Morning Lesson November 12, 2021, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences from audio Part 1:
Baal HaSulam - Shamati 61. Round About Him It Storms Mightily
1.Rav’s Introduction: Okay, this is a slightly different lesson because I'm not in our center in Bnei Baruch. I'm on the border of Lebanon with our friends in a place with a few other friends. I hope the connection will be good and we will have our lesson as usual. So let's read the article and we'll talk about it, a very special article. I'll be happy to have as many questions as possible of men and women write them down and then we'll see how much we understood the article.
Shamati 61 (01:15) “Round about him it storms mightily”
2. R. (02:41) We determine how much we will receive and how much will be revealed to us and what degree of connection we will be with the Creator. Meaning the lower one in his attitude, it opens up the connection, that pipeline that connects him to the Creator yes.
Reader continues: (03:17) “it turns out that if….”
3. R. (04:10) Meaning a person decides on increasing the state, his connection with the Creator and also decreasing or diminishing his connection with the Creator and we need to understand that here that connection is present but from zero on to 100%. How that channel will be open, that is up to us. So there's no point in waiting, sitting around and waiting or complaining that the Creator is not making connections with us. Rather we need to increase our sensitivity for that connection to apply as many conditions as possible, just like now we connect to each other through all kinds of wires of connection. Similarly we need to understand that this is what we need to do with the upper force. There is a restriction on his part, on the contrary, until the end of correction of the connection between us, but on such conditions that we ensure it doesn't push us away but will bring us closer and the connection will be more and more substantial. Meaning more according to equivalents of form as much as we understand one another, we feel one another accordingly, we will advance.
Reader continues: (06:00) “and when the lower one does not feel...”
4. R. (06:54) Meaning it is all up to us, we open or close our connection with the Creator or we change it. We change the volume of the connection, greater intensity or smaller intensity. Even as it seems unrelated to a person, but a person in his attitude to the connection with the Creator he determines the intensity of the mode of connection.
Reader continues: (07:30) “however one who regards the trifle things…
5 R. (07:30) Just like in our world, still, vegetative and animate do not belong to the connection on the speaking degree. In the speaking degree little kids or undeveloped people they're not paying attention to it. But the person, the more developed a person is, educated, I'm not talking about spirituality, I'm talking corporeally, he is more aware of what's happening around him and how connected he can be to others. The same as in spirituality, the more we can pay attention each moment to the Creator although we can't quite feel it or maybe we can't feel it at all, that connection. But if we take upon ourselves this fact that the connection to us is open from the Creator’s side on all channels to each and everyone. Especially to each and every 10, then we need to make sure we only increase, amplify this connection and learn to control it.
Reader continues: (09:20) “one can suffer when committing a transgression….”
6. R. (11:05) He's talking about us, we are born, we grow up and we feel ourselves today and that's how it is for generations, the people who discover themselves as existing in a special world, strange perhaps, but we are accustomed to it, can’t imagine that there is something else, that we don't belong to it, that we are in exile in this world. This exile is not a physical exile like we were thrown into the physical world but rather our senses are in order to receive, we are in the physical world and we can feel anything outside of that meaning the exile is an emotional one. So how can I teach, help his friend to come out of it? How can we rise above this feeling, where we're all in this confusion, this disorientation, we imagine a world that does not exist and it's also referred to this way in the wisdom of Kabbalah, in the imaginary world a way to depict those senses, those qualities that were given to us, we can discover ourselves as existing in exile, a prison and for us to want to come out of it.
