The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Lesson June 6, 2025.

Part 2: Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #4

Reader: We will now continue to the next part of the lesson, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Item Four. 

Reading: (00:29) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #4

4) The reason why the will to receive must cascade by the four above-mentioned discernments in ABYA [Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya] is that there is a great rule concerning the vessels: The expansion of the light and its departure make the vessel fit for its task. This means that as long as the vessel has not been separated from its light, it is included in the light and is annulled within it like a candle before a torch. 

M. Laitman: (01:07) Here, we come to the shared qualities here. Because the light is bestowal, I don't know what the light is, let's call it bestowal, Creator, positive, only positive. The first, that which determines things, therefore, yes? It follows that the vessel born from it, yes, born, created, under its control. And in each and everything, the light is always the first, and that which determines, don't forget that that's true in every place. So, if you have the will, it's negative. Why negative because it feels incomplete. Negative, meaning incomplete, and requires light, must have light, let's say. And that's all predetermined. Now, all the desires, all the records, everything that awakens in the vessel, the vessel should know, the person should know that the light came first and did all of this. So, it follows that the light works from within the vessel to awaken the desires, and the desires are for itself. And who is the vessel, then? The vessel is the one who feels that there is someone else awakening him. This is the awakening force, which comes from the Creator. And that awakening force is also for the Creator, by the Creator. So, who is the vessel? The vessel is he who feels what's happening to him. Only that, and what is the disruption then, the interruption? That he cannot understand, or rather bridge the two facts, that there is someone awakening him, and who exactly that is. 

This is what Baal HaSulam writes about saying, Thou has besieged me from behind and from the front. So, the reason why the will to receive must cascade by the four above-mentioned discernments in ABYA is that there is a great rule concerning the vessels where the expansion of the light and its departure, yes – only the light – make the vessel fit for its task. Which task? Which purpose? To respond as the light awakens it and builds it. And so, to respond to that. This means that as long as the vessel has not been separated from the light, separated. Meaning, feeling that it's separated from the light, it is included in the light and is annulled within it like a candle before a torch. And by this, he cannot emerge from this and determine its independence, feeling that the light is acting within it, both in expansion and departure, and feeling as well. So, all in all, the vessel needs to be independent in order to determine that the light operates it, manipulates it from every direction. 

Reading: (06:03) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #4

(continuing item 4) This annulment is because they are completely opposite from one another, on opposite ends. This is so because the light extends from His self, existence from existence. From the perspective of the thought of creation in Ein Sof [Infinity], it is all toward bestowal and there is no trace of a will to receive in it. Its opposite is the vessel, the great will to receive that abundance, and is the root of the innovated created being, in which there is no bestowal whatsoever.

Hence, when they are bound together, the will to receive is annulled in the light within it, and can determine its form only once the light has departed from it once. Following the departure of the light from it, it begins to crave it, and this craving properly determines and sets the shape of the will to receive. Subsequently, when the light dresses in it once more, it is regarded as two separate matters: vessel and light, or body and life. Observe closely, for this is most profound.

M. Laitman: (07:28) So, in general, a very simple operation has taken place. The light builds the vessel. How? It makes the desire, but the desire is not yet felt, it fills up the desire, and here you feel, you feel the feeling. Then it leaves the will, the desire, and here you feel emptiness, then you feel the lack, the desire. And then it returns, fills it up, and then you feel pleasure. What difference is there between the feeling and the pleasure? It's a great, big difference: The previous desire for fulfillment, or rather the desire precedes the fulfillment, and then it feels pleasure – there's fulfillment, and then there's pleasure, two different things, completely different. Pleasure is attained through yearning, clear? Where there's something in addition from the side of the vessel, which didn't exist in the desire, right? There's desire, and then there's desire, and what's the difference between them, yearning. And then, the difference in the feeling is called pleasure. 

Reader: We'll continue to the next item, Item 5, please. 

Reader: We're reading from, Kabbalah for the Student, article, The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, item 5. Again, we're reading the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 5.

Reading: (10:22) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #5

5) Hence, the four phases in the name HaVaYaH, called Hochma, Bina, Tifferet, Malchut, are required. 

