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

Lesson Headings to be used: 

Daily Lesson (Morning), April 12, 2024. 

Part 2: Baal HaSulam. The Freedom, section: Hereditary Possessions

Reader: We are studying the article, The Freedom, and we are on the heading which is, Hereditary Possessions. 

Reading: (00:29) Hereditary Possessions

The cause of the first reason is the source, which is its first substance. Man is created existence-from-existence, meaning from the minds of its progenitors. Thus, to a certain extent, he is like a replication from book to book. This means that almost all the matters that were accepted and attained in the fathers and forefathers are replicated here, as well.

But the difference is that they are in an abstract form, like the sowed wheat that is not fit for sowing until it has rotted and shed its former shape. So is the case with the drop of sperm from which man is born: There is nothing in it of its forefathers’ shapes, only abstract force.

For the same ideas that were concepts in his forefathers have turned into mere tendencies in him, called “instincts” or “habits,” without even knowing why one does what he does. Indeed, they are hidden forces he had inherited from his ancestors in a way that not only do the material possessions come to us by inheritance from our ancestors, but the spiritual possessions and all the concepts that our fathers engaged in also come to us by inheritance from generation to generation.

From here come the manifold tendencies that we find in people, such as a tendency to believe or to criticize, a tendency to settle for material life or desiring only spiritual, moral wholeness, despising a worthless life, stingy, yielding, insolent, or shy.

All these pictures that appear in people are not their own property, which they have acquired, but mere inheritance that had been given to them by their ancestors. It is known that there is a special place in the human brain where these hereditaments reside. It is called “the elongated brain,” or “subconscious,” and all the tendencies appear there.

But because the concepts of our ancestors, acquired through their experiences, have become mere tendencies in us, they are considered the same as the sowed wheat, which has taken off its former shape and has remained bare, having only potential forces fit of receiving new forms. In our matter, these tendencies will robe the forms of concepts. This is considered the first matter, and this is the primary factor, called “source.” In it reside all the forces of the unique tendencies he had inherited from his progenitors, which are defined as “ancestral heritage.”

Bear in mind that some of these tendencies come in a negative form, meaning the opposite of the ones that were in the ancestors. This is why they said, “All that is concealed in the father’s heart emerges openly in the son.”

The reason for this is that the source takes off its former shape in order to take on a new form. Hence, it is close to losing the shapes of the concepts of the ancestors, like the wheat that rots in the ground loses the shape that existed in the wheat. However, it still depends on the other three factors, as I have written above.

Question (Petah Tikvah): (06:15) Do the people of Israel have potential that they received from their ancestors? 

M. Laitman: The nation of Israel, of course, they do.

Student: All those friends who had the point in the heart awaken in them. 

M. Laitman: Also those? 

Student: How do we reveal those tendencies, how do we bring them out into practice? There's tendencies that disappear in their new form. He says that they come in the negative form? 

M. Laitman: We'll keep reading and then you'll see, because he gets to it at some point, of course. 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (07:15) It's an unclear thing here, he says that all these tendencies there's those that come in a negative form, meaning the opposite of what they were in our ancestors. And what was concealed in the ancestors comes in the progenitors and revealed. Can you say what that is? 

M. Laitman: That all kinds of tendencies that were in the fathers are revealed in the sons. 

Student: What's the reason for that?

M. Laitman: Because they lose the matter, and only the inner force remains, and the inner force becomes opposite.

Student: He says that the wheat that rots in the ground loses the shape that existed in the wheat. However, it still depends on the three other factors, as I've written above. What does that mean, if the wheat rots in the ground, what do I reveal in that? What are the forces that are before that?

M. Laitman: There are forces but because it rotted in the ground, so there’re forces are supposedly there in a let's say in a spiritual form, let's say above matter. And then when the new seed is revealed so in there those same tendencies are revealed. What were in the previous seed, but they could appear also in an opposite way.

Student: Sounds like Remoteness. What, the incarnations have Reshimot. What we have is the Reshimot from the ancestors?

