Morning Lesson December 14, 2021, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam - Shamati 117. Labored and Did Not Find? Do Not Believe
1.Rav’s Introduction: Yes, the topic is very very important and it is all completely related to our progress in our work in reaching the purpose of creation in revealing the Creator and adhering to the Creator, that we will open up to ourselves the true reality. That we are like blind, that we don't see anything outside of us and we require the quality and force of the Creator to bestow and with that intention, with that approach, with that inclination we begin to see the world that is truly outside of us. Not that which we describe now, which like the Zohar says is as a dream, we were as dreamers, that we are in a dream and we don't see the true reality. In order to see the true reality first we have to have such a desire, that the beginning of this desire is given by the Creator, those who are given this desire typically arrive at the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is how the upper force designs the fate of those he wants to bring closer to themself, it's really not people, it is pieces of the soul that have the need to advance to their source. Each and every one and so they come to the wisdom of Kabbalah where here they learn what do we need to learn, what we have to do in order to keep going with the same awakening that the Creator has awakened within us. How to continue with this awakening step after step, where we need to go, what we need to do to help each other, all of us and each and every one of us.
This whole methodology, this whole technology of how to advance from the initial awakening that a person receives from above and then of course, with the Creator and the group and humanity and other aspects of awakening that he receives until he comes to the purpose of his existence. The Creator gives the initial desire but the person has to add more than the desire that he has received. Adding to that desire the Creator gave him this is what we call exertion, an additional desire that we have to awaken by ourselves on top of what we receive in the beginning. It is like when you start a car, so you turn the key and the switch or you hit a button in the newer cars and it turns on and that is from the battery, let's say. But then we have to add with our own work, with our own fuel and that already comes from burning fuel or some other source. Here in adding the effort on man's part, it depends on how he goes through the path from receiving the initial awakening from the Creator until he completes the path. This path, the quality and quantity of the steps that he makes is up to the person, to the extent that he realizes himself in the group, in the study and dissemination he collects all of that in order to advance.
In the final correction when he advances, he needs all of those vessels both the friends and the world and this is how he advances. So at first, we have a small desire at first, with which we come to the wisdom of Kabbalah and to the group as it says that the Creator put man's hand on the good faith and said take it and all of the rest depend on the person. Certainly, the upper force awakens a person but this awakening comes not directly from the Creator like the first one but through the environment. Even if a person is not in it there is still an environment he fell from when he was broken, when that vessel was broken and now it needs to go back to its corrected state. This vessel that awakens around it more or less, it is being drawn to the goal so there will be more such awakenings and we have to see where we can obtain the strength and the awakening on our own. This is what we call labor, how do I search for sources and reasons, forces and desires for progress, although I don't have any, why?
They are around me, they used to be with me. There was a shattering of the sin of the tree of knowledge and they all departed, they all became separated and so what do I need to do? The main effort, labor as we learn is building the ten as much as each one can be inspired by the others, then we can come closer to a stage where we awaken ourselves and all of us together and this is the main thing. By that we awaken the Creator and instead of the Creator awakening us, as in the beginning of the path, we each time awaken him. This is what it's called “my sons have defeated me” and that is how we keep adding more and more. More strength, awakening, attraction, what we achieve by each one being awakened by the others and also awakening the others on his part in the ten and by that we make the effort and from this effort we advance. In this connection we gradually discover more and more between us as we find the place for the Creator and the connection with the Creator.
Also, we have to understand that labor can happen where there is no desire, especially where there is not so much a desire that we understand, but we can't as we don't have the strength. This is what we call our force weakened as a female, meaning there is a little desire but the male force is missing and male, Gever comes from the word Hitgabrut, overcoming and that is missing, that is why we have to awaken each other and if we want, as it is written in the same place and the same desire, the same woman which means that our desire is exactly for the revelation of Divinity so we have to receive it together with the friends, one shall help his friend in this is how we advance.
After we establish the place to make the effort and the desire to shape the effort that we make and preferably it is happening together between us. Exertion can happen where there is no desire that is why sometimes we have an awakening from above more than we feel like or want and other times we are empty, we lose our spirit, we don't want anything or feel like anything. Then we have to realize that this time is not redundant it is the time where the creator gives us an opportunity to build ourselves to put in the labor in order to help each other and to clarify how to desire the goal and for the goal we have to be as one man and one heart and the Creator feels that heart that we build. Meaning a common desire, our collective desire and that is how we build the group and the place for the revelation of the Creator. If we, in that manner, if we approach our awakening, then this awakening on our part is called labor and that will be the correct labor, that will be in order to bestow from each and every one ultimately, we come to a desire to bestow to the Creator.
