Morning Lesson November 18, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Rabash. Article No. 39, 1985. Hear Our Voice
Reading Article. (00:40) “In the Slichot [prayers for pardon],...”
1. S. (27:20) It's not a personal war with the evil inclination each one fights, it's true, but we as a ten, when I read this article and I look at it, if the man goes to a social event the will to receive goes with him. When we begin to work and connect between us then the destructions begin, then the difficulties begin as a society. One of the things that gives us strength is this thing, meaning we have tens, we have the world Kli, we have you, we have the Kabbalists but the work is in the tens, I mean that's the internality of the person. So how do we silence this evil inclination there inside the ten?
R. That is by all of us connecting and aiming at one goal and then in that goal the evil inclination disappears.
S. So the more we adhere, sometimes even physically in terms of thinking about it, et cetera, we restrict it?
R. Yes, we have to, yes.
2. S. (29:02) Here in the allegory when he speaks about the cleanliness, the Polish Jews and the German Jews, it doesn’t matter how many times we read it and hear it and you also talked about it; it’s difficult to agree in a mature way that this is how it is, that what’s revealed is the opposite. A person wants to be clean, there’s a strong desire in a person to be clean and nevertheless that's not how it is. How can we agree with it, accept it and stop wanting to..?
R. We have to be aimed at connection; connection, adhesion and don't pay attention to seeing yourself in..
S. Why does it say that cleanness brings to abstinence et cetera?
R. It’s correct but on the way, as you want to reach it. It's not that you're already in it.
3. S. (30:21) He says here that even though the Creator is dry, the most important is that we have not forgotten His name. It sounds like a very high degree already, what is he talking about?
R. I can't explain that. A person is always attuned to getting closer to the Creator and getting closer to the Creator is by connection with the friends in the ten. Don't forget that their name used to be that the Creator is Good That Does Good and rely on that until we truly receive such a connection that the Creator will be fully revealed: the name of the Creator, The Good That Does Good.
S. What does it mean that a person creates such an environment around him that doesn't let him forget it?
R. Yes, of course, that's our entire work.
4. S. (31:53) In this example of the Polish Jews and the German Jews, it put me in an unpleasant state. Can you explain it better? I can’t even depict to myself that someone, especially a great Kabbalist, says that if someone is beautiful, pretty his intention must be bad. I can say this to everyone. If I see someone has invested a lot, if he's invested a lot I guess he has a bad intention; I can't do that because they're yearning to be in Lishma.
R. This is the joke that comes to us from the 17th or 18th century, there are other conditions there. There are the Germans, and the Jews that lived in Germany used to guard themselves externally like the people they were with, the German people. The Jews of Poland were such that weren't so attentive to their externality as the Polish would do in that time. That's why it’s discussed. Also it’s something that stayed with Rabash, you have to understand when he grew up and how he was brought up in those times, in the beginning of the 20th century. There were still such conditions the way he writes. To this day we see a difference, also in their clothings and customs, of those who came out of Poland and those who came out of Germany, also different characteristics, so that's an example that he gives.
S. If we're talking about us, we are not getting into the inner work of the friend but if the friend externally stops coming to lessons or in some external way he expresses less activity we give him some support, if everything is good with him we don't touch him. Maybe in this context we can strengthen our approach, is the right approach even?
R. I don't understand why not? If he is on the path why should we stop him or hinder him, we just have to show him that we're going together. If we're not going together and someone is turning sideways then we have to try to put him back on track.
S. The question is what should we do to the friend who should have come to the lesson today but didn't come. Let’s say he says, “I’m working with the intention, I'm praying for you.” How should we awaken him?
R. No no, that can't be, the intention doesn't replace the actions since all our actions go through the ten, the group. Therefore we have to carry out all the physical conditions of our connection between us.
