Morning Lesson October 17, 2021, Transcription
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam - Shamati 24 - He Will Save Them from the Hand of the Wicked
1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, we see that all the articles of Shamati and all the writings in the wisdom in general are intended to direct the person to connection with the Creator. The connection comes through the equivalence of qualities. Man has to change to the Creator to the extent he becomes similar to the Creator the more he will be considered Adam which means Domeh similar to the Creator. The writings of the wisdom of Kabbalah and especially the Shamati articles aim us towards that. What should we observe? We learn that Kabbalists explain to us that the Creator is good that does good and He is opposite to us, meaning we are opposite to Him. Meaning that he created this deliberately that our nature is the desire to receive, to benefit only ourselves only and it works within us on all levels in all the ways and because outside of us there is only the Creator. It turns out that man always feels the Creator and if he has a bad feeling then he is called a villain because he is opposite in his qualities to the Creator and this is why he feels bad. This is why he is considered evil. To the extent that we come closer to the Creator in our qualities through the equivalence of our qualities of those of the Creator, then we will feel ourselves in a good way. This is our path. The more we can each and every moment detect in us the evil forces that are opposite to the Creator. The more we try to want opposite forces, the good forces which is adhesion to the Creator. Accordingly, we will activate a prayer, a request that the Creator will change our qualities so that instead of bad qualities we would have good qualities. Since we exist within the Creator and therefore, we have to feel ourselves only in goodness, this means that if we feel ourselves badly then we do not need to ask the Creator to change and make things good for us. Rather we have to ask Him to help us change ourselves and then we will feel the Creator in a true form as the good that does good to all. This is a huge difference in perception of reality, in perception of the Creator that the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us that it is not the Creator that needs to change rather it is a man that needs to change. The person has to ask the Creator to change him only. As we learn we have to understand that from the Creator only good comes to him and if he feels opposite, this means that our qualities are not similar to the qualities of the Creator. Let's read this short article and we will discuss it and ask questions. What I discussed I was especially referring to Article 24 from Shamati.
Reading Shamati 24. “It is written, you who love the Lord…”
2. R. (10:20) This is a fundamental article, let us read again and bit by bit we will hear some questions. The article is very fundamental and to the point, like I said the article, the issue is that I need to feel that I exist within the Creator and I cannot feel Him, I do not have similar qualities with Him. If I have an environment a ten then I connect to them, to the extent I connect to them, to the extent I am included in them, then I nullify myself to them to that extent through the 10, I begin to sense the Creator. So, it turns out that I am inside the 10, to the extent that I connect to the 10, and I feel them, I receive their qualities and our connection together enables me to feel the Creator who stands behind the friends, behind the 10. This is how we come to adhesion to the Creator. This is what we need to examine and always envision to ourselves and thus advance. Read again.
Reading again Shamati 24
3. (17:03) Why do we feel the negative qualities that they are different from the qualities of the Creator?
R. So that we will exist in an independent manner and would be facing the Creator but in the same form as the Creator, the form of bestowal and then we can bestow to Him as he wants to bestow us. That we will take upon ourselves the example of the Creator and that will make us human, Adam, similar to the Creator, Adam comes from the word, Domeh, similar. How to do it, the Creator created a desire that is opposite to Himself, he is the will to bestow and He created a will to receive. We maintain the desire to receive, we just clothe it with an intention of how to use the desire in order to bestow. Meaning, we take the will to receive in the form of only wanting to receive, we restrict it and then we put on some garment on it an intention, that we want to give it to the Creator as much as he wants to bestow to us. This is our whole work until we reveal our entire will to receive and on top of all those desires that appear, we can clothe them with an intention to bestow. With this clothing this intention we will be similar to the Creator, like the Creator. Not in our nature, our nature is opposite, it is a will to receive but according to the intention and this is how we will exactly realize the law of equivalence of form the Creator. Understood, good.