If only if we advance in this manner, we come to the initial shapes that Adam HaRishon had, the structure and the result of that will be that I labored and I found, believe. That we make the right effort and the right labor and we find the Creator who fulfills us and becomes revealed in us in the connection between us. Light inside the 10 Sefirot of the soul, everything is achieved only by the power of labor if we do that labor correctly. Then what we build in our ten, our labor with the Creator there, then we begin to also connect to it more groups, ten, increase the vessel to a correct structure of Adam HaRishon. That is how we correct the whole shattering until we come to the final correction, this is basically the matter of labor, meaning our whole life comes down to the point where we receive the awakening from above, from the Creator and then we add to it the awakening from below, from ourselves. From ourselves that awakening, that effort to add the awakening from below is what we call labor. The result of that is that we each connect and tighten our collective vessel for the revelation and reception of the upper light, the Creator. That is it.
2. S. (14:27) How do you awaken to give exertion when you don't have any forces?
R. By connecting to the friend that is very clear, point-blank and it will get more and more like that as a person has to feel that he is falling on the friends and that they carry him like on a stretcher or that they take care of him like a group of doctors that are treating some terminal ill person that they have to revive.
3. S. (15:10) What is in our effort that you cannot attain anything without it?
R. Because the Creator only gave the initial awakening like starting the engine or starting the car, all of the rest we have to add. We have infinite fuel and infinite possibilities because we are already built-in tens so you can't say you don't have it. You have the possibility and opportunity to build yourself with the strength and the matter for it, but the Creator then fills up the space that you build and that is how you advance. We just have to build the connection between us to be similar to the light, meaning to someone to bestow and then the upper light, the Creator begins to work in the connection between us, changes and shapes us, that we feel how he works within us. This is called the revelation of the Creator to the created being. That can happen on the condition that we try to find the style of connection between us that is similar to bestowal to the quality of the Creator.
S. What characterizes the correct effort?
R. First of all what prevents, what hinders it is our ego that was born out of the shattering and thanks to it we actually revealed the effort because if there was no force of resistance, we would not be able to find our work, our addition that I want it, that I am doing it and advancing toward the Creator. This is what we call helpmate against me, this is our will to receive, our ego, the evil inclination that the Creator created deliberately. As it says I created the evil inclination and he also gives you Torah, the upper light, I created the spice of Torah and this is how we work correctly with our ego as we advance in connect we try to collect all of our tendencies to the Creator as much as we can in order to bestow and I don't know how to bestow but if I want to help the group, if I want to integrate in the group as much as possible, to bring them together, to push them forward with whatever they require and whatever I find that they need that I can add, so if everyone does that and put in that effort then we succeed.
4. S. (18:36) You said effort to the emotion or to the feeling but the words are nice words but there is no feeling in the words?
R. Try to put in effort and then you will see that there is a lot of feeling there as it is written about it, Baal HaSulam writes about it, there is no such thing in the world that a person cannot develop a sense for it depends on the labor. Look at what happens with a person when he is just born, first he doesn't hear or see or respond, it is just a piece of flesh that is barely alive. Its livelihood is just a minimum vitality that flows into that piece of flesh that is born. Then gradually it awakens and we awaken it and it begins to gradually awaken all of those qualities and feelings, emotions by which he begins to gain the connection with his environment, seeing, hearing, feeling and touching, where does it come from? From the development and the efforts.
S. You said forces, what are the forces?
R. That we have to put in the effort into the connection between us because in the connection between us we build the spiritual organs, more accurately we don't build them, we actually recover them, we revive them, they were dead and we put life into them. That is the effort that we make and then they begin to revive all of those different kinds of connections between us. Not in the way that existed in Adam that the system that initially existed it was only light of Nefesh there, this is the system of Adam in the state that is called the Garden of Eden where it has no clothing or no consciousness it was such a shape that was designed by the Creator but when we get there, when we make corrections by our labor then with the addition of this labor instead of a light of Nefesh we achieve a light of NRNHY the complete life in revelation if the Creator in the connection between us.
5. S. (21:41) The effort much more than the result is an action of instability in the system and because of that the Creator gives us the instability in the system?
R. No, the system we ourselves need to erect it, to restore it, to recover it, that is our work to correct it as it is called and therefore, we need to rearrange the relationships between us as relationships of bestowal so that we can reveal the system. Before that it doesn't exist to us and by that we have to, as if, be reborn and then we go through months of birth, pregnancy where we feel that we exist as an embryo within the upper one. The main thing is not to get confused and just follow and realize what we are talking about right now.
6. S. (23:30) If a person turns to the Creator and begins to be interested in taking the coarseness, does this depend on the case of the Reshimot that are emerging?
R. I don't understand the approach that you want to take all of the coarseness out of there, you just have to nullify yourself before the ten and give them as much strength as you can to them but not that you do some actions over them. You have to do actions on yourself in order to join them in the right way, that is basically the work. Not that you take some coarseness out of them that is incorrect.