M. Laitman: Yes, you have examples like that sons are completely opposite than the fathers.

Reading: (09:22) Section Influence of the Environment: The second reason is an unchanging, direct conduct of cause and effect, related to the source’s own attribute. Meaning, as we have clarified with the wheat that rots in the ground, the environment in which the source rests, such as soil, minerals, and rain, air, and the sun affect the sowing by a long chain of cause and effect in a long and gradual process, state by state, until it ripens.

And that source retakes its former shape, the shape of wheat, but differing in quality and quantity. In their general aspect, they remain completely unchanged; hence, no grain or oats will grow from it. But in their particular aspect, they change in quantity, as from one stalk emerge a dozen or two dozen stalks, and in quality, as they are better or worse than the former shape of the wheat.

It is the same here: Man, as a “source,” is placed in an environment, meaning in the society. He is necessarily affected by it, as the wheat from its environment, for the source is but a raw form. Thus, through the constant contact with the environment and the society, he is gradually impressed by them through a chain of consecutive states, one by one, as cause and effect.

At that time, the tendencies included in his source change and take on the form of concepts. For example, if one inherits from his ancestors a tendency to stinginess, as he grows he builds for himself concepts and ideas that conclude decisively that it is good for a person to be stingy. Thus, although his father was generous, he might inherit from him the negative tendency—to be stingy—for the absence is just as much inheritance as the presence.

Or, if one inherits from one’s ancestors a tendency to be open-minded, he builds for himself concepts and draws from them conclusions that it is good for a person to be open-minded. But where does one find those sentences and reasoning? He takes all this from the environment unconsciously, for they impart upon him their views and likings in the form of gradual cause and effect.

Hence, man regards them as his own possession, which he acquired through his free thought. But here, too, as with the wheat, there is one unchanging part of the source, which is that in the end, the tendencies he had inherited remain as they were in his forefathers. This is called “the second factor.”

M. Laitman: Yes, friend? 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (13:58) I didn't really understand, what do we inherit, what do we gain from the previous generations?

M. Laitman: What did you understand? 

Student: Everything, first he writes, it's not from the corporeal concepts, he gets them in the inheritance from one generation to the next. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Then, he says that we don't get them through inheritance. If it doesn't come through inheritance, then how do we receive these spiritual possessions? 

M. Laitman: No, he's not actually speaking about spiritual possessions but whatever isn't clearly in the matter.

Student: What are these spiritual possessions that we receive through inheritance? 

M. Laitman: All kinds of tendencies that are in the next generation. That, came out of our generation and they continue that tendency. To music, to song, to something. To the things that are supposedly spiritual. 

Student: Nothing spiritual we receive from previous generations? 

M. Laitman: No, directly, no.

Student: In any case, what do we receive from our ancestors, from the Kabbalists in all the previous generations which progresses us to spirituality?

M. Laitman: Only a tendency. 

Student: Meaning? 

M. Laitman: That we have quality, how should I say it, quality, that's what I want to say. They say that Jews are smart, that they have a sense on where to gain, what to do, what yes, what no. That's, also, something that comes from our ancestors, and it's special tendencies.

Student: The tendency to unite. Is that coming from ancestry? 

M. Laitman: I don't think anybody has a tendency for unity. 

Student: From periods of Abraham, Moses, is there something that passes on that we receive? Some kind of potential that we can develop?

M. Laitman: It's written that sometimes all these tendencies are revealed in an opposite way, in the sons, from the fathers. Let's keep reading and we'll see, he writes about it. 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (17:19) According to what he says, the acquisitions we get, the hereditary possessions, is a form of gradual cause and effect. In this process, when do we, what are Reshimot that we correct according to what was developed?

M. Laitman: I don't understand.

Student: If there's development that constantly acquires new forms, what does it mean that a correction is done through that in which there reveals development according to Reshimot, according to what happened? 

