The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) October 19, 2024.
Part 2: Sukkot – Lesson on the topic of “Sukkot”
Reader: We are reading selected excerpts from our sources on the topic of Sukkot. You can find the study materials on Sviva Tova and the Arvut system, and you can also ask questions there. So, we are in number 12 by Baal HaSulam.
Reading: (00:25) Excerpt 12. Baal HaSulam, Letter No. 51- Twice
The commandment, “Go out of the permanent housing and sit in temporary housing.” That is, know that it is only temporary housing, and “the outcast one will not be cast out from Him.” It is as was said, “Even if the whole world tells you that you are righteous, be wicked in your own eyes.” This is also the meaning of the words, “And you will be only glad.”
This is why the festival of harvest [Sukkot] is called “the time of our joy,” to tell you that one should sit in the shade of a Sukkah in great joy, just as in the king’s house, the kingdom’s most eminent. “Sit” is as “dwell,” without any difference whatsoever.
And yet, he should know that he is sitting in the shade of a Sukkah, meaning the waste of barn and winery. However, “Under His shade I delighted to sit,” since he hears His word, “Go out of the permanent housing and sit in temporary housing,” and both are words of the living God. Then his exit delights him as much as his entry.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:18) What’s the connection between a person, even if the whole world tells him that he is righteous, he has to see himself as wicked, and then he says that you have to be glad all the time and sit in the Sukkah.
M. Laitman: So, what?
Student: What's the connection if the whole world tells a person that he is righteous and he has to hold himself as wicked?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: He says that it is the meaning of be glad all the time, so how does me seeing myself as wicked bring myself to gladness?
M. Laitman: I guess there is such a thing, there is.
Student: So that should actually bring me happiness, that I reach such a relation, I should be glad from it?
M. Laitman: I guess so, probably.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (05:22) He says that no, only in the temporary housing, the outcast cannot be cast out of him, what is that?
M. Laitman: I don't know, you know Hebrew better than I do.
Student: The inner feeling is that you really absorb it, then happiness can come, because you’re part of something.
M. Laitman: Let's think.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:03) What does it mean that he writes, and they sat in the Malchut?
M. Laitman: It's a special degree, a special degree.
Student: To sit in the Sukkah is first to sit in Malchut? It's the Malchut of the upper one?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:41) What happens when you try to build the Sukkah, and you feel that everything's empty. The mind's empty, nobody's calling you righteous, you feel wicked, you don't really feel the happiness, the gladness; full of complaints, but the mind is empty. So, what do you do?
M. Laitman: Diminish myself as much as possible, connect with the friends, and continue with them.
Student: How do you reach that state of gladness from discovering that you're wicked?
M. Laitman: So, what? There are such states as well.
Student: Yes, the state of the wicked, you feel it.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How do you find the place of happiness by discovering it?
M. Laitman: Because it came to you from the Creator, who now wants to see you as wicked.
Student: Finding the happiness, that it's also a connection with the Creator?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes.
Student: And how do you ascend from that?
M. Laitman: Well, at one time you're wicked, another time you're righteous. There's no choice.
Student: So, you must go through both.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:39) If we can learn from the opposite, we learn what we build the Sechach (thatch) from, from the waste, from the beast's food. But before and after the Sukkah, what do you usually build, the shade?
M. Laitman: We relate only to the shade of Sukkot, which we truly build from the waste of barn and winery. We turn it into a thatch, we respect it immensely, and under its shade we sit.
Student: Why am I asking? Because the friends already asked, it's our daily work to build and scrutinize.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What to conceal, what to take.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Why is it so important, the Sukkah? There are so many stories how the Rabash came to check if the Sukkah is Kosher, also Baal HaSulam. What about the rest of the year, that's not important?
M. Laitman: The rest of the year, it's not a commandment to sit in the shade of a Sukkah.
Student: So, in which shade? We still need some kind of faith.
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, exactly.
Student: Well, maybe we don't need it. I just tried to understand the difference. Most of our year, we're outside of the Sukkah. So, what, it's not important?
M. Laitman: It's like a branch and a root. You have the duty to build a shade of Sukkah and sit in it for seven days.
Student: So, there's no point in thinking what...
