Morning Lesson March 24, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #62
1. R. (00:16) We already went deep into the process that we need to go through and still it is not so clear to us where we are because until we practically go through these states, it is all theoretical, or verbal to us we don't have any connection to it. I think, let's read from item 54.
Reading (01:11) Item #54
2. R. (01:43) Meaning, if a person completed his exertion, the quota of exertion, then the Creator becomes revealed to him.
Reading (01:52) Item #54 continues: “…then he is rewarded…”
3. R. (02:12) Yes, right.
Reading (02:13) Item #55
4. R. (03:08) Right, because in this state he cannot feel good, bad, true, false in the right way only after coming to revelation he begins to feel these things but not right now right away, no.
Reading Item #55 continues “Naturally one who…” (03:27)
5. R. (04:04) That is clear, next.
Item #56 (04:13)
6. R. (06:21) So it is clear to us here that everything follows laws and what a person has in his hand. If he has the revelation of the Creator he will not sin if he doesn’t of course he will because he is under the rule of the will to receive as opposed to the will to bestow that comes from revelation of the Creator. In such a way we can see ourselves when we are righteous and when we are wicked, and it all depends on the revelation of the Creator to the person.
7. S. (07:07) What does it mean revealing this Creator he's talking about?
R. When you begin to receive the force of bestowal that keeps you above the force of reception.
S. This revelation is what gives me this testimony that I won’t sin again?
R. Yes. It is a promise that you will no longer sin.
S. Then the ability to bestow. How does it work with the will to receive? It doesn't stop me from praying, from being in the work.
R. How could that be? You are feeling that the Creator rules the world and governs you and you just have to cling to Him. That's what appears to you during the relation of the Creator and then you do everything in order to bestow. Can you sin in such a way? No.
S. But if I can’t sin, where is my choice?
R. The choice is to grow stronger. It is not, I don't understand you. When I am under the influence of the Creator I'm a righteous when I'm under the posterior of the Creator I am a wicked. Now, what do you want to happen? Where I am under the influence of the evil inclinations, being wicked, and still being righteous? Where have you seen such a thing?
S. No. On the contrary. I’ll be righteous but still be a man that can choose.
R. The choice is not in this. The choice is in between when you are neither here nor there and you make the decision. We are going to get there soon. We are going to read about it but in the meantime if you are under the influence of the Creator you are Righteous and if you are on the other side of influence, you are wicked.
S. We are working beyond the revelation, beyond trying to find proof, we are trying to be above this, and you are saying, no, it will be clear to you. It is like we are going backwards.
R. I don't understand the question.
S. We are working on trying to be above self-revelation, beyond proof.
R. Everything depends on the level of the Creator’s influence on you, that’s it and that is all we need to bring. The more we can bring the influence of the Creator over us to that extent we will be wicked or righteous or intermediate and so on, that determines who we are. Therefore bestowing to the Creator or influencing the Creator to influence us, that's basically our work that's our only salvation. That I can attract the influence of the Creator upon us and that can only happen in a group. The more tightly connected it is and connected to the Creator so in whatever state he will influence them to be above their ego.
S. So I only pray again. What's the prayer for?
R. You need to clarify that and compose the prayer. What do you want? You want to be connected to the ten because otherwise the Creator doesn't hear you so to be connected to the ten and all of you want to compose the prayer that you need the force of connection, the force of unity and to connect it to the Creator so as to receive from Him the force of bestowal, of love, of connection so that by that you can present the Creator with a Kli that he can bestow and receive contentment. There's no more than that. Imagine to yourself that you are all like a baby and you're opening your mouth and the Creator feeds you like a mother feeds her baby with a spoon. So, she has no greater pleasure than when the baby opens its mouth, and she can put a spoon of porridge or whatever in there. That's what you need to do. By that you bless the Creator that He can feed you. You are thankful that he gives you an appetite to open your mouth and receive from Him to bring Him contentment. There are many more additions here.
8. S. (12:26) What does it mean not until the knower of mysteries will testify?
R. Until he who knows the mysteries will testify that he will not return to folly. Meaning that the Creator testifies that a person already corrected. How does one know that? The person receives a unique illumination from above that puts him in contact, a shared light with the Creator. The Creator fulfills him according to his degree.
S. Do we discover this in the ten somehow? Let's say at least two friends discover this.
R. You will come closer to that and see how it happens inside the group.
9. S. (13:36) The sinner, is that the recognition of evil or the force of separation?
R. If he works together with the group and receives guidance from above and cannot do more, or he can do more, it all depends on the state really so accordingly he grabs hold of his degree and we cannot say about the end of the road what will happen because that's a matter of faith. Still all the souls ultimately have to achieve correction and that's how we have to see each and everyone’s fate. To fulfill his personal role in completing everyone else.