Reader continues: (13:27) “there he was taught rules and regulations…”
7. R. (13:53) This is on the condition that a person finds the wisdom of Kabbalah and begins to study and is being taught there are other laws opposite the world he is in and if he wants to come out of that state, the state of exile in this world, then it can be only on the condition that he learns the laws that belong to the upper world where he was brought down from. Then when he learns about those laws and he would want to keep them he'll have questions and problems about the way he fits into the real world, the world of the Creator, in order to bestow. Then in this way he gradually learns he gets accustomed to it, it takes many years to go from one world to the other and it's not like the way it appears to us like little children. That you can just make that change in us in one leap. It has to do with programming all our senses and the mind that belongs to those senses that we will be able to feel and be ready for existing in the upper world, in the spiritual world. Therefore it was not given to everyone and if it was given, they are tested. Can they seriously want it, are they ready for it? Then they start to learn which also takes time but all of it works according to the connection between the two worlds. The physical world and the spiritual world. The extent to which we are capable we must learn about all the transitions from one world to another.
Reader continues: (16:23) “in the books of the king….”
8. R. (16:40) There's that in order to receive, this attitude immediately throws a person from the spiritual world to the lower physical world. Then gradually he begins to see that there is no other choice but to change his behavior. Of course he can't do it by himself as it's written, a prisoner cannot break himself free from prison but if he wants this to happen, then already he receives the strength, the changes, he begins to fit the upper world and he comes out of his exile into redemption where the difference between exile and redemption, Galut and Geulah, is the letter Aleph which symbolizes the champion of the world, the Creator. The revelation of the Creator raises a person from the lower world to the upper world. So we learn those laws as it is called in the rules of the king, and anyone who makes a transgression, that he is sent to this place far from the world, from spirituality. He's impressed by this harsh punishment and has grievances as to why such harsh punishments are given, such severe punishment and it is true, it seems to us that how can it be that we were born and we developed in such a material form.
Why do we even need this world. Well only so we'll be able to climb from this world to the spiritual world. Only so that in the connection and the opposition between the two worlds we will be able to detect spirituality. Otherwise there will be no way for us to do it, if we had been born in the spiritual world, in spiritual qualities, we would have known all the spiritual laws and rules and we would keep them of course. We were born in them. we would be angels. An angel is on the animate degree above in the spiritual world there is still, vegetative, and animate like in this world and there are still, vegetative, and animate in the spiritual world. So we would have been like that, meaning we could keep all the laws, rules and conditions in order to bestow without any problem, just out of habit and it would be no way for us to come closer to the Creator because to come close in understanding and feeling has to include two states.
For and against, plus and minus, north and south, say on a magnet, anything. We have no choice, we have to understand that also the Creator seemingly had no other choice and he had to create man as including two parts and that's very hard for us to accept and also to understand and to accumulate inside of us and contain, to be incorporated of the two worlds, the lower world and the upper world. We never disconnect from the feeling of in order to receive and even when we reach the highest degree in order to bestow, we cannot disconnect from it. Otherwise this contradiction, this contrast between the two worlds, if it disappears, we won't be able to feel or understand the depth of what the Creator wants to open before us so we would understand him, get to know him.
Because if we are created beings, we have to get to know all of creation from the world Beria, Bar, outside of the spiritual degree and together with that to be in the high spiritual degree itself. Then in the connection between plus and minus over this resistance, this conflict inside of us, we act like a resistor. We connect the two ends of the resistor to the upper world and the lower world and specifically by that we reveal inside of us the level of the Creator.
Reader continues: (22:45) “but he would never realize that he himself….”
9. R. (23:16) We see it on these people that if you don't open up even a minimal connection of the spiritual world then we feel ourselves alive in this world. What can you do, we live better or worse each one according to his fate seemingly but that's how it is. Only those people who are given a certain connection, a point of contact with the upper world, this gap that needs to flow through them the difference between the upper world and the lower one and only in this way, they begin to feel certain discomfort. On the one hand this is something new, it opens up a possibility and opportunity for knowledge for feeling, on the other hand it seems so disorganized and unclear. That they are unwilling or unable, it's very difficult for them to tolerate these two worlds together.
