The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson June 18, 2025.
Part 2: Recorded lesson – May 29, 2006. Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #19-21
Reader: The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, this is Item 19.
Reading: (00:07) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #19
We have already explained that the first three Phases are still not considered a vessel, but only Phase Four is considered a vessel, as written in Item 5. Still, because the first three Phases are its causes and induce the completion of Phase Four, once Phase Four is completed, Four measures are recorded in its quality of reception.
M. Laitman: This means that the will to receive that was created in Phase One – it emerged in Phase One, it already existed in the Root Phase. Otherwise, the light itself would not emerge, towards what does it emerge? But the light must develop the vessel, so it will feel its root. From where did it come, with which intention it comes, with which relation to the vessel, to the desire. And only after the desire feels the pleasure, and from whom he is receiving the pleasure, and why the Giver of the pleasure gives him the pleasure. Only after in the desire there are all these causes and consequences from its development, and out of that he has a connection with the Giver. It doesn't matter which connection, for the time being, we're not talking about in order to receive, in order to bestow, but a clear, tight connection between them.
Then we can talk about the fact that there is a created being that stands opposite the Creator and knows Him. And then just the desire that develops to such a degree, to such a state, we call it, a complete desire, a created being that exists in reality. And all of the prior stages that occur inside this desire until it matures, until it is ready to feel the pleasure and the Giver of the pleasure, they are called, the pleasures that precede the desire, they're not yet considered the created being. This is why Phase Four is called, created being, and all the previous Phases are the work of the Creator on the future created being. And Phase Four is impressed from all the previous Phases.
In general, every Phase is impressed by the previous Phases. In Phase One, you have the Root Phase and Phase One. In Phase Two, you have the Root, Phase One, Phase Two; in Phase Three, you have Root, One, Two, Three because every Phase is based on, it includes all the previous Phases within it, otherwise, it would not emerge, it would not feel itself, and it would not feel the existence of itself and the Creator and the relations between them. And so, in Phase Four, there are all of the previous Phases that are the components that build its Phase Four. And in taking Phase Four into consideration, we also take the previous Phases that exist in it into consideration. What does it mean we take them into consideration? That Phases Zero, One, Two, and Three and Four within Phase Four, these Phases Zero, One, Two, Three belong to Phase Four. It's not that the Root Phase exists in and of itself, and there is the Root Phase in Phase Four. The Root Phase that exists in Phase Four is Phase Four that already understands what is the Root Phase. What is Phase one in Phase Four? That Phase Four recognizes already that it is built as a will to receive through the Root Phase, and there is a certain intention there and a certain development of etc. Meaning Phase Four inside all of the previous three Phases attains the Emanator, it gets to know Him. And out of this recognition, the Phase Four within Phase Four is built, which is the final vessel.
Reading: (04:49) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #19
Phase one in it is the slightest measure of the quality of reception. Phase two is somewhat coarser than Phase one in terms of its quality of reception. Phase three is coarser than Phase two in its quality of reception. Finally, Phase Four its own quality is the coarsest of them all, and its quality of reception is complete in every way. We should also discern that the root of the Four Phases, which is the most refined of them all, is included in it too.
M. Laitman: They all exist in Phase Four in their final development; this means that all of these Phases Zero, One, Two, Three are of Phase Four. And from their final development we can understand what happened in all the previous degrees. Just like a grown-up, wise person sees what's coming and where he was born from and what happened to him, how he was raised, how he was educated. Why did he have to go through such stages in order to reach his present state. And out of this wisdom he can also forecast his future development, he understands what was the intention of nature, the Creator, in all of the development that he went through. And out of that he also understands what will come next, the goal.
If Phase Four would not develop through the previous three Phases within it, it would not reach Phase Four within Phase Four that decides to make the restriction and screen and reflected light and equivalence of form. Because in the previous three Phases there is no such understanding, such attainment, such a decision. There, you can't even say that there is the recognition of the state. Only in all of these Phases that exist in Phase Four, in them there is the awareness of the causality.