10. S. (14:56) The sentence that he won't sin anymore, if the Creator wants a person to sin, he will sin, so it is not clear.
R. So the Creator testifies that a person completed this role, at this stage, and he won't sin anymore. This means that he who knows all mysteries will testify that he will not return to folly.
S. How will he advance without falling and coming up and falling?
R. He will advance but always keeps himself on the path no matter what states he goes through. He always tries to be maximally connected to the group and to the goal.
11. S. (15:50) What's that limit of exertion that he's speaking about?
R. Until he testifies that he won't return to folly. That is the measure of exertion until you don't get an answer from above, so the limit hasn’t been filled yet.
S. How should I get an answer?
R. Revelation of the Creator.
S. How does that happen? Do you see it? There are signs for it?
R. When it comes then you will see it. That's it. When you already start performing acts of bestowal, you will want to do them, and you will do them.
12. S. (16:37) He says when a person is sure that he can get repentance, what is that first of all?
R. When he adheres to the Creator through the group. That's called repentance that the Hei will return to Vav.
S. What does it mean repentance that the whole world is talking about?
R. I don't know about the whole world. I'm trying to understand what Baal HaSulam is saying.
S. Is there a difference between one who is working in hands and legs to the one studying Kabbalah?
R. I don't know. You're asking me about things with which I don’t deal. I don't even want to talk about them.
S. Why?
R. Because it is not mine.
S. So what repentance is only inner work?
R. We are speaking about repentance that the wisdom of Kabbalah is speaking about. That we from our will to receive, from the intention to receive, reach the intentions to bestow.
S. Okay.
R. All our corrections are in the intention.
Item #57
13. R. No questions, this is clear. We might have to read this a few times, but these things are clear.
14. S. (19:27) Can we attain repentance only through a feeling? Can I ask for the friends not to suffer?
R. It has nothing to do with each other. We are speaking about repentance that a person corrects himself and instead of the intention to receive he acquires an intention to bestow. That is called repentance, or an answer and in that framework obviously he asks also for the good for his friends, that they won’t suffer.
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Reading item #58 (20:20)
Reading item #59 (21:50)
15. S. (23:48) Only when one rises to a single concealment he identifies the transgressions he had in double concealment?
R. Yes of course.
S. Is that the same in every level. Do we have to rise to understand what happened in the previous degree?
R. Obviously you cannot understand what is happening to you now until you ascend to a higher degree. Can you explain to a baby something about the state he is in? When he grows then he understands where he was. That’s how it is.
16. S. (24:35) A couple of minutes ago you described repentance as the Hei returning to the Vav. I also heard you describe it as the Vav returning to the Hei. Is it relevant at this time to ask the difference between those two actions?
R. I don't understand. Explain what you are saying.
S. In the past I also asked you about repentance and you said to me the Vav returning to the Hey as opposed to the Hei returning to the Vav and I heard it described in both of these ways before so either I’m confused and mistaken which there is a great possibility or there is a difference in these two actions.
R. When Malchut ascends to Bina it’s called that she repents. That is the first repentance. Afterwards when she can take the forces of Bina and work with her force and by this resemble Keter that is already the complete repentance. So, in short, to attain the quality of bestowal, which is the first step and then to work with the quality of bestowal with the entire will to receive that is already the second step. These two steps it’s like ascending from Malchut to Bina and from Bina to Keter. That is what we must do through all that correction.
S. So mainly it is only relevant to the Hei returning to the Vav at this point..
R. Let It Go. It doesn't matter Hei or Vav. The main thing is that we work with the will to receive in order to restrict it. We acquire the will to bestow as much as we can upon the will to receive and afterwards the will to receive is added to the will to bestow and then we raise the will to bestow as if we restrict the Malchut and ascend to Bina and then with the forces of Bina we raise Malchut until Keter. Depict it to yourself in a way.
17. S.(27:19) Can I ask about the attitude towards the study?
R. Yes.
S. Our whole study is based on questions and answers and in the first part there is a feeling that we somehow hold it. It is in our bones, we feel it, we can ask. There's an inner response to the material. In this part of the introduction to TES the questions are kind of like philosophizing. I see that the world we are talking about right now is completely not in my vessels. So what questions do you expect us to ask here?
R. I'm not expecting anything. I expect you to read this and invest as much forces as you can in it, until you really understand that this is not in you yet but you really want to attain it and then you'll do all kinds of actions between you in the tens in order to attain these things and the upper light can bestow upon you and you will feel that it is close to you and from this it will be clear what we are reading about now and then that is called that you are studying Torah. That the light that clothes in your vessels corrects them and you study the actions of the light in your vessels. That is called studying Torah.