Therefore the more we connect between us in the group, sooner we build our resistance to be in either the upper world or the lower world, instead be in both worlds and we insist on it that we want to be creatures created beings. If the upper world by itself is the Creator in the lower world by itself is the still, vegetative and animate, we wish to be in the connection between the two worlds. Tie them together for the darkness to shine as light and that's what we want to happen and through us. We wish to create a shorter connection between the two worlds to tie them together, bind them together through us that we will be like a conduit. Like Baal HaSulam explains, we are as a conduit. We'll get back to it.
Reader continues: (26:00) “this is the meaning of end around about ……”
10. R. (26:20) The more he feels this expulsion and his distance from spirituality and closeness to physicality and the other way around as well, and accordingly he needs to see how he is checking himself. What is he closer to, what is he more distant from and it's not that he is leaving the physical world, Kabbalists are not mystics. They are standing firmly on the ground of this world and it says his head reaches into the heavens, the upper world, the Creator's world, and they stand with an erect posture. Upright and that's what we learned about the spiritual Partzufim. We have Rosh, Toch, Sof 125° that touch this world, the physical world. The will to receive in order to receive and in the worst possible way and all the way up to the heavens up to the Creator himself.
Reader continues: (27:53) “end through the many good deeds….”
11. R. (28:29) That's important that only through the work of man if we make the right calculation, we carry out the right actions and we come to a state where we truly discover these two worlds and, in this way, we come to the revelation of our true home which is the Creator's home. In other words, that 10 or that group of Bnei Baruch, humanity except we see them as desires. Not as physical images, desires that are interconnected and the Creator feels all of us. So a person who begins to come to it, he begins to engage in repentance until he is brought out of this lower world and they bring him back to the place of settlement. This feeling comes through man's work, he begins to feel that he is grown from his origin, his root until he is rewarded with adhesion with the Creator.
12. S. (30:29) It's written in an extreme way we're talking about this wicked person and judgments and but if in the state a creature didn't even have an awareness of one state, then why is it written that he is to blame for his state and that's why he was dispelled and is in this faraway land?
R. You can say the Creator it's the Creator's fault or the creature's fault, we're not looking for blame, we're not discussing who is guilty. There's no such thing, there is a reality of how the created being according to the Creator's desire, can come to and must come to a degree of the Creator. How can the Creator create the creature in such a way where the creature is opposite the Creator, otherwise he would not be a created being it would be included, incorporated in the Creator. So how can the created being start as opposite the Creator, which is why he exists in and of himself, in his will to receive, that's the creature's nature otherwise he would not be truly disconnected from the Creator, he would not have free choice and a place of his own. So how can this creature, this created being, reach the degree of the Creator, the Creator’s state with the feeling, with the knowledge, the awareness of the Creator on all of his greatness. So although we can’t understand those things enough to investigate them properly, nevertheless gradually over time we will find out.
13. S. (32:48) Why does the writing say that we are in exile?
R. We're not in exile. Rather he who is a person, human in this world who feels like he does not have connection with the Creator and he wants to come to a connection with the Creator he discovers the state that is exile from the connection with the Creator. Gradually we come to this connection as we teach about it. In Egypt we should have been there, four hundred years, these were four complete degrees that we needed to spend in Egypt, meaning outside of the revelation of the feeling of the contact with the Creator. We were under the rule of Pharaoh and no one else. So in this way we need to discover how this great will to receive is controlling us, to see how it is in contradiction, in conflict with the Creator. To see how much we hate it and to such an extent, that through this feeling of hate we wish to come out of it at any cost.
Here it's clear to us that we need a great deal of help. How can we accept this help? They tell us that we can do it only by being incorporated in the friends and that's where the Creator shattered the vessel into many separate pieces, opposite pieces at odds with one another, distant with one another, hate one another, repel one another. And in such a society which is on the one hand included of great egoists and on the other hand, it is made of such people who are in addition to being egoists they're starting to hear and it's very difficult it takes many years sometimes 10 or 20, even 30 years even more until a person begins to hear that he is an egoist and that he must rise above his ego and connect with others or he will have no chance whatsoever to come to the recognition of the Creator. To come out of this place of exile that he was thrown into in this world and if he wants to come out of it, then it's only through his connection with the other, that is his way out of exile.