M. Laitman: Where is this written that you're saying this? 

Student: What you said to the friend was that our development in spirituality, our correction is according to Reshimot that already exists in us, right? Or, is it always a new development? 

M. Laitman: On the fourth degree? 

Student: We now act to correct our Kli, our vessel. 

M. Laitman: Maybe. 

Student: The question is do we develop to something, to a state that was nonexistent, to a new state? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Or do we return to a form that already existed? 

M. Laitman: No, we don't ever go back. 

Student: What's state A and state C, where we end up in the end of correction? What is that in which we correct the Kli in return? 

M. Laitman: Correcting the Kli back, where do you? 

Student: We learned that there was the first state and then all the development came from that. Then there's the second state, it's the work, the preparation for correction. Then the third state, the whole third stage, where we return back to Ein Sof. Where from Ein Sof, there's the cascading down of the worlds, then there's that whole model of the three states that Baal HaSulam writes about. What is the correction and, why is it called correction and not development to the final spiritual form?

M. Laitman: It's called correction because those forces come in incorporation. 

Student: What does that mean? 

M. Laitman: They incorporate in one another, and then each one adds to the other.

Student: We say that there's the soul of Adam HaRishon that broke, and we want to return to the soul of Adam HaRishon, right, to connect it in return.

M. Laitman: Right. 

Student: Is that considered a new form, a form that lost its previous form and turned into a new one? The new soul of Adam HaRishon that is connected? Or do we return to the soul of Adam HaRishon that was there before the shattering? 

M. Laitman: No, we don't go back to the soul of Adam HaRishon that was supposedly before the shattering, before it even developed.

Student: The entirety of creation is always forward moving development to the state that is ahead of it? 

M. Laitman: Yes, that's what you wanted to ask? You could have asked it right away, to begin with, and that's it.

Question (Petah Tikvah): (21:06) Can I share something?

M. Laitman: To share me, with me? 

Student: To share something true, something true. I had a righteous grandmother who was praying. She has many stories. Her son, who is my father, he was an artist. 

M. Laitman: An atheist.

Student: An Atheist. Everything he thought was all random. 

M. Laitman: And what was the grandmother? 

Student: The grandmother was righteous. Not just in Moadim, but when my father was at the end of his days, he very much loved me, and whatever I requested he would give me. I just wanted one thing, that he would say, Shema Yisrael.

M. Laitman: Is that your a father. 

Student: Yes, my father, I just wanted him to say that one time for me. He was silent and my heart, my heart, 

M. Laitman: You're such a righteous guy?

Student: What I wanted to say was that there's one thing against the other. The heart, how do you say, the Creator doesn't give it to everyone. Then I also understood what great privilege we have to each and every one who is sitting here. It's not so clear to everyone. Thank you. 

M. Laitman: You also have a story? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:46) This article is an article that is as if very logical. Very logical, very analytical, it has many parts, components, changes, forces that are acting. I remember that when we studied that article once, I would once think, ah, a source. I'm the source and how they act on me are the forces that are acting on me, and the environment, which is the Ten, how it acts on me. 

M. Laitman: Why not? 

Student: Since my wife died, I feel.

M. Laitman: She took the whole Torah with her? 

Student: I'm not a source, I'm not a feeling. I feel that this article is much more emotional than intellectual. The intellect left me. 

M. Laitman: That's good.

Student: I feel as if everything I once thought, and everything that there once was, there is no source, there are no forces. I just sit, and I can hardly even listen, hardly even hear what's written here. What you see from here is the remains of something that comes to the lesson, like some bits of salt that came here.

M. Laitman: To such an extent, your wife was used to take all your internality? 

Student: She brought me to the wisdom of Kabbalah, and we studied a lot together, a lot. The last few months, when she was in the hospital, we would just study, nothing else. In this article, where is the source? Where are the changes, where are the qualities? What is opposite, everything is just static. Why, why did everything depart like that? It's very frightening, it's as if, I don't know how to say it, that I'm getting old, wearing out, it's very frightening. 