7. S. (24:33) Could you please explain if I understand correctly the result in my effort is that the force of bestowing awakens in my friends, eventually the Creator does not enjoy me but from the adhesion in the group?
R. Both this and that, how do I work, how do I feel but of course the Creator takes into account the whole ten. That is how it is and most importantly to be patient and help and support each other and until we discover the structure of the group, it is not simple, it takes time. There is a period where a person has to do something and it's as if he's doing something but he doesn't yet feel that it goes into the area where he feels and so basically below the threshold of his feeling.
8. S. (25:55) This week we put in a lot of effort and connection between the connection in the tens of Germany 4 and Holland 1, how important is it to put effort in connection between the tens as we are sitting together now with the German groups, concerning what you just explained about?
R. I am sorry to hear such a question from you because we agreed between us that first we are taking care of the ten until we feel that this ten is alive, that it exists and I am in it and I am completely dependent on the support of the friends and I myself see myself only immersed in them. Until we have that feeling we can't say that we have a cell and then another cell, another group is another cell and then we bring those cells together and connect them together. In the meantime, we have to think only about our tens, each one in his ten and not that we begin to play around with all kinds of connections between the tens. We are still not feeling the essence of the ten itself and therefore all of these efforts are only to our detriment.
S. We have the preparation for morning lesson, where we in our separate tens, we connect our tens, that's true with the main importance.
R. Preparation for the morning lesson can be done however you want as long as you awaken yourselves, the preparation for the lesson is especially about this renewed awakening towards the general correction and the Creator even though we need to try to feel the connection between us in the ten, in our individual tens but it is also about connecting to the global ten of all of the students. The Creator is relating to all in the lesson where we connect together and from the lesson where we also study the same material and make the same kinds of efforts and so the Creator influences all of us. With regards to the lesson it is a different thing as here I also have to be connected with all the other groups and with the Creator, but in all of the rest of the time the most important thing is my work in increasing connection between the friends in the ten.
9. S. (29:42) You said that the connection between us needs to be similar to the light. What does this mean?
R. I don't understand what translation you received but that's not what I said, of course we can say that the light, the connection between us has to be similar to the upper light, meaning to the form of bestowal between us. It is like how the children learn from the adults, that they mimic their behavior, similarly we have to mimic the actions of the Creator, his bestowing.
10. S. (30:49) Can you tell me please how to become an artist in our efforts to the ten?
R. Exertion, labor, effort and investment where you go back to all of these things more and more, again and again. That you see you are thrown out of it and you have to go back to it and once again and again and this way you will advance and become a master.
11. S. (31:34) What does it mean that we awaken in this effort the Creator?
R. The Creator doesn't exist, what exists is the upper force, which is not the Creator, it is the primordial force that precedes the Creator as the Creator is what we can discover and build through the connection between us. That is what is called BoReh, come and see as we come to a certain form and we discover how that form operates, this is what is called come and see and this happens in the ten. The correct connection between the desires to receive which are in connection between them in the group they constitute the desire to bestow as a result of their efforts. The desire to bestow awakens and appears as the Creator, the upper force and he to begin with awakens us and wants to build us and doesn't let us rest so that we try to achieve connection between us to a greater extent, in a more powerful way. That is what we need to discover and that is between us and this is what we call the Creator.
S. It is a force that you begin to feel in the friends, in the ten and inside that awakens and asks, this force is the Creator?
R. That is exactly what is called the Creator that we build him, that we set up the conditions for his revelation and the result of our efforts is that we discover, how do we discover him? The upper light when it dresses in our desires when each and every desire is willing to concede itself in order to connect with others so we build such a network of connection between us in the matter, meaning in the desire. But light can appear then according to the equivalence of form with the desire and then we reveal the Creator from the correct connection between our desires. This is how we discover it, it is like how it can be that the desire reveals the force of bestowal, it is a desire to receive but if the desire to receive is willing to somewhat make a concession over itself to connect with others, then it works like the light and the action of connecting with the other desires to bestow to them, that is called Adam on our part, meaning similar to the Creator. This is how we correct ourselves.
S. About the first part you said this initial desire like a certain ignition is what the Creator gives to each of us personally and the effort of every friend we need to be aimed to this individual desire of ours, how does all of the initial individual desires that come from the Creator and by the efforts of each of us create in us the necessity to work in the ten this way?
R. This is something that we are going to have to obtain as it is a system that you have to find your place in it, to integrate with it and then you will discover it as they say things can further explain how we connect and correct the shattering and how all of these pieces come together and start working as one. They become as though they are one but the inner resistance between them remains and so we connect above the resistance, therefore our input, our capacity, because we connect above the force of resistance then our capacity of our connection is called 620 times greater than what it used to be and this is a sign that indicates that we receive the great light of NRNHY instead of the small light of Nefesh that used to exist.