14. S. (37:23) Why did the Creator have to create Adam?
R. The Creator wanted from the nature of the good that does good for there to be outside of them, outside of him, creatures that will feel his benefit. For them to be able to discover his greatness, for them to live to be able to live eternal whole, complete life. Because it's the nature of the good to do good and this is what we can here for the time being and to understand. But in truth, slowly, slowly than where we advance, we will understand these things in a more clear and very different and broad manner.
15. S. (38:48) When a person feels himself closed, locked in a prison and his friends are with them and there's no end in sight, what should we ask for on this day?
R. It's written that a prisoner cannot save himself from imprisonment. I think the most important thing is to be connected with the friends because then the Creator operates upon us in such a way that we begin to feel is bestowing, his influence and this is how we will be able to advance towards him. Only to the extent that we connect between us into one vessel, to that extent this vessel becomes closer to the Creator.
S. Understand that my friends are together with me in this state, what is the miracle that happened so we would ask?
R. You only need to ask for connection between you all because in that connection between you you'll begin to reveal spirituality if there's no connection there's no spirituality. This has to be very clear like light during the daytime that spirituality is revealed only in the connection between. The different forms of connection between us are the way in which the spiritual world is revealed to us. How do we learn about the spiritual Partzuf, Ten Sefirot that connect between them in all sorts of ways and manners and then accordingly the lights fill them. In accordance with their connection of these Sefirot and that's how they feel reality, the Creator to that extent that he fills the Partzuf and they can manage the extent and depth and fashion of the filling of spirituality that they attain. Until they reach Ein Sof where everything the Creator wants to disclose is revealed in all of our corrected vessels.
16. S. (41:45) Also in this world a person should reveal all 125 degrees and receive in order to bestow and in parallel to it, will a person also attain an attainment of 125 degrees?
R. Not a good connection.
16. S. (42:18) What is the moment in which the Creator brings back the memory, has Mercy over him and brings him back home?
R. When a person is connected with his friends to the minimal correct way and his attitude towards the friends and his connection with them is depicted in him as his connection with the Creator. We think that these are games. I also thought that for many years. That it's not serious, it's not too bad, it's nevertheless we are accustomed to being individualistic, that's how our ego works. But after years I, nevertheless, come to a state in which I see that there is no choice, I simply need to cancel, nullify myself before the friends. To think together with them as if they are me and I am them. Then in such a way we begin the correct connection with the Creator and we emerge out of the prison. Our prison is the inner prison, it is the egotistical individualistic thought of ours. Thought of ours that is our prison.
17. S. (44:56) In this article, we can understand that the more we advance spiritually, the severe punishment we are expecting. What is the Kabbalistic meaning for that?
R. That he wrote for us – in the beginning of the article – that a person who progresses spiritually, then in everything he does, even the smallest transgression, it's a very small cessation in his connection with the Creator or towards the friends in the 10 but that smallest transgression in him is considered a very big transgression. It all is relative to the person, that's how we examine things. It's just like we check, we can't yell at a cat or a dog that does something there, some mess in our apartment or in the street, whereas little children you also can't do too much about that, the more a person grows up we demand more and more of him. And certainly egotistical people don't want to grow because that is a matter of the more you know the more pain there is – so why do I need that? It turns out that we don't want to grow, we continue to be in some games, everyone in the whole world, but if we want to truly grow towards the Creator, to be humans, to be like Adam – people who are resembling the Creator – then we need to take into account His laws, His rules, and adapt ourselves to them.
S. In the first part like you said, he's writing about a person who feels the difference between the transgression and the mitzvah; and in the allegory, he's saying that a person is suffering from amnesia and performs the action that he learns from the existing society that he is in. What is the difference because he's also saying that the Creator accepts both agree?