5. S. (36:21) Is a person’s request to work for the Creator, before he comes to the group does this bring him to the group and work in the form of Lo Lishma? Again, if a person wants to work for the Creator before he comes to the group, before his spiritual work then he searches. Is his reward that the Creator brings him to a group where he can work in the form of Lo Lishma?
R. Yes, of course, the Creator brings the person to the group, there's no doubt on that.
6. S. (37:22) In the article we see there's importance given to the days of Monday and Thursday because the litanies are on that day. Why are they more important, why are Monday and Thursday more important days or they seem to be important according to the prayer?
R. That's what the sages determined a long time ago. Some say that during Mondays and Thursdays there used to be a marketplace in all the cities and people from all the places, from all the villages would come to the marketplace and therefore they determine the prayer there. It's written in many places that this is the reason why Mondays and Thursdays are such days.
7. S. (39:01) Yesterday we read the article together in the ten. I have to say before asking that it's really like magic how these articles are internal and how they awaken the heart each time anew. I wanted to ask about our work. I’ll read something here Rabash writes: “and a person begins to think what is his purpose? Days goes by and he cannot come out of the state that he's in, all he wants is self love and even worse is that every day where he should have looked at instructions in the work as though there are nothing he sees them as tall mountains, he always sees a great barrier in front of him that he cannot overcome.” He writes about such states that precisely in such states that are called states of Achoraim, posterior, there a person advances. How do these states that we need in the work, disruptions, how do they not turn off the yearning? Such states, as they repeat instead of causing us to pray they turn off the yearning, they make a person despair. How do we use these states again and again in order to ask and not to break?
R. This depends on your connection with the friends, that's where it's all about. Either you are connected with the friends and then together, through your connection you can turn to the Creator or you're on your own and then you’re under the personal influence you're given from above.
S. So if I recognize that actually I'm not connected to the friends I see that it makes me despaired, it doesn't give me yearning. What do I do about it?
R. So you have to make actions to be connected with them, what's the question?
S. As far as I'm concerned, that's my whole life. I'm performing actions in order to connect with the friends.
R. But you see that it doesn't work so you have to replace them, to scrutinize it.
S. That's what I'm asking, what should I..?
R. Examine your relation, check with what the friends and the Creator advises and demands. We have many details about that in the articles of Rabash and then you’ll see what you have to add.
8. S. (42:09) What is the flavor in the spiritual work, how do we develop it and not lose it?
R. Only by tighter and tighter connection of all the friends; this is essentially the solution.
9. S. (42:38) A person sees that his thoughts are much more calm in relation to what he sees is happening to him on the outside. Is that the truth?
R. It's a sign that he has to correct himself immediately.
S. Meaning to pray?
R. Meaning to pray and get closer to the friends, get closer to the friends.
10. S. (43:20) Our evil inclination doesn't know that it's better to receive for the Creator, it has to give us obstacles on the way, obstructions?
R. This is what a person has to scrutinize.
11. S. (43:41) Recently Rav was talking about the fact that we are at the entrance to the King’s palace. The question is what else are we missing so that the Creator will hear our voice?
R. Be together, only to connect and then the Creator will hear.
S. Wait a minute, to do what? What does it mean to connect, what are we supposed to do, what? Can you put a finger on a single point in our connection, what exactly is it?
R. This is called a prayer in the public, that's all.
12. S. (44:22) It is written, the reason I am learning Lo Lishma is to thereby achieve the degree of Lishma. My question is: What does it mean to learn Lo Lishma and what do we need to do to learn Lo Lishma?
R. That's what we constantly read about in the articles. The articles repeatedly talk about how to move from Lo Lishma to Lishma.
13. S. (45:05) In the article, in the example it says the Polish Jews advance until they achieve Kedusha. How is it possible if they’re liars? How could they achieve Kedusha if the person is a liar?
R. Together, that's the solution, together. Also when connecting together we discover how opposite we are to the goal and connecting together reveals how we're aimed at the goal; it's all together, that's the problem.