4. S. (19:39) In order to raise the right prayer to the Creator so He will surely answer, we need to have a vessel called the bottom of the heart. How can we obtain that state of the bottom one’s heart without mistakes?
R. As I said before we started reading, we have to depict to ourselves that we exist within the Creator, there is None Else Besides Him and he is good that does good. Therefore, whatever we receive, whatever we feel whatever is depicted in ourselves, in our thoughts and desires, it all comes from the Creator. And the Creator is good that does good so if I do not receive good that does good, first of all I feel bad and I need to ask the Creator, there is None else besides Him, I have none else to turn to and I cannot change myself. I did not create myself nor can I change myself, I can only turn to the Creator and ask Him to help me change. Not in my will to receive but that I will add to what the Creator created in me, an intention to bestow. That in all of my desires and inclinations, qualities, I want to work with an intention to bestow. This is how we need to advance, so the changes I wish to happen in me is not in the desires but in the intentions above the desires. According to the equivalence of my intentions to bestow to the Creator, I will discover that He wants to bestow to me and then through my intentions and his, that is where we meet and I discover my adhesion with the Creator.
S. But if through a certain amount of time where I turn to the Creator in prayer still did not reveal to me the correct intention, does that mean that I am asking not actively enough or I am not connecting it to the friends enough, or simply He doesn’t give it to me because He doesn’t see it fit to give it?
R. On the Creator’s part there is no thought or calculation, it all depends on us. The Creator is absolute good that does good to all. On His part there is no delay, He is not waiting to give, or leaving it for later, there is no such calculation it all depends on us. If we are ready, we receive, if we are not ready, we have no place to receive a different attitude from the Creator because in every moment his attitude to us is only to advance us towards adhesion.
5. S. (24:06) That ego seemingly protects itself, it does not let us see the evil to go to the bottom of the heart, I cannot even ask about it sincerely, what to do?
R. The problem is the lack of work in the group, the missing work in the group, the person as an individual cannot discover these things, he is in at 10 as we learn after. Rav Drawing. I can draw a picture for you of work in the group, the missing work in the group, the person as individuals cannot discover these things, he is in at 10 as we learn after I can draw a picture. Rav is drawing and explaining the drawing here is man inside and around man is the group and around the group is the Creator this is how it is the person cannot penetrate through the group. The person has to get into the group he cannot skip over the group he has to get into contact with the group and after that can he reach the Creator because he does not have the vessels, he does not have the 10 Sefirot in order to connect to the Creator. The person is an individual and this is his kingdom he has to nullify before the group, which is the first nine Sefirot, of the spiritual parts of spiritual Partzuf and then he has 10 complete Sefirot then he can reach the Creator. It is very simple these are the laws of nature otherwise it does not work you can see this from the breaking of the vessel of Adam from what we learn from the psychology of perception of reality whatever you want ultimately this is how it works if we do not connect with the group, we cannot reach the revelation of the Creator.
6. S. (27:25) How do we feel the essence of the lack of the Creator?
R. This also depends on the 10. From studying and from connecting to friends by envy, lust and honor I increase the will to receive, and even if I do not have a great will to receive required for the Creator, my ego is very heavy. I prefer to quietly remain in my ego and not to go into states where I suffer, and yet I have to work on this. When I am in the 10 the 10 influences me through envy, lust and honor and by that I do wish to make all kinds of actions even to incorporate with them and all this is in order to reach the Creator. It really turns out that the bestowal to the group, incorporating with the group, it’s all the stages that I have to do in order to get the vessels to be included in the Creator, otherwise I won’t have the vessels.
7. S. (29:23) As I understand from your words the way to check each state is only through the adhesion to the group and to the Creator. About the test itself, what does it mean that I am in adhesion with the group and the Creator? I am connecting certain qualities of mine, how?
R. You start from annulment. You annul yourself first to the group and then already it turns out that you move from your individuality to the group, you become included in the group and then with the group you already face the Creator. Otherwise, you have no connection with the Creator. This is why from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator, and all these other sayings of the Kabbalists.