12. S. (37:08) What is the reason and the correct response as a ten when we feel that the Creator is bringing troubles to our life?
R. Of course he brings troubles and there's None Else Besides Him where else do they come from as the troubles come from the revelation of the broken vessels that it is now time to correct and why they now appear, you need to be willing to accept these troubles and bless for the bad as you bless for the good, it all depends on the level of Arvut, mutual guarantee that exists in the group.
13. S. (38:10) How does the environment show each one the importance of his individual efforts?
R. We can talk about it and basically demand from each and every one that he has to participate. That is on the one hand. On the other hand, we have to be patient and wait, sometimes wait a long time, until the friend wakes up. In the meantime, we invest in him and invest in him; that is also an investment, it is labor.
S. Should we wait and invest in him?
R. To wait means that we accept him in part of all of the connection activities that we do in the ten even if he can't add, and even if, as far as we can see, he somewhat disregards the actual work of connection.
S. Does asking for strength from the ten mean that he's showing effort when he doesn't have the strength?
R. How does he ask for strength if he doesn’t have strength? First, he has to have a need, and we need to awaken his need so that he asks. Everyone does his part of the work, but in general, the general direction of the work is to achieve connection, such a connection that our forces of bestowal will be established in such a network that allows the revelation of the Creator. What is the creator? The relationship between us will be similar, at least to a minimal degree, similar to the same quality of the light and the upper light can appear in the network of connection between us.
14. S. (40:36) Does adding effort mean adding the internal intention to the connection we already have in the ten or do we need additional acts of connection?
R. Each and everything that brings us to more connection that we invest in is called labor.
S. Do you mean that we add intention in our existing actions or to add additional ones?
R. More actions, too.
15. S. (41:14) How can the ten reach a state where the efforts will be considered the reward as a service of the Creator and be considered an effort?
R. That is a good question. When we invest in connection between us and we get closer between us, then we can reach a state where we make an effort, and every effort that we make brings us joy and fulfillment. Baal HaSulam and Rabash write that if at first the labor seems like hard work to us, we reach a state where we see it as fulfillment and we don't want anything besides having the opportunity to exert. That is truly the good result that we can attain from our work. The whole work then inverts from in order to receive to in order to bestow and we see great pleasure in each and every investment and each effort we make. The work becomes the reward.
16. S. (43:13) We want to make the correct vessel to receive the Torah. What does the magnitude of our efforts depend on?
R. It is very hard to say, as there is quantity and there is quality. We certainly need to take care of the quantity at first because we don't really understand and feel the quality. There are connections and disconnections between us. We need to try to be in an inner connection between us each time so that the quality of the connection between us will be in order to bestow from each one to each other, and ultimately, to the Creator.
17. S. (44:20) Is it impossible to feel the ten and the friends without the rejection and coarseness that we reveal between us?
R. It is impossible without the investment; the investment is the vessel that you build. It is impossible to build the place to connect between us to reveal the Creator without labor. It is impossible. Only with quantity and quality. That is why we are now reading this article, “Labored and Did Not Find? Do Not Believe.” You are not going to come to the finding without the labor. Meaning to find the force of bestowal between you and ultimately, that force of bestowal is the Creator. This is how you gradually discover the Creator. The investment on our part increases in this revelation; that’s the Kli. His participation in this is the light.
18. S. (45:44) What does it mean to connect above the remaining inner resistance?
R. That means that we're working on connection. I have no more to explain here because I cannot discuss a system before we have some sense of it, of how the parts come together, how they are established together, how they become one from many, and in what sense they do or in what sense that they don't. I can't explain all of that, it is impossible. It has to be felt.
S. What is the connection above resistance?
R. The resistance remains and we connect above the resistance. We achieve greater intensity, 620 times greater, each time more and more because we keep the resistance and on top of the resistance we get capacity, like in engineering or technology where you have some resistance and you keep the current through the resistance and get more capacity.
S. Is this connection, this power, only in part?
R. It's only in connection
S. Is the environment the connection between the parts?
R. It is not in them. When you connect these parts together and you force them to work together then all of the resistance between them works to increase their power, turning darkness to light, and bitter to sweet, and resistance to attraction.
S. Where is it felt if it's not in the parts that are contradicted?
R. It is felt in the connection between the pieces.
S. Are the connections new vessels of the parts?
R. They are the same vessels that transcend themselves in order to be connected between them.
S. Where is the connection felt between them?
R. Above them in 10 Sefirot of reflected light, restriction, Masach, and Ohr Hozer. The connection and the reflected light from each and every one is a place for the revelation of the Creator, outside of the person. This is what we call ‘faith above reason.’