S. In the first part what you said is very clear, what we learn in the first part of the lesson, but this part is like seven hundred degrees above me.
R. Right here you feel that you are speaking about things that you do not attain yet and there it seems to you that in some way you are in this, studying.
S. So what is the right thing to do? Is it the same approach in both parts of the lesson?
R. No. It is different. Try and pray in each part, in what you can, through the group to the Creator and then gradually you will come closer to it happening to you.
18. S. (30:00) This point where he who knows all mysteries testifies that he will not return to folly. We heard about this concept of personal correction and general, final correction. So what is that?
R. The final general correction will be in the end when all vessels are corrected and reach the final general connection. Now we are speaking about a private final correction of each and every ten as much as they yearn for connection and want to implement everything inside themselves by this they come close to one another. They raise a prayer to the Creator until the Creator bestows upon them, connects them, and appears inside them and that is called the revelation of the Creator to the created beings. The created being is a ten that can be as a created being as Adam HaRishon before the sin in somewhat at least and that is what we are studying; how to do it.
S. Is it possible that a person comes to the state even before he incorporates with the ten but by thinking about the people and the Creator?
R. No. It is possible only by drawing the light that reforms in a sufficient way for the souls that today descend into the world at the end of corrections. These souls are very heavy and egoistic. That is why it is not enough for them to engage in something as if spiritual, but they really need the wisdom of Kabbalah. That's why it's being revealed in the end of the generations, and we are the first generation where the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed and is necessary for correction. That without this there cannot be a correction for any one of us. Only in the connection in the ten and with the plea to the Creator to connect the ten as a private partial vessel of the whole Adam HaRishon and in this way when we assemble such tens and tens and tens they will start between them to connect more and more also and then they reach the final correction. That's how I understand it. That's how I understand it. I do not know what other things will be revealed on the way but according to what I learned that is actually the process.
S. To make it more specific. That point has other names, receiving the Masach.
R. It is all the same. The same point of connection we attain the middle line, connection, the point of connection of the first nine with the Malchut. It is all in that point of connection between us. In the center of the group, the center of the ten, that's where it is all classified.
19. S. (34:22) How do we stop looking at a revelation for the Creator as luxury and appreciate it as necessity?
R. Gradually when we relate to the Creator through the group and want Him to correct us He changes us and by this we start seeing ourselves as we need to connect in a more spiritual way.
20. S. (34:50) If a person is not returning to folly then how will a person go through descents because this is our path until the final correction?
R. I don't understand the question, again.
S. It says that one will not commit any more sins. So how will he go through any descents because our path requires ascents and descents all the time?
R. So not in that way. We will discover descents that we haven't corrected yet. They still need to be revealed before us, but I can’t depict them as my descents, but the Creator is giving me opportunities to correct them and connect to Him even more than before.
21. S. (35:55) Why do we sin if we know that we will receive punishment?
R. They are not sins. They are desires that still don't have screens. That's why our attitude to such desires that we want to use them let's say in order to receive and there's no choice if I don't have a screen, obviously I'm in order to receive and if I connect to the friends and pray to the Creator and get light from Him that reforms and He gives me that screen and then I can work with that desire that was revealed as evil, I work with it and turn it into good and then I get light, revelation of the Creator in that corrected desire and this is called that I performed a Mitzva, a commandment, and a reward of a commandment is a commandment. By this I give contentment to the Creator.
22. S. (37:00) Why does the concept of sin have a negative connotation?
R. It depends on the person revealing it. When we are not in the general perception of reality, so it seems to us that we are sinners. When we reach the truth then we discover that the Creator did it all in order to take us through all these descents and ascents in order that, as He says, you will be as the Creator knowing Good and Evil. Otherwise we won't be as the Creator.
23. S. (38:00) What is a sin?
R. What is a sin? Odessa is the sin. What is a sin? Sin is, how should I put it; that I cannot bestow. That I don't want to bestow that I am only thinking of myself. Everything that is in order to receive in all levels. That's why it depends on what degree we are speaking about. Also, the fact that I think that there is a sin that is a sin.
Reading Item # 62 (39:23)
24. R. (40:10) Here he is giving us a definition of what it means that he is between fear and love. Things that are very great, exalted.
Reading Item # 63 (40:28)
25. R. (41:05) These definitions we don't understand yet, but we will gradually get used to them and understand them. It is like when we were children, so we were told he's a doctor, he's a professor, he’s a this and that about different people and we didn't know why there were such descriptions of people. So, here also. We will come closer and in the right way to these degrees and we will be in contact with them in some way and then it'll be revealed.