S. It is clear that annulment is the basic action but how to get to adhesion with the Creator?
R. Within the group. When you are included in the group, in that vessel you start to reveal the Creator. It is not just some condition and then you can hop to the Creator, you have nowhere to jump and no one to feel. You have to make the vessel where you can feel, an outer external influence which is the Creator and you can do that only by becoming included in desires external to you. They are egoistic desires as well but it does not matter. You become included in them, you nullify yourself and so to the extent that you nullify yourself towards the group, to that extent you can feel how the Creator is also nullified towards all of creation. Inside the group you start to discover everything that’s happening. It works in an accurate system, it is a natural system, you cannot change it. If we realize it, we will receive the revelation of the Creator otherwise we won’t. The group is the vessel to reveal the Creator because you are just one point, one pixel, you can’t do anything. You need to have at least a few and preferably 10.
8. S. (32:40) What does it mean accepting the Providence of the Creator?
R. Accepting the Providence of the Creator appears in the person to the extent that he nullifies to the group and he wants to rise above his ego but how can we practically do this, to the extent the person nullifies himself and becomes included in the group, even though you can say that the group is more egoistic than me but I still nullify myself. Then it turns out that when I become included in them, I become like the Malchut included in the first 9 Sefirot I accept their egoistic desires, thoughts whatever I get through my nullification at as the Malchut towards the first 9 Sefirot, it turns out that then I have a vessel where I am my own selfish ego but on the contrary, I am above the ego through my nullification and in that we so I can reveal the Creator. The rest of the friends, what about them, each one according to the effort they do accordingly. It is possible that I have made an effort and I feel the revelation of the Creator on the next level and the other feels it on level 15, all the way to 125.
S. When we receive an alien thought do, we have to cancel them, to ask to cancel them?
R. We do not cancel anything ever, we do not cancel the alien thoughts, we ask to be above them connected between us and the Creator. All of the alien thoughts are called, I created the evil inclination the Creator created in order for us to rise above it, we cannot cancel them, we rise above them higher and higher.
9. S. (35:31) You say that we need to nullify but if I see that if the Creator is good that does good, why do I need to think about that me, the created being created by him there will be anything evil in me, so why do I have to look for this evil in me or in the group?
R. You will peek into your ego, you are just a piece of ego what can you find there, nothing. What do you want to find there? We have to discover something above our ego so when I am included in the group that gives me a springboard of jumping above my ego to the extent, I appreciate the friends and I want to be bonded with them even though they are selfish. Like the students of Rabbi Yossi ben Kisma in that allegory, it does not matter. If I nullify myself to them, they become for me the vessel I build, so in that vessel I discover my nullification towards external desire which is theirs and to the Creator. Then specifically in the vessel I discover the Creator. So where is the Creator revealed in the vessel of the friends, but they are broken, yes, it is true they are broken, but I nullify myself and to the extent I nullify myself, I discover the Creator. I do not discover the qualities of them, I discover the Creator to the extent of my nullification to them.
Otherwise, I have no foothold in the upper for this is the only way. The group, as I drew in the picture, it is not simply a device that I use and then I go on forward to the Creator's level no. That is my inclination Instinct early but in truth my meeting with the Creator is when I discover the Creator inside the group to the extent that I am included in it. Not only the Creator but the whole general desire of that exists in reality on all levels still, vegetative animal and human. Everything the Creator created becomes the matter, the substance that I discover the Creator, he cannot appear in any other way. Understand this, so it is worthwhile for us to nullify ourselves to the group as much as possible with the intention that we are working towards the Creator and inside the group each and every person builds his own observation on the group in such a way that the Creator can appear there.
10. S. (39:29) This is an important topic, what happens with the suffering and the recognition of evil if I harm the 10, I feel I understand that I invest into the friends as a result and I feel the action that touches me this suffering?
R. Yes, exactly, this is the sorrow of your ego which is being hurt or not receiving what it wants, sees the others greater as opposed to himself and so on.