M. Laitman: You'll see how it's all going to be inverted into your benefit. 

Student: You'll see how people are philosophizing about it. How friends bring states here. So I received, I didn't receive, it's direct, it's the opposite. I ask myself, where is straight, where is the opposite and where is the source, where is it? 

M. Laitman: It doesn't matter it's not important. It doesn't pass next to you, it goes in, it goes right into the heart.

Student: So I'm not going to just die. 

M. Laitman: Don't worry about it.

Student: I am going to die but I don't know how to call it.

M. Laitman: Don't worry about death either. It's not simple. 

Student: Thank you.

M. Laitman: Okay, Reader, what's up with you? 

Reader: Continue? 

Reading: (26:33) Section Habit Becomes a Second Nature. The third reason is a conduct of direct cause and effect, which affects the source and changes it.

The third reason is a conduct of direct cause and effect, which affect the source and change it. Because the inherited tendencies in man have become concepts due to the environment, they operate in the same directions that these concepts define. For example, a man of frugal nature, in whom the tendency to stinginess has been turned into a concept, through the environment, perceives frugality through some reasonable definition.

Let us assume that by this conduct he protects himself from needing other people. Thus, he has acquired a scale for frugality, and when that fear is absent, he can waive it. It follows that he has changed substantially for the better from the tendency he had inherited from his forefathers. And sometimes one manages to completely uproot a bad tendency. This is done by habit, which has the ability to become a second nature.

In that, the strength of man is greater than that of a plant, for wheat can change only in its own part, whereas man can change through the cause and effect of the environment, even in the general parts, meaning to completely uproot a tendency and invert it to its opposite.

Question (Petah Tikvah): (28:49) The influence of the environment, does it interfere or change the original records, the Reshimot, that a person must go through? Or is it also part of the Reshimot? Where does the influence of the environment come in there? 

M. Laitman: The influence of the environment enters into the person's foundation. But it doesn't replace it for him, it acts, like it writes here, that habit becomes a second nature, in such ways.

Student: We know that all the records are already set and prepared. What does the influence of the environment do? It interferes with what was predetermined, or is it part of that path? 

M. Laitman: The influence of the environment changes the person in the direction of the purpose of creation. We're speaking about a correct environment. 

Student: It's also prepared in advance, it's like there's an unexpected cause. 

M. Laitman: We're not discussing that, we don't know the Creator's plans. Where are those plans where according to those, we enter into these four factors. And when is it one factor or another that controls us. 

Student: What's the purpose of the influence of the environment in attaining the purpose of creation? 

M. Laitman: The influence of the environment? Let's put it this way: The Creator is the cause, which is general, particular, and everything, through the influence of the environment. Then we, whether we want it or not, we are urged to reach the goal that has been prepared in advance.

Question (Petah Tikvah): (31:14) When he writes, to uproot a bad tendency, what does that mean? 

M. Laitman: What does it mean, to uproot a bad tendency? When we reach such states, which are under such influences, where we hate a certain tendency, a certain quality. And we want to get rid of it, to depart from it so much so that we stop using it, altogether. It's the recognition of evil, we reveal a certain tendency in a way that we don't return to it.

Student: Supposedly, we say that the main thing is the intention. We can uproot a tendency, like that stinginess, I can completely uproot it? Or just change the way I use it? 

M. Laitman: No, the use it seems.

Student: Or I just change the way I use it? 

M. Laitman: No, the use, it seems. 

Student: That's called to uproot a bad tendency.

M. Laitman: The tendency itself remains, but in relation to what does it remain? And in relation to what does it depart? 

Student: I want to understand what a bad tendency is. What is that? 

M. Laitman: For the time being, we divide it into bad and good, all those things, we need. With all of them we come to correction but there are tendencies that are with us on the path, and there are tendencies that are opposite to the path from us. But it's like a wheel. You have one part that's going forward and the other part that's going backward. 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (33:25) Can the influence of the environment change hereditary tendencies? 

M. Laitman: No, I don't think so, I don't think so. 

Student: What do you mean hereditary qualities? 

