Part 2:

Baal HaSulam. General Preface. #2

Reading Item #1 (00:30 - 04:50)

1. S. (04:58) He distinguishes between “unworthy disciples for whom it is not to whom it should be revealed”.

R. Yes?

S. What is the criteria and how do you become one of worthy to be revealed to?

R. I guess that those who are in the wisdom and understand it and feel it, so it's conducting them correctly, it's aiming them directly how much to reveal, what to reveal and which portion and to who.

S. Yes, that's from the perspective of a teacher, I'm asking from the perspective of disciple: How do you become a worthy disciple for whom it's worthy to be revealed? How to avoid being an unworthy disciple and be a worthy disciple that you want to reveal to him?

R. That he yearns to be like his teacher, there's no more to say; to adhere to the teacher and learn from him all of his habits and customs and try and be like him.

2. S. (06:19) What does it mean “to eat unripe fruit”?

R. You understand what ‘unripe’ is?

S. Yes, what does it mean in the work, how do you detect the situation when you eat unripe, when does it happen?

R. Something that isn't worthy to eat, that's called unripe; the person who studies needs to try and discern through the studies what things that he reveals are correct in order to chew and swallow so he can use it to grow. And which things are not allowed to come close to and the more so to take it in as food.

S. Are there such things in our framework that a person has to scrutinize or are these things outside of our framework or within our framework everything is worthy and fine?

R. No, also here not, there's a lot of things that you're not allowed to touch or come close to, that’s how it is, what's the wonder? In every uncorrected society you have this and that, you need to scrutinize between these and those things and to try and incorporate only from the correct things.

Reading (08:06 - 20:08) “To clarify the text with which…” 

3. S. (20:10) It says, he talks about ‘existence from existence’ and ‘existence from absence’, light is the ‘existence from existence” and ‘existence from absence’, He doesn’t have it so He created darkness, I mean there's no darkness in Him. What is the vessel?

R. He hasn’t talked about it yet, the vessels that feels the deficiency from itself.

S. What is the difference from Kli and darkness, what did He create in the end, the Kli or darkness?

R. The Creator created darkness.

S. So what is the Kli?

R. The Kli, the vessel, is what develops later on.

S. From darkness?

R. From the darkness and from the light, too; the influence of the light on the vessel brings the darkness.

4. S. (21:06) He says that “a Sefirot is a vessel together with light”.

R. Yes.

S. So basically it’s the Creator and the created being together?

R. Well, you can say that.

S. The quality of the Creator is the light, the quality of the created being is the vessel, so the Sefirot is the combination between them?

R. Yes.

S. How can they be together?

R. Why not, there's no prohibition that the light and the darkness be together when the light shines on the darkness. On the contrary, they're both sustain each other, they respect each other, they complete each other.

S. Because the qualities are completely opposite?

R. Okay, specifically because of that they can be together.

S. So what is special about this thing called Sefirot?

R. We’ll learn about it: A Sefirot is when the will to receive and the created being resembles the light and that's why the light can stop in it and fill it and shine from within it, that's why it’s called, a Sefirot.

S. It’'s clear when you have a screen and reflected light, but we’re talking about Sefirot even before that, right, in the cascading from above, downwards?

R. When there's no prohibition the light can shine in the will to receive.

5. S. (23:11) What is the process where in the light forms darkness?

R. The process that the darkness starts shining, or what?

S. The darkness is formed in the light, in the beginning there’s light?

R. The beginning is only light, it restrict itself and prepares a place for the darkness and then the darkness performs corrections that can shine in that darkness, the light.

S. What is “darkness”?

R. “Darkness” is the will to receive.

S. Why?

R. That only wants to receive and swallow everything.

S. Is this why it’s darkness?

R. Yes.

S. Black?

R. Yes.

S. So what happens with it?

R. We will see but the light can‘t appear in it.

S. It says, “forms lights and create darkness”?

R. Yes, the upper force which is not light or darkness, it creates light and then creates the darkness, It does two actions called Beria and Yetzira.

S. What does it mean “to form light”?

R. In what or?

S. Of the operation of forming light, what does it do?

R. That it brings light into revelation towards the created being.

S. And the operation of creating darkness, what does that do?

R. It also brings the darkness towards the created beings, only this action is called Beria, forming or creating, and towards the light it’s called forming.

S. And these operations, do they come like couples?

R. They complete each other.

S. In what?

R. That reforms a light and creates the darkness.

S. In what do they complement each other?

R. In both that they exist together, the light and the darkness.

S. Where do they exist together?

R. Afterwards, in Malchut.

S. How?

R. How, when Malchut receives the light and the darkness and organizes them in a way that the darkness will shine as light.

6. S. (26:01) He writes here, “it’s a light in a way that the dwellers below can receive it”.

R. Yes?

S. It sounds like the change is in the light but there’s no change in the light but it's only in the vessel, the vessels change this way?

R. Correct.

7. S. (26:19) He writes that “the desire is included in the light”, but the question is what is the state where the desire wants more light than what extends to it, this addition, what is this?

R. That he wants to show that he identifies with the light, that it’s coming closer to the light and wants the light to shine in him, that he receives the light like the Host accepting the guest.