S. Compared to the outside world I know that all the people in the world are similar but is there any sign for us to invest there?
R. No, I only work in the group to the outside world, I only publicize the knowledge about the purpose of man in this world and not from the articles we are studying but from the general knowledge about how the world is built, what is happening to it and so on, there is a lot of material on this. I only relate to the 10 and the Creator this is it.
11. S. (41:15) In what can the person not see the truth from the bottom of the heart, is it when he has some good or how to relate to the Torah and the commandments. This writing says that the person does not feel the truth and it is until he sees the evil or relates to the Torah and commandments properly?
R. Man does not feel that he has a connection to the Creator the upper light, how to access the Creator called the path of Torah and Mitzvot, which is the path of our correction and accordingly we discover the Creator through that path we will discuss it later.
12. S. (42:31) It says that if they feel any remoteness from the Creator, they call this evil and in that state one considers himself evil, so why do I feel myself evil if I am evil, if I am remote from the Creator?
R. Because for the time being what you discover is opposite qualities to the Creator.
S. So this is a very good state that I feel evil so I want to come back to feel righteous from that state?
R. Yes, but still, it is a good state because you know at least who you are and what you need to do.
13. S. (43:42) We say according to the drawing, that the 10 is like this, it works like this centrifuge that always separates the good and evil and the more I move away from the center of the ten then it is a feeling of evil?
R. I do not know your illustration is not my illustration, do not bring us into different illustrations. I made this illustration and we are speaking about this accordingly, I do not accept other pictures.
14. S. (44:44) It says in the text that the person reaches a state of being that man of truth but we are ego driven and we always feel like a man of truth according to our ego, so what does Baal HaSulam want to depict here?
R. If he is a person of truth then what he feels it is also the truth so does he feel good or evil what should he come to in his feelings. He must come to a state that he feels the Creator as good that does good and then there is none else besides him, if he does not discover this, it is a sign that his vessel is still broken and he needs to correct it.
S. So he cannot raise a prayer until he feels that he is good that does good?
R. No, he cannot raise a prayer if he feels himself evil, the prayer is a request for correction so for the person to feel that he truly desires a correction then he can come to a prayer.
15. S. (46:25) In what system of emotions between us can we see the good and evil in the world?
R. What we are discussing in the illustration, you have to constantly think about your state in this way each and every one of you, it is the man, Adam, around him there is a group and to the extent he nullifies to the group he prepared himself for bestowal to the Creator and for receiving bestowal from the Creator. This is it, if we are in a state of the group, if we are incorporated into the group then we are ready to receive influence from the Creator then the Creator influences us and we can start to build here the 10 Sefirot which is this soul in which we can reveal the Creator. The Creator himself we can never come to, we can never touch the Creator himself, we raise a prayer to him. We only raise MAN and then we received from him the response MAD.
16. S. (48:29) I've wanted to ask, everything basically depends on the action of nullification, I have been hearing it for years. Can we elaborate on this concept of nullification to the 10, how to express this?
R. I have nothing else to say that I have discussed for many years. I simply suggest you implement it in practice, how you determine for yourself how much you nullify yourself and you don't care how they react, what the others do, you are interested only in nullification because by this you get closer to the Creator. This is it.
17. S. (49:23) How to reach the collective revelation of evil in the ten and how to work with it?
R. I do not need to reveal the evil in the 10 I need to reveal evil in myself and I am not looking for the evil, I am looking for adhesions and if I discover something that is a bothering me, this means that I reveal the evil and the I am able to work against it even to pray to the Creator or incorporate in the group and to the friends and together with them ask from the Creator, this is how we work.
18. S. (50:25) In the beginning of the article it says that you who love the Lord hate evil and you will save them from the hand of the wicked, how can you love the Lord before you know him?