Reading: (07:16) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #19
These are the five Phases of reception contained in Phase Four, which are also called by the names of the Ten Sefirot, HBD TM, incorporated in Phase Four. Since the Four Phases are KHB TM, as written in item five, and the root is called Keter.
M. Laitman: Again and again, he emphasizes these are the five Phases included contained in Phase Four, because we only talk about them. There's no reason to talk about the previous Phases since they don't have their own feeling. The created being doesn't monitor itself, doesn't feel itself, it's not yet divided into two parts: Me, myself, and I, who know myself, who see myself. Meaning it doesn't yet have this objectivity. So, it's to see, to observe itself, and the process it went through and from whom did it go through it, and why did it go through it. This is why we say that in the previous three Phases, it is like they're still vegetative and animate. They exist without feeling that there is a reason for their existence, and a purpose, a goal for their existence.
Reading: (08:36) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #20
The five qualities of reception in Phase Four are called by the names of the Sephirot HBD TM, since prior to the restriction, while Phase Four was still the vessel of reception for the Ten Sephirot incorporated in the upper light, by way of He is One and His Name One, since all the worlds are incorporated there, as it is written in the study of the Ten Sephirot. Its clothing of the Ten Sephirot is discerned there according to the same five Phases. Each Phase of the five Phases in Her clothed its corresponding Phase in the Ten Sephirot in the upper light.
M. Laitman: What does it mean that the will to receive in Phase Four has developed to such an extent that out of its will to receive it feels how the Emanator relates to Him? Where is this felt inside the will to receive? There is no other vessel, there is no other place for the feeling of the relation of the Emanator to me. I cannot feel his attitude to me. I can feel his attitude to me inside of a vessel that enjoys. To the extent that I enjoy, in what manner I enjoy, this is how I'm built. I will never be able to feel how He relates to me; I can feel what I have in my vessels of reception out of the fact that He relates to me in such and such a way. Meaning I judge Him according to my will to receive. I never have any other possibility. Only after I reach equivalence of form, then out of the fact that I reach equivalence of form, I begin to recognize how He relates to me inside of my correction. Because I reach the same discernments, the same qualities, this is why anyone who disqualifies is disqualifying through his own flaws. And the will to receive, the way it is impressed by the Emanator, this is how He determines, He determines that this is how the Emanator relates to Him. And this is engraved in his feeling so that he cannot come out of himself and say, this is what I feel inside of my ego or inside of my will to receive, that this is how He relates to me. But rather for him, this is the feeling. It's the feeling to the extent that he acquires the desire to bestow. Then he comes out of himself, outside of his vessel, into a different vessel, which is above his will to receive, in faith above reason, with an intention that is above himself. And then he starts to observe and compare and decide about his existence into vessels in the feeling and in the intention. But to begin with, he cannot distinguish between how I feel in my will to receive and the relation of the Emanator to me. I never feel the relation of the Emanator towards me, but rather the way it is impressed inside my desire to enjoy. This is why this correction of in order to bestow is so important; with it, we come out of the feeling of the Emanator, Himself. We rise above our nature and we feel Him, how He relates to us, without it being received inside the will to receive, without this interference of the will to receive, the way the will to receive judges Him.
Reading: (12:35) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #20
The root Phase in Phase Four clothed the light of Keter in the ten Sefirot, Phase one in Phase Four clothed the light of Hochma in the ten Sefirot, Phase two in her clothed the light of Bina, Phase three in her clothed the light of Tifferet, and her own Phase clothed the light of Malchut.