M. Laitman: I don't know what you're thinking but I'm telling you, this is a Mitzvah, commandment.
Student: But our work is constantly… it's only a week out of the year, and we build the Sukkah from the waste of barn and winery, so what about the rest of our life?
M. Laitman: The rest of our life is not important because it's outside of the commandment of the Sukkah.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:37) In spirituality, the temporary housing and permanent housing, what does it mean? What is permanent housing?
M. Laitman: The permanent residence is your permanent place which does not change.
Student: But after Sukkot and Yom Kippur, what spiritual degrees, that remains? Also in the constant state, the permanent state?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, can we interpret it that a person builds a permanent state on the account of the Sukkah he was in?
M. Laitman: I don't know what…
Student: How is it connected? A person says, I'm counting on faith above reason. That's my thatch, that's what I'm holding on to, I don't need anything but that. All my efforts in concealment, to be connected to the Creator in Sukkot. And after that, the permanent work, what is it counting on, what is he leaning on? Not on that?
M. Laitman: No. He goes to work, he works, gets his paycheck, comes back home.
Student: But we say that everything should be based on above reason.
M. Laitman: Some say.
Student: You said that there isn't a commandment the second time, in a different time. What does that mean?
M. Laitman: That we don't build a Sukkah except for these times, and this is how we go through the holiday.
Student: In every spiritual degree, there's the building of a Sukkah?
M. Laitman: No.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:42) He says that to hear His words is coming out of the permanent housing and sitting in temporary housing, and these are the words of the Creator. Then, his exit was the same as his coming. So, there's a point of relation I have to build with the Creator from the permanent to the temporary housing and feel that that's life? What does that mean?
M. Laitman: It is that we come to a temporary housing or dwelling place, and then we can compare sitting in it to sitting in a permanent house.
Student: What does it mean that I have to feel the Creator in both those places?
M. Laitman: That the Creator is in both, probably.
Student: And that relation after the holiday, I build a relation that I have to extend and take it with me?
M. Laitman: You take only the internality. If you attained the internality of the degree, you take it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:14) He connects the sitting in the Sukkah, that a person has to see himself as if he's wicked. That the waste of barn and winery, meaning it's all the weaknesses, my ego, all my negative things that are against the path?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: That means that this temporary house are all my sins that I'm aware of, and I say it's from Him, that's how it has to be. It might not be good, but that's the way I was made.
M. Laitman: So...
Student: So?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes.
Student: So, a person sees himself as wicked, that means that he's sitting in the Sukkah?
M. Laitman: No, he doesn't condemn himself. He accepts all of these definitions, these discernments from above, from the Creator, takes it upon himself, and prays how to rise above them.
Student: And then he sits in the Sukkah, and he comes out to the permanent house, so what is that?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: In that permanent house, you don't have all those things?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: What, there he's righteous?
M. Laitman: There is his permanent place, where, according to his perception, this is how he behaves.
Student: All this is about someone doing internal work?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Because if you're not in internal work this article isn't about you?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So, a person finds himself a lot of times, that the daily things just drag him away.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, sometimes something changes, and he asks, and that's called that he's in internal work. So it happens, suddenly he discovers he's this way, sometimes he's that way. We're speaking about awakening from below. Is there something a person can do in order to bring himself back to internal work?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What?
M. Laitman: Order, the order of the day.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (18:25) I want to ask about the gladness. He says, you should be glad. He says, the holiday of the gathering, of the harvest is a time of joy.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And Kabbalists say that you have to always be in happiness, it's a commandment. So, why specifically here are they emphasizing it here? Why?
M. Laitman: Basically, we're always in temporary residence. If we are advancing properly, then we are in a constant Sukkot. We should constantly change our permanent dwelling place, permanent housing, to a temporary housing, and this way ascend.
Student: What's special about the happiness of this holiday, or the temporary housing?
M. Laitman: What's special about it? It's our relation, our attitude, that we can constantly clothe new spiritual discernments in our housing, in our vessel.
Student: That gives contentment to the Creator?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Going out into this temporary housing?
M. Laitman: Yes. Okay, what are we doing next?
Reader: (20:08) So, we have social time, studying between the friends.
M. Laitman: Okay. Begin.