correctly?
M. Laitman: You need to read the articles of Baal HaSulam and you'll understand.
Question (Women Baden-W): (48:46) It was said in the lesson that we have to find a common connection between us and connection with the soul, as Baal HaSulam wrote. As we know, he was living in Poland while he was writing, and the connection between people was not as open as now. It was not revealed and there was no land of Israel with the population it has now. How can this corporeal change affect us, can help us to move towards the one soul?
M. Laitman: We must pray to Baal HaSulam, to the Creator, and he will reveal to us our unity in everything. And then we will feel how much we are connected to each other.
So, each and the state of everyone is defined, and there is no distance between us. All of this we can demand from the Creator.
Student: Also I heard that there was some corporeal reason, but at the end of the day we look at each other at the connections and changes. So, how do we use them to accelerate in the prayers? Everyone has a huge desire.
M. Laitman: Come closer to each other as tightly as you can, and from the connection from your connection turn to the Creator.
Question (Tbilisi): (50:45) We're sitting during Yom Kippur and we were thinking about our soul what—what we do right or wrong –and we came to a realization that we're not praising the Creator, Rav and friends enough, because exactly the greatness of the Creator, Rav and friends will bring us, on the other hand, this lack that will be filled by the Creator and we will unite in this lack.
M. Laitman: That's correct, and I bless you for the revelation. This is correct.
Question (Petah Tikva 22): (51:43) What does it mean to go through the path of Baal HaSulam? How can a person start walking this path?
M. Laitman: After we study the articles of Baal HaSulam and what has been written about him, we can define between the Baal HaSulam path and any other path. So, let's try to come to what he wants to bring us to.
Question (Kavkaz): (52:28) Rabash is writing here that Baal HaSulam made it so that even an ordinary person can achieve adhesion with the Creator. and before Baal Shem Tov you had to be one of the greatest in the world. So, can we somehow improve the method that we have right now in order for every person to be able to achieve adhesion with the Creator?
M. Laitman: If we acquire what we need to acquire, by that we will understand in what way we can help everyone, and by that the result will be defined as spiritual work.
Question (Moscow 1): (53:22) The feeling of happy unity and interconnectedness starts becoming something not mine, but something that belongs to the Creator. It's something that I have to use for the motivation in the Ten and for global dissemination. All kinds of challenges in the Ten become a place of growth for me and a place for the contact with one developing force.
M. Laitman: I agree with you.
Question (Women MAK 26): (54:08) Sometimes the heart is opening up and you definitely know where you want to advance and you ask the Creator for it, and there you have so many states and basically you cannot hold the Hissaron, the lack. Are these prayers heard by the Creator? And the second question: To get ready for the prayer you need a lot of time but the world is so crazy right, everything is fast, everything is running. Is it okay not to prepare for the prayer or should I just drop everything and prepare for the prayer, or this lack when my heart is open, and you have asked the Creator is also a good prayer.
M. Laitman: Sure. That's a prayer.
Student: I hold this lack in my request.
M. Laitman: Don't worry about that. Do what you can in every given moment.
Question (Women Petah Tikva 33): (55:29) You said that we have to yearn for the Creator, and we have to receive something from it. What is the corrected yearning that we have to achieve? What is the true yearning for the Creator?
M. Laitman: To truly miss the Creator means that I want to be included with all the creatures, to yearn for Him, to adhere to Him and all my deficiencies to be only in order to fulfill Him.
Question (Women MAK): (56:48) Baal HaSulam was in adhesion with the Creator. How do we achieve such a connection with the Creator with our neighbor?
M. Laitman: It's not simple. All of you need to be connected between you, between yourselves and from the connection to turn to the Creator in order that you will tie all of us even stronger and include all of us in Him. There is nothing more we can ask for. We don't need anything more. In Him our heart will be in joy.
Student: How do I break through this corporeal wall, because I really want to be in adhesion with the Creator twenty-four hours a day, but I realize that it's through the neighbor, but between me and the neighbor there's this wall that I cannot break, and to be in the connection with the Creator it's as if impossible. This this matter is unbreakable, and sometimes I feel afraid, and I don't know what to do, but we have to bring contentment to Him. We have to give to Him 24/7, and I don't know how to do it through the neighbor. Sometimes I don't have any strength through the neighbor to perform, to give contentment to the Creator. Sometimes I don't have any strength.
M. Laitman: I think you don't understand your work correctly. All of the Ten up to the Creator and that's it. Nothing but that; you don't need anything else.
Question (Lithunania 5): (59:30) When a person loses all the forces to do spiritual work, should he turn directly to the Creator, or should he turn to the Ten for the strength,
M. Laitman: To turn to the Creator with the Ten.
Goodbye to everyone until tomorrow.
Announcements: (1:00:13)
Song: (1:00:45)