R. I don’t understand your question, I don’t understand – maybe think and come back to it later.
18. S. (48:25) There's an analogy to the spiritual world as ‘a settled world’ and our place is a place for crooks and criminals, and when we are here, certain people receive awareness – that they are in this god-forsaken place, disconnected, and I have to find my friends, others who are like me; and my 10 are exactly the same criminals as me and we have to agree that we want to get out of here?
R. Yes
S. It's not speaking about it but maybe between the lines, the intention is that you have to, in making, doing those good deeds, your memory is jogged into remembering?
R. Yes, your connection with the 10, your memory is recovered that way, through the connection with your 10.
19. S. (49:51) Who's punishing the righteous?
R. The Creator.
S. Can there be a state where the righteous speak together with his friends and discovers spirituality? And begins to punish himself, to judge.
R. The judge yes but to punish, no.
S. How do you feel this punishment?
R. Disconnection, distancing from the Creator.
20. S. (50:35) In the article it says, “engaging in repentance brings us to a settled place”. What does ‘engaging in repentance’ mean for us?
R. By us correcting our characteristics, our qualities so that they will be more in order to bestow which is clarified to us in the extent of our connection with our friends in the 10, first of all. Then to that extent we create, also the vessel in which the Creator is revealed. This is how we adapt ourselves more and more on behalf of the vessels to the Creator, to the light. That’s how it is.
21. S. (55:17) According to this article, we have to invest a great deal of work in thinking until we become experts?
R. In what thought – I'm sorry, I'm sorry – in what thought can you invest forces, in the tough you have now, the egoistic desire? What will you take out of there, philosophy? You need to invest in the connection in a physical, realistic way, and not in thought. You don't have the conditions and the correct thought to begin scrutinizing something.
S. But it’s written, “everything will be clarified in the thought.”
R. When you have the correct thought then everything is clarified through thought; but when you have a beastly thought, like animals, there can be nothing clarified there. Don't just take verses and start connecting them together that way – that's not going to give you anything other than confusion. We have a lot of philosophers and psychologists and everyone works with their thoughts, and what's the benefit?
22. S. (56:51) How to correctly act in order to advance in the spiritual work?
R. Only what we learned according to these articles, that's the main thing is in our work, in our environment meaning in the 10, and in prayer to the Creator, that's it. That's called “Israel, the light, and the Creator are one.” I, in my 10, and with my10, together, to the Creator, that's the actual direction, there is no more than that. All the rest connects to that.
23. S. (57:42) You said’ they are me and I am them’. Can you clarify? What is this talking about?
R. About the connection in the group, maybe, I don't know.
S. You said it a few minutes ago, I think, about the connection in the group: I am them, they are me.
R. Oh yes, was that not clear? Read it again, the Social Articles of Rabash.
S. In our group?
R. We're not getting into the details of your 10, right now. We are talking about the rules according to the article we read.
24. S. (58:44) He writes in the third paragraph, ‘thus if the lower one to the extent that he awards the lower one, if he agrees that he transgressed below then they agree with him above’. How can it be that above they agree with what the lower one says?
R. It's because the person wants to adapt himself to the Creator and to the extent in which he adapts himself, let’s say 5% to the Creator, then from above, it’s agreed with him and then that correct correction is performed, and then a person is cared for with what he has reached. There's a certain adaptation between the upper and the lower one, let's say in this 5%.
25. S. (59:53) He is writing, “by all the good actions, the memory begins to work and he begins to feel”. How can we do good deeds when a person is in a state of forgetfulness?
R. If he's truly in a state of disconnection from the Creator, there are no good deeds. But if, nevertheless, even though he is in disconnection and doesn't feel but he is doing in the group, in dissemination, in all such things that are not connected into spirituality in a direct manner where there is no thought in order to bestow in those actions truly, but in an indirect manner because of that, then he nevertheless is coming closer.
S. How to portray it that from above they treat a person as small or great, what's the difference in the attitude?
R. Just like in our world: what can be demanded of a baby and what can be demanded of a big adult, a smart person, you don't understand such questions. I think it's an example that you are being given in accordance to our world.