M. Laitman: A person is born with different kinds of qualities, like things that are in his DNA? 

Student: If it's already inside his body, in his foundational tendency, so no one can change that? It's like Rabash gave an example about mice and cats. What can an environment change? 

M. Laitman: That, it doesn't come, things that don't come from nature itself. But a person acquired throughout his life so that is what he can correct through the environment. We see that between us, even.

Question (Petah Tikvah): (34:49) Is there a discernible force that determines the tendency that we receive from our ancestors, we receive that in rejection, or we accept it. I might receive a tendency from my father, and reject it, and develop a whole new concept in its place. Or I receive it and I want to reinforce it or even enhance it. What determines whether I receive the tendencies of my ancestors in a way of rejection or acceptance? 

M. Laitman: Your decision, what it depends on? 

Student: I'm not even sure if it's my decision. If my father was a certain way, acted in a certain way, behaved in a certain way. Maybe I saw how he treated my mother and I didn't like it, I might reject this tendency and want to develop something new. But is there something that, for instance, in our children, we want them to be on the path and follow after us. Similar to the example of the friend whose grandfather was a great Tzadik, and his father wouldn't say the Shema on his deathbed. We want our children to follow in our footsteps, to develop what we give them on this path. What determines whether they will reject or accept, do we have any control over that? 

M. Laitman: Again? 

Student: What our friend is trying to understand is what defines whether a person continues on the path of his parents and so on. Or will he go opposite, restrict that path and do something opposite? What will determine that?

M. Laitman: It all depends on the person’s choice, meaning, what does this environment that he now lives in, how much does it pose, or enter into all kinds of, the extent to which what he acquired and what he now receives are in this clash between them.

Student: I understand that, but up until a certain point in my life, maybe even mostly now, I don’t if I choose, so conscientiously my environment, in order to craft what belief I have. In other words, it’s just a long string of things that happened to me: rain, wind, an earthquake. It’s something, at what point can I?

M. Laitman: Why is that important for you, whether you choose it or whether it was chosen for you through your genes or whatever else?

Student: It’s important because I feel what a gift, what a privilege, what an opportunity we have to correct humanity. I want my son to also go in this direction. If Israel only keeps shattering and shattering, if our children don’t follow us on this path, then it’ll all come to nothing. We want it to come to the Creator’s benefit.

M. Laitman: You want to know how much it depends on you?

Student: Is there something I can do to ensure that my kid will take what I’m developing with the friends and do something greater with his generation of friends?

M. Laitman: It depends on education and upbringing, the extent to which he sees in you, and in your environment, something that is higher than his life. Something more respectable.

Student: There’s no possibility that, out of nowhere, he just rejects, somehow, the education that I try to provide for him?

M. Laitman: It depends on how much he can check, measure, and honor that.

Student: I can’t control whether he enjoys that or not, I have no control.

M. Laitman: Yes. What is the plan? The plan needs to be that what is important to you and what you’ve checked and reach a conclusion of. So that, also, becomes important to your sons. It passes from one generation through another, through another. Through grandfather, father, son, and that’s how it passes on.

Student: Sometimes through reject, well, and sometimes it’s opposite. How much control do we have over the next generation if our children will reject what we try to pass along? And how much control will we have if they accept it?

M. Laitman: I don’t know how much they will receive it, accept it or reject it. It all depends on the extent to which you, how great you appear in their eyes. You need to show them an image that they will want to, somewhat, copy.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:51) He's asking how it will not reject them. How to encourage them on the path but not to reject them.

M. Laitman: Through upbringing, education, through that in which he will take them to trips. Will explain to them, will speak to them in whichever way possible, that is very important. There's nothing really to say here, it's a very important thing. I am certain that, other than the hereditary possessions that we pass on, that, from the ages of three, four, and five here we can see where they are attracted, their children. So then, we can see, as well, through what we can change them. But that needs to be according to his way, as it is written, educate the child according to the child's way. If it is, if his nature is really anti-, so, that won't help, if his original nature is anti-, then it won't help. Even if he wants to give him all kinds of examples of a life of music or literature. If he doesn't have those inclinations, if he's against them, then he won't want it.