19. S. (49:23) How to be a guarantor for the friends when you feel disconnected from the connection?
R. Read the articles by Rabash and try to follow them every day. I have no more to say on that.
20. S. (49:54) How do we not miss the awakening that is given by the Creator?
R. We don't miss it if we think of how to be more connected every moment between us each time. Of course, we forget about it each and every moment; that is normal. It is a sign that the Creator renews the will to receive every day. We have to reach a state where love covers all crimes, that we discover connection above every new state of separation. Each and every day, meaning each and every moment, we discover a new aspect of separation and we are going to have to install a new connection on top of it.
21. S. (51:01) What practical action in the ten helps us awaken in the deficiency?
R. We have discussed these actions many times; the Social Articles describe everything we have to do here. We are going to have to discuss the different kinds of labor which are, of course, ahead of us. We have to learn to do this but most important is to understand the principle that the Creator awakens this disconnection between us each time. We have to make an effort again and again to renew the connection above all kinds of disconnections.
22. S. (51:51) Why do we never feel that our efforts are sufficient?
R. We have to make efforts until the final correction. Our efforts give us the feeling of the Creator, the feeling of the connection between us, so that we begin to come from concealment to revelation. When we can receive in order to bestow, we enter the stage of revelation and by that we bring contentment to the Creator, not to ourselves. I want to stay in concealment and I am making the Masach, the concealment on my part, in order to bring pleasure to the Creator.
23. S. (52:55) How will we know our efforts in the ten have the correct intention to evoke love toward the friends?
R. If we, do it together, more or less, as much as we can, it is always correct. That is our state.
24. S. (53:20) How do we define the direction of the effort? Is our effort based on rational calculation?
R. The direction of the effort is only towards connection between us, mutual bestowal and mutual support where we can surely direct that to the Creator. The Creator is the result of the common work between us. This is how we make and we build the concept of the Creator, and that is how we establish this concept until we reveal Him. We build the place for the revelation of the Creator in our reflected light. The Creator doesn't exist before that. What exists is only abstract upper light that fills all reality but nobody feels it. If you want to discover it, then you have to build reflected light. The Creator begins to appear in it based on equivalence, through the mutual bestowal that is directed to the Creator. He can appear to the extent that we want to bestow to Him just as He wants to bestow to us.
25. S. (54:55) We need to make efforts where there is no desire. What are our efforts when there is no awakening from above?
R. Is it not just that you have no desire. We have to exert in connection between us because that is the shape, the form, that we can reveal; that is the form that we can work on and not imagine all kinds of imaginary things. We have very concrete realistic work in renewing the connections between us in such a way that the quality of connection between us will be in mutual bestowal, as much as we can. This will be called ‘the Creator,’ Come and See.
26. S. (56:07) How can we work correctly from the center of the ten when not everyone in the ten is in the lesson?
R. That is something you will have to work out between yourselves. You set up what is going to happen in your ten. If you're not going to do it, it's not going to happen. The ten can be five, seven, or even eight people that are connected together but they have to take care of the connection between them. Of course, each one does it in his own style and intensity, but it has to happen.
27. (57:04) Rav reads Shamati 117 Labored and Did Not Find? Do Not Believe “Necessity of the labor is a requirement. Since the Creator gives man a present, He wants man to feel the benefit in the present…” Meaning that there will be a response on behalf of the person. “Otherwise, that person would be like a fool, as our sages said, “Who is a fool? He who loses what he is given.” Because he doesn't feel what he was given and that's why he loses it. “Because he does not appreciate the importance of the matter, he does not pay attention to keeping the present. There is a rule that one feels no importance in anything if one has no need for that thing. As the measure of the need and the suffering if one does not attain it, to that very extent one feels gladness, pleasure, and joy at the satisfaction of the need…” When he attains what he wanted. “It is similar to one who is given all sorts of good beverages, but if he is not thirsty, he tastes nothing, as it is written, “As cold water to a faint soul” ...” Meaning there has to be a deficiency first that is prepared and then we will feel the pleasure in fulfilling it.
“Hence, when meals are set in order to please people, there is a custom: When we prepare meat and fish and all sorts of good things, we take note to serve bitter and hot things, such as mustard, hot peppers, sour, and salty foods. All of this is to evoke the suffering of hunger, since when the heart tastes a hot and bitter taste, it evokes hunger and deficiency, which one needs to satisfy with the meal of good things…” Meaning that before we taste the good things, we first have to awaken in ourselves the bad things in order to awaken the hunger and the desire for the good things.
So here is a question. We don't feel what is in order to bestow, connection, the nature of the Creator, or spirituality. We don't even feel a need for it. What we imagine we want is totally not spiritual. We first have to awaken the deficiencies for spirituality within us, for the revelation of the Creator. The revelation of the Creator is the revelation of the force of bestowal and like any revelation it has to appear within us. It is not simple to reveal spirituality because it is an opposite world and in order to achieve it, we need a specific deficiency. So in the meantime, we take in bitter and salty things that perhaps are not tasty, but it actually evokes us toward the revelation of the Creator.