26. S. (01:01:25) The punishment against the righteous is distance from the Creator. In what way or thought should I relate to this punishment?
R. How can I, now, by receiving the punishment as fast as possible be led to correction?
27. S. (01:01:59) What are we lacking in order to feel together the greatness and importance of the Creator at all times?
R. Mutual support. We're not missing anything other than mutual support. Each should feel that the friends want to help him, and they're also in the same state, like him – for the good or for the bad – and then accordingly more and more they will lower these dressings, these garments that they're clothed in and this is how it will happen.
28. S. (01:03:03) What is the difference between a small person and a great person in spirituality?
R. According to the measure of importance that he feels that he's responsible for the 10 and all together to the whole world
29. S. (01:03:22) What is the disease of amnesia?
R. Amnesia is where we truly have no knowledge of the Creator or of the spiritual world, and we are in disconnection from Him, that's the amnesia, the forgetfulness. It's similar to a person that loses his memory. Let's say a person has an accident, got a blow and he lost his memory and has amnesia. Therefore he doesn't know how to drink or to eat. There are states that it's to such an extent that we have a memory that's in our cells, in our organs, memory in our muscles – muscle memory and in our marrow. There's all forms of memory and all of that comes from this memory meaning these are records, Reshimot. So we have, also, a recollection, Reshimot, from the spiritual world but where are they? We don't have them, we have yet to manage to awaken them and to revive them. This is what we're trying to do in our efforts in the 10. As much as we try to connect between us, just like children that play a certain game, but by doing so we awaken our memory, awaken our records, Reshimot, and this is what actually happens to us – it’s written about this: “and you have eaten something that was already known before.” That there is nothing new under the sun but rather it's a matter of records, these Reshimot, that we managed to evoke and thus we can be considered that we are revealing the upper world. There's nothing new in it. Also, now I am in it, I just don't reveal it because I am under a state of amnesia, I’m senile. I am disconnected like someone who is an elder with (dear?) amnesia, with dementia. How can I revoke our feelings to the true reality? This is what we're doing. What is Bnei Baruch? Bnei Baruch is a certain hospital for people with dementia that feel themselves, that they have lost their memory and any connection; and others don't even feel that way, it's even worse.
30. S. (01:06:45) What kind of limitation or restriction does the lower one place, and why exactly should we place it?
R. The lower one needs to perform limitations and tell the upper one: “I want to be in connection with You. I want to be in connection with You, a mutual connection, where we understand one another, feel one another, communicate with one another, meaning in short, in all the forms of connection. But that's how I want to be with You.” That's it, “I want to come closer to You to understand, to feel, to be with you in a mutual way.”
31. S. (01:07:48) How can we stop projecting our limitations on the upper degree?
R. We need to stop limiting the Creator. We need to be in a connection between us, in an attempt to do all that the spiritual connection demands of us, to be ready for it.
32. S. (01:08:43) How and for what should we make our introspection on each step, how not to miss not to miss that calculation?
R. I need to observe each moment of my life in a manner that in what way can we increase the connection between us so that the force of mutual bestowal will be revealed in it more, and in it the Creator will be revealed. In such a way, such simple. We need to stabilize this vessel below, and the Creator shall be revealed in it from above.
33. S. (01:09:34) How can a person extract himself from corporeal thoughts, and not enter the thought that my spirituality is in the hands of their friends and wait for them to decide everything for me? How to make the action the calculation correctly in order to work equally fully in both worlds?
R. Work in a complete manner between the worlds, bind your entire corporeal life towards spiritual progress. Dedicate yourself toward spiritual advancement as much as possible, but without disregarding the corporeal world that was given to you so that you will advance also in spirituality. This is what will happen to us, this is what we learn. A person must get married, meaning be married with children, with work. A person must work, must participate in the group, in dissemination, in all that there is, and advance that way.
34. S. (01:11:01) How can a person judge himself as a hair's breadth? What is he talking about? Is it more clarified in prayer?