M. Laitman: (10:42) Why required? He says that the light emerges from Atzmuto, His Essence, with the help of pure desire, which is called, something from nothing. He says that the expansion of the light in its departure makes the desire, the will, fit for purpose. So, there needs to be a yearning here for the light, so, there has to be a series of operations from the side of the light on the vessel – it created something from nothing. And the measure of the yearning, then, determines the form of the vessel, and so, you need four phases; you don't know ahead of time that it's four. After it happens, then we see, we attain this, and we see that this is how it happens, that there are four phases, four stages, called Yod-He-Vav-He, by which the vessel is made. And in each and every desire, even whatever is revealed in us, in this world, regardless of on what occasion, we have to believe, we don't feel and we don't understand it yet, but we have to discover it, ultimately. But we have to at least believe it's worthwhile for us, beneficial for us, to have this understanding. That if I have some desire, then it comes as the fourth degree from the light, which acted in such a way so as to be revealed within that desire. And what does it want from me? That is a question. How does he want me to respond to it, respond to the desire he created within me? But of course, there is no desire if not after four operations coming from Atzmuto [His essence]. You understand? It doesn't matter what desire. Everything comes from the light. And what matters is how we react to it. How do we need to respond? Such that the action we take back in response will be to reach the Shoresh, the root, the tip of the Yod. 

Reading: (12:56) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #5

5) Phase one, called Hochma, is indeed the whole of the emanated being, light and vessel. In it is the great will to receive with all the light included in it, called “light of Hochma” or “light of Haya,” as it is all the light of Hayim [life] in the emanated being, dressed in its vessel. However, this phase one is regarded as all light, and the vessel in it is barely noticeable as it is mingled with the light and annulled in it as a candle in a torch.

M. Laitman: (13:32) Meaning, the light that constructs the vessel, constructs the vessel, exactly compatible with it. It controls, governs that vessel, that Behina Aleph, the first phase, having built it and filled it up. Meaning, the vessel of the first discernment is exactly compatible with the light in every way. And it's opposite to it also since that's how the light created. And the desire in the first discernment, the created being, is the only desire which the Creator created; everything else are outcomes from the presence of the light within that desire. Behina Aleph, the first discernment, is the only thing that emerged from the root, Keter created the first discernment, Aleph. Everything that happens afterwards, is Behina Aleph starting to be impressed by the light going through it, and it undergoes metamorphosis and various transformations and whatever else. But in truth from the light only one form emerges, Behina Aleph, the first discernment. 

Reading: (15:05) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #5

Following it comes phase two, since at its end – 

M. Laitman: This is the vessel.

Reader: The vessel of Hochma intensifies in equivalence of form with the upper light in it. This means that a desire to bestow upon the Emanator awakens in it, according to the nature of the light within it, which is entirely to bestow.

Then, using this desire that has awakened in it, a new light extends to it from the Emanator, called “light of Hassadim.” As a result, it becomes almost entirely separated from the light of Hochma that the Emanator imprinted in it, since the light of Hochma can only be received in its own vessel—a desire to receive that has grown to its fullest measure.

Thus, the light and vessel in phase two are utterly different from those in phase one since the vessel in it is the desire to bestow. The light within it is considered light of Hassadim, a light that stems from the adhesion of the emanated being in the Emanator. As the desire to bestow causes it equivalence of form with the Emanator, and in spirituality, equivalence of form is adhesion.

M. Laitman: (16:19) Meaning, from the action of the light within the will to receive, the will to receive wants to resemble the light. It's simply an outcome of the operation of the light within the will to receive. The light as the bestower, it bestows upon the will to receive such that it turns it similar to itself, to itself. That is the quality of the great one, right? To imprint in the small one its own shape; and the vessel yearns then to be like the light, equal to the light. Can it do this? Can he be the bestower or not? He wants to, but can he? No. What does it mean, a vessel, in the second phase, wanting to bestow? If the Creator created the will to receive, the will to receive – the will to enjoy – then what does it mean that it wants to bestow, it wants to enjoy bestowing? What does it mean, “Bina,” the second discernment, the second phase, opposite to the first discernment? What changed? What changed isn't the desire itself, its essence, rather, what changed is what it enjoys, what it enjoys. Previously, it enjoyed, as the light created it, it enjoyed feeling the light within it. Now it enjoys, and it does enjoy – truly, feeling that it wants to be like the light. The joy that the light remains, just its form, has transformed. Previously, I enjoyed feeling that there's something filling me, and now I enjoy something that exists within Him, but I enjoy it. And as I feel joy from determining that there's something within Him, and I enjoy that, now I'm called, more coarse, my desire is bigger. Because I participate in this, I am determining what I will enjoy; meaning, the matter, the substance of the will to receive, the will to enjoy, remains. The second phase, we say it's the will to bestow, the desire to bestow. This desire to bestow enjoys it, otherwise, there's nothing to speak of. Think about it, it's a little bit vanishing, so to speak. But it's good to touch upon it. 