26. S. (41:56) The suffering itself is from the feeling that he cannot bestow or that he doesn't cling to the Creator?
R. Not clinging to the Creator, it's speaking about my calculation and to bestow it is as if the Creator’s calculation, but it actually is the same thing. We are speaking about spirituality. Just on behalf of the vessel or on behalf of the light but the feeling of the Creator and the feeling of the created being on those degrees are one feeling. How should I say it? That the good and the bad are divided between the two. It is like the mother and the baby. You cannot say who is enjoying or who is suffering out of the two because they are so adhered and incorporated in one another that we speak about them both.
S. If a person has suffering because he doesn’t bestow and he's detached from his feeling of being closer to the Creator or not, but he only cares about the ability to do this action and if he has suffering from not feeling the Creator so it can be more in the will to receive, meaning that he bestows to feel closer to the Creator. So here is the question, what is the level of suffering, from not feeling close to the Creator and that pains me or that I can’t bestow, can’t do this action?
R. From not being able to bestow. That there are still extra, that he feels that there are still desires that he cannot bestow and cannot be really devoted yet.
27. S. (43:57) We talked about the screens today. If there is no connection between the friends there is no screen?
R. If there is no connection between the friends there is no screen.
S. So how do you advance? How do you do the work?
R. You don’t advance.
S. So we just sit for years for nothing, and nothing happens?
R. You weren’t concerned about it so what do you want from me?
S. People want to advance, we want to advance, that’s it. The feeling is that we are standing in place.
R. You have to pay for that.
S. Can you explain?
R. To pay means to give something for something. You want to receive connection and by the connection attain the Creator, so you have to give something for it and that's exertion.
S. Please, you think we are not making any efforts?
R. I guess not.
S. To sit in the lesson is not an exertion?
R. You still didn’t reach a place where you have completed your calculation. You put something in there but it's still not enough for your coin, your token, to reach the right sum.
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S. So please try to help us, you know. How can we come to build the screen as quickly as possible without delays?
R. speak between you and ask the Creator.
S. He doesn't answer.
R. He doesn't answer, or you are not asking. Don’t say that He doesn’t answer, that’s a sin.
S. What does it mean that he answers?
R. Answers meaning that you will feel his answer. Connect between you, reach the Creator, and ask Him and demand of Him an answer. Why are we not ascending? Why are we not doing it? He will ask what does it mean to ascend? What am I not giving you? What should I give you? Raise us. Did you ask for me to raise you? What does that mean? In which vessels, on which desires and in which thoughts? He’ll ask you. Be ready to answer.
S. So what does it mean really to build a Masach?
R. To build the Masach, the screen, means that first we want to annul between us an egoistic relation, that to feel that we are in one heart according to our state which is the smallest degree. We need to reach a state where we are connected, that by annulling the screens between us that separate between us by this we reveal the Creator that is filling us at least on the lowest degree of Nefesh. Nefesh is what we need. Not more than that. So let's turn to Him and demand of Him to help us understand what the mutual screen is, the mutual vessel is, what the mutual desire is and the Creator fill and fill and fill us like water entering a, I don’t know, a basement. That you start seeing as much as the water is flooding the basement. That's it. That the Creator in such a way is revealed but He is revealed under the condition that we connect between us that He has a place to fill us in something.
S. To build a Masach means to exit Egypt?
R. That is called that by connecting between us we annul the separations between us and then the Creator is revealed there and his presence, revelation in our vessels, that's called that the screen comes upon our will to receive.
28. S. (48:45) How can repentance for fear be a good state if Kabbalah teaches us that the Creator is the good who does good?
R. Right, so?
S. If we have repentance because we have fear then we are not acknowledging that the Creator as the good that does good, we are afraid of the Creator.
R. Because it's not the end of the path it is just the beginning of the path. We are working with our vessels of reception. We want to start above them to reach actions of bestowal of connection, to the feeling of the Creator to the feeling of the spiritual world. That is why it is called, this returning to connection between us to restore that vessel of Adam HaRishon, for now it is called the correction of fear. That from the vessels of reception from the hatred and rejection we have to reach the first connection. That is the first correction of the shattered vessel.
R. (53:54) It’s a serious lesson. We have to work on it. As opposed to some lessons we have been through, we come out of them and supposedly everything is clear, and we can wait for the next lesson. Now, no. I will tell you that from my experience I have read this introduction to the study of the ten Sefirot maybe tens of times, 60, 70. I’ve read this introduction through all kinds of states and until it starts entering inside the mind and heart, to connect to all kinds of materials we learned it takes time and efforts and that is why I recommend that you read it and don’t be despaired. Every time you read it works on something. So give the light of the writings of Baal HaSulam to work on you even though you don't understand it. When you understand it, it ruins the influence of the light. When you don't understand you are like a baby. I don't know anything. He's worked on from above and that is how it has to be with us too. Annul ourselves, connect between us and let the text work on us.