“No one would ask, “Why do I need things to arouse hunger? After all, the host should only prepare satisfaction for the need, meaning the meal, and not prepare things that evoke the need for the satiation?” The obvious answer is that since the host wants people to enjoy the meal, to the extent that they have a need for the food, to that very extent they will enjoy the meal…”
Meaning the sensation of fulfillment can't happen without sensing the deficiency for the fulfillment. If one has fulfillment and has no deficiency suitable for it, he won't feel pleasure from the meal. If he has a deficiency, even a small one, based on the deficiency he will feel some fulfillment from the Host, from the meal.
“It follows that if he gives many good things, it will still not help them enjoy the meal due to the above reason that there is no filling without a lack…” What do we need to care about when we want to obtain something? Do we have the desire, the deficiency for it? If we don't, this is what we have to care about. Many times I hear that we want the revelation of the Creator and spirituality. Please, it's not limited. The Creator is filling the whole earth with His glory. The force of bestowal is everywhere holding us within it. We don't feel it because we don't want it. We are opposite to it. He created us opposite to Himself so that we ourselves will awaken and build within us a desire to attain Him; that is possible only by building the same qualities within us that He has and then we can feel and reveal Him.
“Hence, to be rewarded with the light of the Creator, there must also be a need. And the need for this is the labor: To the extent that one exerts and demands the Creator during the greatest concealment…” Specifically from the concealment when he asks and wants to reveal the force of bestowal. “To that extent he becomes needy of the Creator, for the Creator to open his eyes to walk by the path of the Creator…” Meaning that he will see that to advance he has to see that the only thing he lacks is bestowal.
“Then, when one has that Kli [vessel] of a deficiency, when the Creator gives him some help from above, he will know how to keep this present…” Meaning that he has a desire, a deficiency for the Creator. “It turns out that a person advances not in revealing the Creator to himself but in collecting the deficiencies for the Creator. He doesn't want to reveal the Creator in a direct manner the way he thought about it before. Now all of his deficiencies for the Creator is his wealth, his treasure, and that he wants to collect. When he has Tzimtzum, Masach, Ohr Hozer. Ohr Hozer, reflected light, is his attitude to the Creator and that to him becomes his fulfillment. “Then, when one has that Kli [vessel] of a deficiency, when the Creator gives him some help from above, he will know how to keep this present…” Meaning that only deficiency is required to achieve it, to collect it and to keep it and not lose it. That is possible specifically now when the Creator helps us by giving us a state of concealment and then we don't need to keep it. This is called the Masach, the concealment and the reflected light. This is what a person fulfills himself with, with his relationship to the Creator, his attitude to bestow to Him and not to himself. We don't discover the Creator in the sense that the light enters the desire. No, we want the Creator to be revealed because He wants us to reveal Him. It is in our reflected light, so He doesn't fill our desire but He fills our intention to bestow to Him. That means that we actually work in bestowal.
“It turns out that the labor is considered Achoraim [posterior]. And when he receives the Achoraim, he has a place in which to be rewarded with the Panim [face]...” Meaning to be able to bestow, that is our Panim… “It is said about that, “A fool has no wish for wisdom.” This means that he does not have a strong need to exert to obtain wisdom. Thus, he has no Achoraim, and he naturally cannot be awarded the discernment of Panim…” This means that he doesn't want to receive the revelation of the Creator in the correct way. This is called ‘Goodwill of the one who wears it and the one who gives the clothing.’ “This is the meaning of “As is the sorrow, so is the reward.” That is, the sorrow, called “labor,” makes the Kli [vessel], so one can be awarded the reward. This means that to the extent that one regrets…” Meaning during his sorrow and his labor and his address to the Creator and he seeks ways to get closer to the Creator…” to that extent he can later be rewarded with joy and pleasure.”
28. S. (01:09:02) Are the deficiency and the vessel the same thing or is there a difference?
R. Deficiency is a deficiency that a person has for all kinds of things, the vessel means that he processes his deficiencies and brings them to the correct form of bestowing to the Creator and this is called a vessel. Vessel meaning the form of bestowing from the created being to the Creator.
S. The deficiency we are talking about is this only a deficiency for bestowal?
R. We don't have more than we need to add on our part, only to take all of the components and the data that we have, our will to receive in the world to bestow from the Creator and the group that we have to process all of the data and turn ourselves into something similar to the nature of the Creator, the nature of the upper light.
S. Meaning when I feel in the ten that I want to attain something good abstractly, is this not a scrutinized deficiency do we need to clarify it first?