S. But how can it be that it won’t first expand from above?

R. It will expand from above, otherwise he wouldn’t feel himself.

S. So its a result of the expansion?

R. Yes.

8. S. (27:17) To continue the topic of darkness and light: So forming and creating, the change isn’t in the light but it means that the moment the light goes through forming “to the dwellers below”, it turns the created being into something that can attain the Creator?

R. It is talking about things that are completely not, again.

S. There's darkness and light, the darkness is on behalf of the created being, according to what he attains, the light, between performing and creating, so it created, the  Yetzira brings it to the dwellers below, the created being. So the moment there’s a change in the created being, it bcomes a Creator?

R. No.

S. Takes the qualities of the Creator?

R. Also no, I don't understand your approach?

S. The darkness and light are divided into two states here, darkness which is creation, the Sefira of Beria that is part of what it brought down to the lower ones; once the created being changes and attains the light as the light which is the quality of the Creator, in what state then is the created being, what form does present itself?

R. The created being connects to the light.

S. And acquires the qualities of the Creator?

R. Yes.

9. S. (29:21) He writes that “when it's revealed in the emanated it’s only when he overcomes to want an extra abundance”, so is there any discernment before that desire between the darkness and the light?

R. Yes, go ahead.

S. So there's a discernment that from the desire is born?

R. A discernment between darkness and light already there, present.

S. How does it have a discernment before it has a vessel?

R. Who are you talking about?

S. He writes that “there’s the discernment of the will to receive in the emanated and it's not Emanator but it's the root of the darkness, that it’s the darkness in the light”?

R. Yes?

S. So how can he discern that?

R. He discerns between darkness and light.

S. Without a vessel?

R. This is called a Kli which separates between them, it distinguishes between them.

S. So afterwards, the addition is already a vessels that developed?

R. Yes.

10. S. (30:56) You answered the previous student how to become a worthy student, you said he should learn from the teacher all of his customs and try to be like him. You are rewarded in a reality that you were observing day and night, to see your teacher and you could imitate him. In our generation what does it mean to “observe the teacher see his custom and try to be like him”?

R. We need to connect in the group that makes itself similar to the upper force as much as we learn and attain its qualities, that's it.

11. S. (31:39) It says that “this concealed force is revealed when the emanated wants an extra abundance more than it had from behalf of the Emanator”.

R. Yes?

S. And he starts the articles by saying that “there is nothing that happens below before it's mentioned above”, so is there an overcoming or is there something from above?

R. Everything comes from above, the desire, everything comes from above.

S. So what is this whole story here about a concealed force that is revealed, that overcomes?

R. This is how it happens, this is how it happens, gradually we will understand it, nothing comes from below.

12. S. (32:51) How about the way we study, he writes in the beginning of the item, very nicely, how he presents us with the ARI wrote and before that all the revelations of Rashbi and the students, so now we are entering this new form study. I want to ask how to study correctly, also what we are hearing from the friends, from you, how do we study correctly?

R. You get into the text, read it several times and this way advance from day to day.

S. How to study correctly?

R. I don't know what corrects mean or even to study, I'm not telling you to study, I'm telling you to read the text several times. Let's say now with read item one, you have to continue on the road, at home, at work, whenever you have the time, you have to reread number one; and tomorrow it'll be item two so you do the same with item two.

S. Another small thing, I was really excited how Baal HaSulam, I’m hearing it for the first time, how he says, “I’m doing it so you can advance, so I can present it to you correctly”, and he stops.

R. Yes, very nice.

13. S. (34:41) He writes that “the upper ones desires the law in the lower one”.

R. Yes?

S. So what should we take from that “law”?

R. We will learn, we’ll learn, this is only the beginning of what he's telling us.

14. S. (35:14) “The will to receive included in every emanted being is the vessel and the measure of the light”.

R. Yes?

S. What does it mean that “it is all the measure of the light”?

R. That the light that is revealed is revealed according to the power of the Kli, the vessel.

15. S. (35:44) Can we approach this text without connection, without a feeling of connection?

R. Try whatever you want, we have been studying so many things and all the advice the counsels of the Kabbalists are already written in them, what more do you want?

S. What should we do, what should we think while reading?

R. What is written in the study about the time of the reading.

S. Can we think of the friends?

R. If it is written that you can then you can, I can’t tell you, all the time from A to Z, about the order of our study. We read it many times, and talked about it and established it, determined it between us, what more do you need?

S. There's a feeling that you can’t approach, understand without having the feeling in the ten.

R. Very well, good!

S. So what should we do during the reading when you don't feel it?

R. You have heard plenty but when it comes to implementation, you’re saying, ‘so what is he saying’, but here you heard what he’s saying. I can’ explain more, it is according to a person's understanding; ask another thousand times will not help.

16. S. (37:52) Can you explain what Rabbi Shimon’s fear was, that if he disclosed, he had a fear of disclosing this?

R. That they might work with kelim without correcting them.

S. Why does revealing it cause that problem?

R. I don't know.

17. S. (38:24) I’m a bit afraid to ask this question because it may be a confusion in me: It feels like He created everything from above downward and we need to perform the building on the Yud Hey Vav Hey and build another structure but opposite from below upward, towards the upper one. And the vessels, the letters, we need to build the letters in a different order, is that by the light or do we need to perform deed with the letters?

R. We only need to study, to try to read as much as we can, and as much as we can try to remember, and all those things will work in us and bring us to the right perception of the study, that's it.