R. You cannot, only to the extent of equivalence of form when we come to a certain degree of equivalence of form with him to that extent we can love the Lord, it is not a selfish love, it is according to the equivalence of form when we are in mutual bestowal with him. It is not like our ego in this world when we give to someone and we enjoy. Instead, we derive pleasure from the vessel of the soul that opens to us and the wholeness in it, this is what the Creator wants he wants us to attain the wholeness of the creation he created.
19. S. (51:55) What does it mean that the world was created either for the complete righteous or complete evil?
R. It is about the person that is feeling himself as a complete evil, this is a very good because now he has where to progress and he's asking from his broken heart to be incorporated into the 10 as much as possible to rise together with them all the way to the level of the Creator this is if he is a complete evil. This is how he thinks of himself because it speaks only of the person how he grades himself or he may feel himself as a complete righteous, he feels himself as a complete righteous this is probably a very bad state because he doesn't feel any evil, he has nowhere to progress to, as if his path is clogged, blocked. It is not like from the beginning we say that the world was created either for the complete righteous or complete evil. Who was this created for, so the world was created for the complete evil, for those who think that they are truly evil, wicked, there is nothing get good in them and they require the friends and the Creator to help them in order to correct themselves and reach pure bestowal to everybody and not to think about themselves. Anybody who thinks of himself as a righteous, that person is dead, because he has no path, no opening, nowhere to go. This is the greatest possible punishment he receives a certain blockage from the Creator and it blocks him and the Creator seemingly doesn't want him to turn to him at all, when the person thinks of himself as righteous. We also see around ourselves many groups in the world, also in Israel who think about themselves as if they were righteous and in truth, they are very far from being righteous. They have a long way to go until they understand what it means to be evil and how good it is to feel evil, this is why it says that who you who love the Lord you hate evil, where to hate evil, inside of you and accordingly they can love the Creator and these two extremes help us to progress, think about it more
20. (55:13) Who are the complete righteous and the complete wicked, why is the keyword “complete”?
R. Complete in each degree and in each state if the person attains his truthful state for the time being this means complete.
21. S. (55:40) How to realize, you who love the Lord hate the evil in the group?
R. I have been speaking about it all the time, if I wish to love the Lord to that extent, I have to hate my own ego, myself, to that extent I will be able to disconnect from the ego and incorporate into the 10 and meet the Creator. There I do not discover the Creator somewhere as we made the picture here, as if the Creator is some kind of external sphere or on an outer orbit. No. We are in the group, we discover him in the group and in this group, it gradually crystallized more and more including all the people in the world and to the extent in the multitude of people that is the glory of the king. We discover desires, a tighter connection between them and all of it only in order to reveal the Creator because we cannot reveal the Creator himself. Instead, we reveal him through the vessels, we cannot feel the light, we feel the inside the vessel and we refer to those phenomena as light.
22. S. (57:30) At the end of the article it says that because he thinks that there is something good in him, he cannot get down to the bottom of the heart and he still thinks that there is something good in him, so is this about individual revelation or the 10?
R. It could be both but it is mainly personal, a private feeling, after all our path is a personal path, to the extent we nullify ourselves to the group and to the Creator inside the group.
23. S. (58:10) What kind of a special place do we make for the Creator when we nullify ourselves in the group, why does the Creator appear specifically there?
R. We arrange ourselves in the form of the 10 Sefirot, KHB, HGT NHYM. That is how we arrange ourselves. Therefore, those things, as much as we are able to arrange these 10 Sefirot correctly, 9 plus Malchut. Man, as much as he has incorporated in them, he discovers the Creator more and more, the Inner Light, Ohr Pnimi that is here.
24. S. (01:00:14) How can we say about the governance that brings floods and plagues that this is good and does good, do I lie to myself?
R. No you don't need to lie to yourself, on the contrary, open your eyes and see that this Providence is advancing us to the good, otherwise we would remain on the level of animals and would never be able to come to the degree of man.
25.. S. (01:01:57) Is the revelation of the Creator happening on every level of our progress?
R. Yes, the answer is yes