R. Yes, generally you can say that.
29. S. (01:10:09) Is it necessary to feel suffering during the investment of the efforts and exertion?
R. No, in everything we have to look for two pieces of data, the correct effort and the joy that accompanies it because that is the testimony that we are in the right direction to bestowing.
30. S. (01:11:39) We saw that the work is a need, is it because the will to receive cannot do any work without a reward and we want there to be a certain reward for the effort?
R. We have a desire and the fulfillment of the desire and we have to make certain that we attain the fulfillment in the right way, that this fulfillment will be as bestowing, meaning everything depends on how we understand the essence of the labor, what is it that we want to achieve, that the connection between us and the Creator will be like the Creator's attitude to us.
31. S. (01:13:05) What is the right way to depict or describe the exertion in the ten, what are we supposed to aspire for?
R. That we feel the mutual support and the goal that we want to attain on part of the vessel and we make all of the efforts so that the essence of our labor will paint our bestowing on the upper force, how will we know? By the revelation of the upper force within our effort, meaning according to equivalence of form between us and the Creator. It is hard to describe this because they don't write about it so much because you have to make the effort and accordingly get the results.
S. Is it okay at first to want a revelation or is it forbidden?
R. There is no choice, we can't not want it, we can make efforts so that something will come out of it but I can't tell myself that I don't want that because the desire comes first and so after that I have to find the vessel.
S. Baal HaSulam warns us in one of his letters that the main thing is not to exert ourselves in vain, for nothing so what do we have to be meticulous so that the exertion will be correct?
R. We are constantly talking about this, that's why I don't have the patience to answer this anymore. We are constantly learning how to exert and relate to every moment correctly, that for every moment of the Creator is establishing it in us. So what, we should erase everything and start from the beginning, I don't know what to do.
S. What I'm asking is a person's inner exertion to make effort, when is it exertion and when is he eating his own flesh?
R. Exertion means that I am working against my desire, connecting to the ten above my desire is 2, in order to reach the form of mutual bestowing between us to the Creator is 3 and we want to work on this vessel to such an extent that we will start revealing in it some kind of revelation of the form of bestowing in practice on our behalf. That will be called come and see, Creator.
32. S. (01:16:53) We discussed this article in the ten this afternoon and we talked about this analogy: we are trying to develop an appetite for a meal but we do not know exactly what the Creator has prepared for us, we do not have the experience of the flavors that are available for us in that food. How can we aim our deficiency towards something that we haven't tasted?
R. That is a great salvation from the Creator that we do not feel taste in bestowal. Otherwise we would not be able to come out of it. It is good that we have taste in reception that in the opposite way we can reach it, then we can build a vessel that is really in order to bestow. If we would feel any flavor in bestowal, we would not be able to come out of it; we would constantly be immersed in it.
S. I think I'm trying to ask something different. Using the analogy in the article, the host wants people to enjoy the meal to the extent that they have a need for the food, to that very extent they will enjoy the meal. However the meal that he is preparing for us we do not have experience with, these favors are new and foreign to us, new delights. In a corporate meal we understand salt, spice, different flavors, we know the flavors that we might expect in the meal, so we know how to prepare ourselves and prepare our appetite for that. But in this meal in this instance we struggle to find the source of what we might use in order to develop our deficiency. Now we play with that in that ten obviously, the ten is sort of our playground for developing our appetite. But how can we, as a ten, develop our deficiency towards something that we have no concept of, no experience in?
R. Listen. The whole process we are going through until the Gmar Tikkun [final correction], It is all our preparation for that meal. And the meal that we are invited to, and we enter, and we are together with the Host which is the Creator; that is the final correction. Then the entire vessel is prepared, corrected, connected and then it can truly taste all the flavors and all of the intensity that is in that meal, in that fulfillment. That is called “that the righteous sit and enjoy the elimination of the divinity.” But until then we are correcting our vessels, fixing them. That is all. We’ll take a few steps and that will be more clear to us, how we prepare the vessels into what meal we are aiming towards. Right now we have no inspiration, no excitement towards it because we have no discernments about it because we didn't taste anything yet from the table. This is called “the set table”: Everything's ready for the meal, just we are not yet.
33. S. (01:21:28) Many times we talk about the fact that we have friends that we see on the daily lesson every day, and there are those that are not. Is there a difference between putting the effort on these or those, what is the difference?
R. I do not know, it seems to me that the problem is in the definition of who are the friends, what is the group? So you need to see in those people you are looking at, are they those people that you connect together, together, in mutual investment to reach such a connection called the Creator. Are you advancing towards that? And that really depends on each and every one's observation on everyone's efforts towards everybody.
S. Is it worthwhile to annul yourself towards the friends that are present in the ten but on the other hand are not present in the lessons?