R. The hair's breadth is called the degree of precision which is the highest degree of precision that a person can consist of at the moment, or notice at the moment
35. S. (01:11:30) If we come out of exile with the help of the friends, a person’s sentence is in the hands of the friends?
R. The sentence is in the hands of the friends. Yes. In order to judge a person the friends are asked, and what they say about him is the way his verdict comes through.
36. S. (01:12:10) There are states where they throw a person out of sensitivity for spirituality from the ten, from the sources. If everything is erased, is he talking about such states in the article, or general state of exile from spirituality?
R. The more a person is connected to the friends and to the Creator, the more the power of his disconnections from friends and the Creator. Then, he really feels what the Klipa [shell] is, what darkness is, what death is. Hence, don't be scared, don't be perplexed. The more we advance, we will have greater descents according to the rule, ‘’Anyone who is greater than his friend in spirituality, his evil inclination is greater than him.’’ That is how it will be. We simply need to continue. It's written about that, ‘’As an ox to the burden and donkey to the load.’’ Continue, and continue, and continue.
37. S. (01:13:39) Is the person in the story an individual person, or an entire ten?
R. We usually talk about an individual person that is in a ten. If he is not inside a ten, he cannot be connected with the Creator. So he must be in the ten, and from the ten we are already talking about his personal state.
38. S. (01:14:13) If a person in the ten discovers himself in the punishment land, what will bring him back to the settled world? What is the settled world?
R. I don’t exactly understand the question. The world 'settlement' talks about the general world, about humanity, about the connection of a person with the Creator. It is talked about from within the ten, to the extent in which the ten will be connected to all of humanity. Still, in practice, we are not there, but I hope that soon this will take place. It will happen, and it seems like it will be pretty fast. Another Corona blow or something else, and we are already going to discover these things.
39. S. (1:15:16) The speed of coming out of the exile depends on a person alone, or the measure of Arvut [mutual guarantee] between us, and the advancement of the whole world Kli.
R. This mostly depends on the ten, just like Baal HaSulam explains in the Arvut article, that there are two on the ship, etc. What does it mean two in the ship? Me and the group, because it is always me against the group, and this is how we progress.
40. S. (1:15:53) Where does a person absorb the force to do good deeds, if he doesn’t even know what he lost and he doesn't feel pleasure in the world? What motivates him?
R. The record, the Reshimo. The Reshimo [record] is called the point in the heart, the godly part from above, what remains from the shattering of the vessels. The record of this evokes us, and doesn't give us rest, and we must advance either by more comfortable environmental conditions, or harsher environmental conditions, but this is how we advance.
41. S. (1:17:01) Does it follow from the article that a person himself determines how he is judged? If so, where did the decisions come to the person from, by which he obligates the upper force to behave with him the way he asked?
R. Again.
S. Does it follow from the article that a person himself determines how a person needs to be judged? If so, where the decisions come to the person by which he obligates the upper force to behave with him the way he asked?
R. According to the way that a person responds to what the Creator does with him, he defines his sentence and what the Creator will do with him. Meaning, it depends on the response of a person. If a person understands less or more what the Creator is doing with him, does he respond more correct or less correct. By this, he defines how the Creator will relate to him. In this, it is clear our relations with the Creator are very simple, according to the way the person is adapted to the Creator. Accordingly, we will take into account all the conditions, all the details of a person, to the extent in which he is close or far to the Creator. Even one's involvement and engagement with the friends in dissemination, in the world, with all of his familial calculations, in all the details he has in his life that he does not yet know for the time being, even though he is a person, that is all taken into account and is related to accordingly.
42. S. (1:19:9) Explain the sentence, ‘’the lower one with his speech, thought, and action causes from above the abundance to be drawn below.’’
R. Yes. The lower one and the way it places itself before the Creator, and the group, defines how from above he will be related to.
43. S. (01:19:43) How is our attitude expressed in this sentence? However, one who thinks about these things lightly, and says that the Creator is meticulous about them, is considered a great person whose transgressions are great and commandments are great.