Reader: Next follows Phase Three.

M. Laitman: Meaning, it's not sufficient that he wants to resemble the light and feel that he wants to give, he wants to give and derive enjoyment from that. Rather a lack is revealed here once more, and this lack, where now he resembles the light, how can there be, how can it be that he resembles the light and it's still not enough? What else can be missing?

Reading: (20:27) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #5

Next follows phase three, since once the light in the emanated being has diminished into light of Hassadim without any Hochma, and it is known that light of Hochma is the essence of the emanated being, hence, at the end of phase two, it awakened and drew into it a measure of light of Hochma to shine within its light of Hassadim. This awakening re-extended a certain measure of the will to receive, which forms a new vessel called phase three, or Tifferet. And the light in it is called “light of Hassadim in illumination of Hochma,” since the majority of this light is light of Hassadim, and its lesser part is light of Hochma. 

M. Laitman: (21:17) It's unclear what he lacks. Suddenly he felt that he cannot live without Hochma after being entirely similar to the Creator; but after becoming entirely like the Creator – resembling Him – he felt within him that if he's similar to the Creator, if he's the bestower, he wants to bestow upon the Creator, what can he bestow to the Creator with? He can bestow upon the Creator by receiving from Him because the Upper One wants to give. 

And so, he returns to, rather the Upper One wants to give, so he returns to be receiving, he returns back to the same desire of the first phase that the Creator created within him because he wants to do what the Creator created for him, but of his own volition. So, in the second discernment he became similar to the Keter, and in the third phase he becomes resembling Hochma, but it's he that came to resemble the Keter and he that came to resemble Hochma in the third phase. As the Creator created Keter, the will to receive, in the first discernment, so he creates in the third discernment something that resembles the first discernment, he replicates the Creator's actions. And what does he get from replicating the Creator's actions? Then he begins to understand from that what he is, rather what and who is the Creator. From your actions we shall know you, he repeated the same action, and then he began to feel at what degree the one who performs the act of giving is, the act of creation. 

Reading: (23:44) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #5

Following it came phase four, since the vessel of phase three, too, awakened at its end to draw the complete light of Hochma, as it was in phase one. Thus, this awakening is considered “craving” in the measure of the will to receive in phase one and exceeds it [...]

M. Laitman: (24:06) That's very important. It's added, yes, meaning he begins to feel the pleasure the Creator has from having created the vessel and filled it. That's called, in addition, meaning he repeated the acts of the host, let's say, presenting refreshments to someone, and he begins to feel how fulfilling it is, how sublime it is, how without limits it is, how it gives you fulfillment and joy – giving. Before that, he didn't know what an enormous thing this is, and this is the meaning of it being added to him. He discovered it. There's something beyond the Kli, the vessel, which was created, and the light that fills it. 

Reading: (24:57) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #5

[…] since now it has already been separated from that light, as the light of Hochma is no longer clothed in it but craves it. Thus, the form of the will to receive has been fully determined, since the vessel is determined following the expansion of the light and its departure from there. Later, when it returns, it will receive the light once more. It turns out that the vessel precedes the light, and this is why this phase four is considered the completion of the vessel, and it is called Malchut, Kingship. 

M. Laitman: (25:34) The light, which existed in the first phase, was it not fully revealed in the first discernment? Is it only being revealed now, in the fourth; what was revealed in the fourth discernment? In the fourth discernment, the relation to the light was revealed, in which he discovered who the light is and who the vessel is, within the Emanator. Meaning, that he now has yearning, a yearning for the light of Hochma. A yearning is what he didn't have, and what can't be given by the light. It developed, was developed, by the created being. These are very deep matters; well, what can you do? 

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