R. I cannot say. But if he is still in the ten and in connection with you, if you are in connection with you throughout the day so he is a friend. In the morning lesson I don't know, it could be that he cannot, who knows what problems he has, but usually if you keep going and he is a friend, he will come to the lesson too. You have to awaken him.
34. S. (01:23:46) What does it mean that the Creator wants for us to reveal in reflected light?
R. In bestowal. That the Creator is revealed only according to the equivalence of form. That is called “on bestowal from our behalf and between us, and from between us, towards Him.”
S. At the end of the article it says that the reward is according to the exertion and on the other we say that we don't need to aspire for suffering?
R. According to the sorrow is the reward, meeting the sorrow when a person overcomes his egoistic desire and wants to reach connection and bestowal from between us towards the Creator; according to that he receives the feeling of equivalence with the Creator, and that is called “the payment/ the reward.”
35. S. (01:24:55) You're said that the meal is the state of the final correction, so what is the essence of the gradual correction then?
R. The fact that we are preparing ourselves for all kinds of values or flavors in bestowal. But actually what the Creator wants to give, is revealed in Gmar Tikkun [final correction]. Meaning the Host does all kinds of exercises with the guests through many, many thousands of years in order to prepare them for that fulfillment called “the upper light.”
36. S. (01:26:08) In our ten we have very few questions during the lesson, is it a lack of Hisaron [deficiency] or intention, or is it something natural?
R. I don't see that this is right. I see there are too many questions and I'm expecting that you'll be able to scrutinize them between you. And then, after only if you cannot find the solution or the solution is with a question mark, then you can turn to me in the lesson and ask.
37. S. (01:26:53) In the text talking about the flavors that we have before the meal, the flavors that are bitter, the salt. I thought that it was an allegory for the Creator sending us obstacles, blessed obstacles?
R. It's not an allegory, and it's not like an example. It is the actual state that we need to see in a serious way and deal with it.
38. S. (01:27:48) Working against a desire, there's something physical that you could do like I don't feel like getting up and I make an effort and I get up, it's a physical action. And it is working against the desire of reception where I pray for the friends, I turned to the Creator's for the friends, for bestowal. So what does it mean to work against the desire, the desire of reception or some kind of action?
R. I need to see the goal, that we are connected in mutual bestowal, and from all our individual bestowals they all connect to a common bestowal of all of us. And by this we reach a state that the upper force, that is concealed from us, will be able to reveal to the extent of the equivalence of form between Him and the bestowal that we have built between us. On his behalf is from the “light” and on our behalf is called the “vessel.” That is what we need to be able to reach.
S. Is the effort made against the desire, is it an inner action?
R. It is an inner action, and between everyone to everyone else. That we build such a net of connections that is entirely about the desire.
39. S. (01:29:35) It says in the article that the sorrow is called exertion “as is the sorrow so is the reward”, the question is what is the difference between the feeling of effort that a person makes on the way and the exertion that he's talking about here?
R. Sorrow is not simple, in what sense does a person feel sorrow? What brings in that feeling of Sorrow? Sorrow that he cannot bestow containment of the Creator, according to that feeling of sorrow, he can build a vessel. clear?
40. S. (01:30:35) You started talking about how according to the sorrow the Creator is revealed. But there are plenty of problems in the ten, it is really difficult, so the question is, is it impossible for a ten to advance without trouble?
R. I guess not. If it was possible, you wouldn't feel the trouble and problems. They are results of a wrong connection between us, and between us and the Creator.
S. I might be naive. I thought that if you study Kabbalah in the morning, and you make efforts, and you pray together, we can avoid the problems, which is called “hastening?”
R. So you know how to fill in the complaint.
S. I did. How do I bypass the problems?
R. If something hurts you say ouch, except for crying out ouch you also have to think: why you have that pain, where does it come from, who causes it, what does he want from it, what will you do as a result? Obviously, the pain is from Him too, from the Creator, none else besides Him. So you need to calculate what I should do in order to be healthy and whole, and that's all of my bones, and flesh, and nerves, and forces, all of it; I will be able to invest into the connection in order to give the Creator pleasure; so that He can clothe in there and enjoys His created beings.
S. And if I connect the way you say, do I prevent the problems?
R. Where will they come from? I'm asking. Where do they come from? If you stabilize them correctly, all of this data, and you're somehow willing to come near to bestowal. So your direction, your tendency towards bestowal is already an identification with the upper force, and you will not feel a gap between you and Him, even though you are very small. But still you will have some kind of a connection to Him “me for my Beloved and my Beloved for me.” And then, in such a way you will already be connected, and instead of sorrow you will feel pleasure; at least in the way that you are in the hands of the upper One.
S. So you're saying that we are in the wrong direction?
R. I didn't say that I said that you probably don't understand exactly where you are.