We'll need to keep discussing that, the main thing is to hold on to the connection. And that the sons will be connected to their fathers, that is very important. If that does not happen, that is the reason for all kinds of problems, later on. And we see in this generation that we're stuck in workplaces and in all kinds of engagements, and also in wars. And what happens with children, they go in all directions. But today, too, you have children who are the ages of 30 and 40. 

Reader: Continuing External Factors.

Reading: (45:05) The fourth reason is a conduct of cause and effect that affects the source by things that are completely alien to it and operates on it from the outside. This means that these things are not at all related to the source’s growth conduct to affect it directly. Rather, they operate indirectly. For example, finances, burdens, or the winds, etc., have their own complete, slow, and gradual order of states by way of “cause and effect” that change man’s concepts for better or for worse.

Thus, I have set up the four natural factors that each thought and idea that appears in us is but their fruits. Even if one were to sit and contemplate something all day long, he will not be able to add or to alter what those four factors give him. Any addition he can add is in the quantity: whether a great intellect or a small one. But in the quality, he cannot add one bit. This is because they are the ones that compellingly determine the nature and shape of the idea and the conclusion against our will, without asking our opinion. Thus, we are at the hands of these four factors, as clay in the hands of a potter.

M. Laitman: Questions? 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (47:24) To continue from the friend, there's no doubt that raising a child in his way. Usually those ages, they really want to express themselves. So they, a lot of times, do things opposite. How can we build the best environment in our community that, at least they won't resist the path, but accept it more? 

M. Laitman: We need to think about that and truly, to consult, to discuss it in a group.

Student: Would it be right to bring them to all kinds of activities, of course, with the parents? 

M. Laitman: That's good, for sure. 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (48:22) He writes that they determine their character and their conduct without asking our opinion at all. We are in the hands of those four factors, like in the hands of the potter. We're reading for about an hour and what I feel that he actually says, nothing will help you. Four factors, past or not, you have to change, you came here to change. To change the way you behave, your will to receive, to the will to bestow. Now, sometimes I look at this, he writes about the environment and freedom of choice. It's as if he's building us to understand that nothing will help you, you must change. That's what I think. He writes, why does he write all this, what do I need to understand from all this, actually? What he's writing here. 

M. Laitman: That you have free choice.

Student: He says that we come here corrupted, and I've created the evil inclination and the Torah is a spice, so there's no choice. Sit and study, and understand that you have to change. It doesn't matter who your parents were. I came here to change. If you think you came here as a good guy that you give, so no. You have to change. Is that right? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Yes, that was my conclusion. 

M. Laitman: That is clear.  

Question (Petah Tikvah): (50:17) Also about the sons, sometimes when the father is really immersed in something in his life, he's really devoted to some path. The child can be rejected by it. Now, if we're speaking about a hobby or a profession and the child's rejected, okay, he'll choose his own path in life. But when we're speaking about the meaning of life, the only thing that is worth living for, and that's what the child is rejected from. What to do in that kind of state? 

M. Laitman: We need to talk about it, it's not for now. 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (50:57) You always explain that tendencies and qualities don't change, that you can't change them. But only the way we use it, which is the intention. Even the worst tendency, if there's a right intention, so it's good. My question is what can the environment actually change if the tendencies don't change? What does the environment do? 

M. Laitman: The environment changes the result, it changes the result. 

Student: What does that mean? 

M. Laitman: The direction. 

Student: I have a tendency, let's say, I'm stingy or nervous. 

M. Laitman: If he is stingy, bring him to work as responsible for finances. 

Student: Okay, but it doesn't change, he stays stingy but just the way he uses that quality. That's what I said, the intention.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: As we learned, the Creator changes our intention. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: What does the environment do, what does it change, if it does? 