R. That is clear. To the extent that a person understands the greatness and of the importance, and the connection that is defined by the ten as a result of this, raises the degree of this connection more and more, accordingly he is being related to, as well. Where a person, like this, can be opened, more spirituality towards bringing him back to that place that he was in prior the shattering. Meaning, before the creation of the world, because the creation of the world - the Beria, is called ‘Bar’ [outside] of spirituality. This is how we need to return to the degree which is prior to the creation of the world, meaning prior to the shattering prior and prior to all those things, where there is unification between the Creator and all of the creation that He later brought down to this world.
Reader Read Shamati 61 (01:21:45) “Round about him it storms mightily”
44. S. (1:29:26) In this thunderstorm, instead of remembering, is it not better to be close to the Creator, to trust Him?
R. You cannot remember anything. You were born in a prison, in a place that you are not familiar with. Besides that, nothing else. Now, Kabbalists want to reach you and somehow to awaken you, that you will exit this state. That is what is happening. Now, what will you recommend them to do? Think. We were already born in sin, and in this world, and it is our problem that we must awaken one another. In such, we must be in a group. Because without the friends, that will build around you something that is similar to the upper world, some such relations, somehow, we'll get closer to the spiritual essence. You will not be able to depict it to yourselves. As much as you see them, you see how much you do not want it and do want it, and so on. Gradually, in such a manner, between good and bad the Creator also participates from above, and you progress.
45. S. (1:31:47) Can you explain what is the work of engaging in repentance?
R. Teshuva [repentance] is called that Malchut returns to Bina, or to Keter. The Hey return to Vav - Malchut towards Zeir Anpin, that is called Teshuva [repentance]. That we raise the Malchut from the degree of the intention to receive to the intention to bestow. That is it.
46. S. (01:32:42) He says through many good deeds his memory begins to work. What causes him to start making these good deeds? Why did he not start earlier? This whole time in exile, no good deeds?
R. Look at the other people in this world that do not even think about it. Look also at your friends and at yourself, it is very hard for us to awaken. Although from above they are doing everything that is possible to awaken us to spirituality, but it doesn't help us so much. So we hope that here we will be able to help one another, and to help awaken one another even though we do not want. But we have an obligation towards one another, that is called to be obligated in Arvut [mutual guarantee], and each one should help his friend. In such a way, we can bring ourselves out of this pit. Once, there were no prisons. There was a pit in the ground, and this is where the people used to live. They would bring them down something to eat and to drink, and they would sit there in the pit. So we need to explain to one another that we are in a pit, and how to exit there to the light and air of the world.
S. It wasn't storming mightily before? Is this what you are saying? The storm was not so bad before, that is why they did not start helping each other and doing good deeds?
R. It all depends on us. In short, it all depends on us. Do what is necessary, and it is written a thousand times, in all sorts of places, in all sorts of forms, manners, what to do. If you, do it, you will succeed. If you do not do it, you will not succeed. The laws are laws, and the Creator does not change, the acts of Beresheet - the initial actions, meaning the ego needs to return to intention to bestow, we need to skip over this to bring ourselves to the correct connection.
47. S. (01:35:37) In our world it is customary to think that if a person does not know the law, he is not exempt from punishment.
R. You do not see where you are? Nobody is asking, let's say you went to some prison in this world according to your qualities. It is written that not knowing the law doesn't absolve you from having to fulfill the law. It is the same thing in spirituality. That you do not know that you are an egoist, that you are a criminal, He does not absolve you from your state in this world, the lowest and worst of all. That is it.
S. In the work when a person already advances to spirituality?
R. According to how he corrects himself, he is found between heaven and earth. In any case, as much as he does not know, he does not understand, accordingly also he is in the lowest degree.
48. R. I think this article is clear, we have scrutinized it. You can read it. Of course, it is worthwhile to read it again a few more times. The main thing is to make of this a correct summary and to fulfill it, carry it out.