M. Laitman: This is unclear. First of all, from where come those five lights? These five lights come to us as five forms of a relation of the Emanator to the emanated being. So that Phase Four receives and feels them because the Root Phase and Phases One, Two and Three do not feel the life within them. I, and I'm alive, there is no such attainment in children and also in people who are not developed. They just live, that's it, they don't understand that there is I, and I'm alive. Gradually, through the development, we begin to understand it; these are two things, two different things. So, Phase Four receives within itself the lights, the life, the existence that is in the Root Phase and in Phases One, Two and Three. And also, what reaches it as a result of them. And it processes them. These forms of life, the forces of life that exist in the prior development. And out of that, she's all impressed by this all-encompassing light, and this gives her the general feeling of the Emanator, the general attitude of the Emanator towards her. Later on, we say that man includes everything. Why does man include everything: The whole of creation, the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, it's all impressed, it's all included in man. Out of the fact that man corrects himself, he also corrects all of them. And if they are corrupted, it's because man was corrupted, not because of themselves. Because there's no feeling of life, of livelihood in all of the previous stages but in the previous Phases, but only in Phase Four – more precisely, in Phase Four within Phase Four – and what we correct until the end of correction, the previous three Phases in Phase Four, by that we only prepare ourselves to the end of correction when we decide that Phase Four within Phase Four must be corrected.
Reading: (15:44) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #20
Hence, even now, after the first restriction, when Phase Four has been banned from being a vessel of reception, the five Phases of coarseness in her are named after the five Sefirot KHB TM.
M. Laitman: But what exists before Phase Four, they're called, Phases, and when they're in Phase Four, they're called Sefirot. There's a big difference because what exists before Phase Four is not yet perceived in the created being as its components, the components of its nature, this is how it's constructed. But rather as qualities of the Creator that reach him and build him, whereas the root and Phases Zero, One, Two, Three, within Phase Four, those are already Sefirot. Meaning, that already shines in him as a force of life, of vitality, as the elements that come from the Emanator to the emanated being and build him.
Reading: (16:59) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #21
You already know that in general, the substance of the screen is called hardness, which means something very hard, which does not allow anything to push into its boundary.
M. Laitman: So, why do we have the restriction in the screen here? Because Phase Four within Phase Four begins to feel how much the previous Phases within it are contradictory to it. She feels within Phase Four, the Zero, One, Two, Three, Four, in Phase Four, she feels the relation of the Emanator to it with the understanding of the cause and consequence. Out of that, she feels Phase Four within Phase Four, the way the Creator created it, actually, and the contradiction between it, Phase Four within Phase Four and the previous three Phases, the qualities of the Creator. Out of that begins to be a necessity for the restriction, and screen, and reflected light. That, these things certainly do not involve a free action, a free choice to do it or not to do it. These are elements or date that is imprinted in the nature of the created being that it has to respond in such a way. After he feels the qualities of the Creator, the way that they exist in its foundation and its own quality, how much he is contradictory to them, all that is left for him actually to do is only to shut himself and decide to equalize with the previous three Phases. This is why we get the restriction and the decision to equalize, which is a work with the screen and reflected light.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:03) Where do we see in the thought of creation, in the root Phase, all of the development that has to happen of the Four Phases later?
M. Laitman: In the Root Phase, we can't see anything, we see it only in the consequences that emerge from there. Everything that happens in the whole of reality is the result of the Root Phase. And you have no other external cause that comes and intervenes with what develops from the Root Phase. This is called, He is one and His name is One, as you read before. This is why with every stage, we can say that this is the result of the development from the Root Phase. And also, free choice, and all of the discernments that a person goes through seemingly as a free creature. He corrects himself to match, and be balanced, and reach equivalence of form with the Creator. The creation of the Creator is all rooted in the root Phase, I do not change my HaVaYaH. Everything exists there. It doesn't change, and it's rooted there from the beginning to the end.
However, the way it is revealed to the created being because we're speaking with respect to the created being. In the created being, these are new discernments. Are these things that are new? Do they somehow affect the divine and godly reality? Of course not, I do not change my HaVaYaH. You do not operate at all in Sof, but rather a man changes his feeling towards the Emanator, he attains the Emanator. He changes himself, his reception, perception, his understanding, his attainment. And it's not that he changes the reality of HaVaYaH, all the more so the root Phase, the tip of the Yud.
Reading: (21:30) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #21
Similarly, the screen does not let any upper light pass through it into Malchut, which is Phase Four. Thus, it is considered that the screen detains and repels the entire measure of light that should clothe the vessel of Malchut.
Reader: We will move on to a live lesson with Rav, and let's sing together.
Song: (21:51)