M. Laitman: The environment manipulates him in order to turn to the Creator and request change. 

Student: It only helps a person to turn to the Creator, that He will change a person. 

M. Laitman: Yes, certainly a person is incapable of changing anything. 

Reader: Free Choice

Reading: (52:45) However, when we examine these four factors, we find that although our strength is not enough to face the first factor, the source, we still have the ability and free choice to protect ourselves against the other three factors by which the source changes in its individual parts, and sometimes in its general part, as well, through habit, which endows it with a second nature, as explained above.

M. Laitman: Yes, meaning the most important for us is to see what environment we are in, in general, the environment. The environment can be the TV, books, friends, and whatnot. Through what are we supposed to change, through what can we change? And it's the same thing with our children, our grandchildren. There is really work in that over the generations for each and every person. So educate the child according to the child's way, on one hand. And on the other hand, try to keep it and observe that he's always going on that right path all the time. 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (54:41) We can also say that the environment helps changing the acquired qualities, and not the ones we were born with?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (55:10) From one incarnation to the next, it's only me who goes through it, or also my close environment. Like a book, or a friend, women, children. Is that always the same environment in every incarnation? 

M. Laitman: No, that already doesn't relate to us. Above our incarnation, now, our current one, where we need to operate as the wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us, we don't enter into that. 

Student: In this incarnation, will I separate from the dear ones I have in this incarnation. In the next one I won't be with them? 

M. Laitman: I don't know, beyond the incarnation we're in, I don't know.

Student: That's what the article is speaking about, that you die and reincarnate. I'm asking, if things that are very dear to me, like a friend, that I'm supposed to invest my whole life in it. Do I keep going to the next incarnation with?

M. Laitman: I don't know. 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (56:24) We read about the free choice. A person sometimes stands at a cross-section that he has to take a decision. Now, the articles that we're learning about are very precise by Baal HaSulam, they explain it intellectually, in a very clear way and the path is important. But when you stand at that intersection that you can choose this or that, and there you can gain more, so it doesn't always work. You know that something's important in your brain but it doesn't always. How to help each other to make right choices? Like you said about Rabash, that he chose, let's say, he said that he was offered some job, and he didn't take it to be with the friends. You also told us about your business, how you left it all. How can we help each other? 

M. Laitman: We study, there's a certain atmosphere here, you talk among yourselves. So time and again, we need to raise the importance of the correct choice, that is all. 

Question (Petah Tikvah): (58:03) The fourth factors or stages, so it takes one source and divides it into more sources. Our path is the opposite, to take a few sources and connect them into one, it's like the opposite of it. How does this opposite take place in those four stages, if at all? 

M. Laitman: Again, the question? 

Student: What we've learned about the four stages of the source, it takes one source and divides it into a few, like from one grain of wheat, you get a few. Now, our path is opposite, let's say the Ten, each one has its source. From ten sources, one has to come out, it's like an opposite of what is explained here.

M. Laitman: Yes  

Student: The question is if this opposite method is also part of the four stages. If it is, so how? 

M. Laitman: Yes, but we'll speak about that separately. Write it down and hold on to it, and we'll discuss that.

Question (Petah Tikvah): (59:29) You were saying that the environment helps a person ask for a change. What is a habit in asking for change, is that good? 

M. Laitman: A habit of a request for change, that's already not the same habit that we have in a person's inclinations. Where a habit becomes second nature, a habit of a request for change? 

Student: Is that good or not? 

M. Laitman: I don't know, how could I get used to constantly asking for a change? That's an outcome of what I scrutinize, it cannot be a tendency in and of itself. Is that clear? 

Reader: (01:00:38) We are going to sing a song, then we're going to go down to the hummus meal, and all our friends in the world will connect us, we'll be in the meal together. 

M. Laitman: (01:01:08) I don't oppose doing it until 1.30. The question is whether it's suitable for everyone, whether it's comfortable. Anyway, it's Friday. 

Reader: (01:01:37) Let's sing a song.