14. S. (46:04) Why does the evil inclination work so strongly on us in order to separate us from the Creator?
R. In order to give us a place to overcome, a desire to overcome and get closer to the Creator. It works exactly in the qualities and forces that we have to overcome in order to advance towards the Creator. It's impossible otherwise, without a resistance we can't reach the goal.
15. S. (46:56) At the end of the article it says do not forget us. Does the Creator forget us?
R. We have to pray that way. It's not that He will forget but we have to pray in that way, to be afraid that He will leave us alone.
16. S. (47:35) We learn in the article that although a person is an individual he includes within him an entire collective, a community. Does the Creator give a person suffering in order for the person to do the right work inside the community?
R. No, he doesn't give us suffering. In order to explain positive things to us towards the goal we have to be shown the opposite, the incorrect things with regards to the goal. That's how it is, the advantage of light out of the darkness.
17. S. (48:40) The question is to direct our outcry to the Creator because we have a tendency to cry at the friends, at the society but not to the Creator. How do we turn this cry together to the Creator?
R. The cry meaning the request.
S. A request for correction, yes?
R. Yes, so we have to connect between us and discuss between us, how do we fulfill this request, even write it together and then read it together, try.
S. We have this inclination to blame each other.
R. No, no, I'm not talking about that, these are things that you have to get rid of first. You have to try to connect and then write a plea towards the Creator and then you'll see how much of that happens.
18. S. (49:58) The body presents to the person all kinds of arguments, all kinds of questions in order for him not to work Lishma and a person has different answers to the arguments of his body or is there only one answer? It says I have no answer to give him, it is though I lack. I want to answer somehow but each time it asks different questions and I don't have answers to these questions. Maybe there is some trick we can use all the time?
R. No, we have to ask Him together. If you ask together you will begin to feel how the Creator is turning to you.
19. S. (51:05) In the last paragraph it says the name of the Lord, the Creator is dry. What is that state, dry?
R. The Creator has many names. In that system, that matrix system to which He turns to us, we will learn about that.
20. S. (52:01) When it's impossible to determine if we work in a state of Lo Lishma or in Lishma, is it better to be in a state of ‘sit and do nothing?’ What is your recommendation?
R. My recommendation is to clarify between the friends and see what to do.
21. S. (52:31) The evil inclination is revealed in Lo Lishma when we have an intention to reach Lishma?
R. Yes.
22. S. (52:45) In the state of the nations of the world, when we are under the governance of the wicked, does it mean that we see our friends as wicked in our thoughts?
R. Yes.
23. S. (53:31) How can we build the accurate intention to reach Lishma?
R. Only together. If we connect, then bit by bit, it's not immediate but we can feel that we have the possibility to build a single intention.
S. Does the Creator open up for us the way to reach adhesion before a person tries to achieve adhesion or before he tries to work on it?
R. No, the opportunity, yes. He does pull a person through the person who has such a preparation in his soul but it's not that He truly holds him to this path. A person should already begin to work with his own forces.
24. S. (55:13) I wanted to ask about this state of from Lo Lishma to Lishma. It brings us so many troubles if we can call it that. Can we work without thinking about it, not doing it for Lishma or Lo Lishma and maybe the state of Lo Lishma will come even if you don't think about it?
R. For the time being it's okay to think about it without scrutinizing the reason, yes.
25. S. (55:49) What is this name of the Creator that we don't want to forget? Is this a prayer asking for help or is it the fear of forgetting about Him?
R. We need to scrutinize that but usually it's the desire to be in a constant connection.
26. S. (56:29) What does it mean to be together, to ask together?
R. To be together and to ask together means that we connect between us and only out of the connection we begin to turn to the Creator.
27. S. (57:00) When a person suffers due to his evil inclination can we say that the Creator is closer to the person by that?
R. Yes, yes.
28. S. (57:28) To the extent that we control our thoughts and desires against the Israel within the person, by that we create evil in the world?
R. Yes, of course.