The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Morning Lesson: November 15, 2025
Part 1:
Live broadcast with Rav:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #14
Reader: Hello friends, in the first part of the lesson, we will connect to a live lesson with Rav. Before that, we will start by reading the “Introduction To the Study of the Ten Sefirot” in the writings of Baal HaSulam, item 34. We are on page 733 in the writings of Baal HaSulam, the “Introduction To the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” item 11, sorry, 14.
Reading: (00:45) Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #14
14) Concerning such a matter as the above, I once interpreted the saying of our sages, “He whose Torah is his trade.” The measure of his faith is apparent in his practice of Torah because the letters of the word Umanuto [his trade] are the same [in Hebrew] as the letters of the word Emunato [his faith].
It is like a person who trusts his friend and lends him money. He may trust him with a pound, but if he asks him for two pounds he will refuse to lend him. He might also trust him with a hundred pounds but not more. Also, he might trust him enough to lend him half his possessions, but not all his possessions. Finally, he may trust him with all his possessions without a hint of fear. This last faith is considered “complete faith,” and the previous forms are considered “incomplete faith.” Rather, it is partial faith, whether more or less.
Similarly, one allots oneself only an hour a day to practice Torah and work out of the measure of his faith in the Creator. Another allots two hours, according to the measure of his faith in the Creator. The third does not neglect even a single moment of his free time without engaging in Torah and work. Thus, only the faith of the last one is complete since he trusts the Creator with all his possessions. The previous ones, however, their faith is still incomplete.
Reader: Item 15,
Reading: (02:54) Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #15
15) Thus, it has been thoroughly clarified that one should not expect that engagement in Torah and Mitzvot Lo Lishma will bring him to Lishma, except when one knows in one’s soul that he has been granted faith in the Creator and in His Torah as it should be. This is because then the light in it reforms him and he will be rewarded with “the day of the Lord,” which is all light, for the Kedusha [holiness] of faith purifies one’s eyes to enjoy His light until the light in the Torah reforms him.
Yet, those without faith are as bats. They cannot look at the light of day because the daylight has been inverted for them to a more terrible darkness than the darkness of the night, as they are only fed in the darkness of the night.
Likewise, the eyes of the faithless are blinded to the light of the Creator. Hence, the light becomes darkness for them, and the potion of life is turned into a potion of death for them. It is about them that the writing says, “Woe unto you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you need the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light.” Thus, first, one must make one’s faith complete.
Reader: Item 16,
Reading: (04:46) Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #16
16) This answers yet another question in the Tosfot (Taanit, p 7), who say there, “Anyone who practices Torah Lishma, his Torah becomes to him a potion of life. And anyone who practices Torah Lo Lishma, his Torah becomes to him a potion of death.” They asked, “Yet, we said, ‘One should always engage in the Torah, even if Lo Lishma, since from Lo Lishma he will come to Lishma.’”
According to the explained above, we should divide it simply: One who engages in Torah for the Mitzva of learning Torah, and believes in reward and punishment, but associates self-pleasure and benefit with the intention to bring contentment to his Maker, the light in it will reform him and he will achieve Lishma. And one who learns Torah not for the Mitzva of learning Torah, since he does not believe in reward and punishment to the extent that he should labor so much for it, but exerts only for his own pleasure, it becomes a potion of death for him, since for him, the light in it is turned to darkness.
Reader: O Tiudzain, item 17,
Reading: (06:28) Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #17
17) Hence, the student pledges, prior to the study, to strengthen himself in faith in the Creator and in His guidance in reward and punishment, as our sages said, “Your employer is liable to pay you the reward for your work.” One should aim one’s labor to be for the Mitzvot of the Torah, and in this way, he will be rewarded with enjoying the light in it, and his faith will strengthen and grow through the power in this light, as it is written, “It shall be health to your navel, and marrow to your bones” (Proverbs 3:8).
Then one can be certain that from Lo Lishma he will come to Lishma, in a way that even one who knows about himself that he has not been rewarded with faith still has hope through the practice of Torah, for if he sets his heart and mind to attain faith in the Creator through it, there is no greater Mitzva than this. It is as our sages said, “Habakkuk came and stressed only this: ‘A righteous shall live by his faith’” (Makkot 24).
Moreover, there is no other counsel but this, as it is written (Baba Batra, p 16a), “Raba said, ‘Job wished to rid the whole world of judgment. He said to Him, ‘Master of the world, You have created the righteous; You have created the wicked; who holds You down?’’”
And RASHI interprets there: “You have created the righteous through the good inclination; You have created the wicked through the evil inclination. Hence, none are saved from Your hand, for who holds You down? Coerced are the sinners.” And what did the friends of Job reply? “Indeed, you revoke fear and impair prayer before God; the Creator created the evil inclination, He has created for it the Torah as a spice” (Job 15).
RASHI interprets there: “Created for it the Torah,” which is a spice that revokes “thoughts of transgression,” as it is said, “If you come across this villain, pull him to the seminary. If he is a stone, he will soften. Hence, not coerced are they, for they could save themselves” (Kidushin, p 30).
Reader: We’ll move to a workshop. What questions awaken in us with respect to what we read? What questions awaken in us with respect to what we read?
Workshop: (09:47)
Reader: Friends, we will now connect to a live lesson with Rav. Before that, we'll read Item 14 once again, from the “Introduction To the Study of the Ten Sefirot.”
Reading: (18:44) Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #14
14) Concerning such a matter as the above, I once interpreted the saying of our sages, “He whose Torah is his trade.” The measure of his faith is apparent in his practice of Torah because the letters of the word Umanuto [his trade] are the same [in Hebrew] as the letters of the word Emunato [his faith].
It is like a person who trusts his friend and lends him money. He may trust him with a pound, but if he asks him for two pounds he will refuse to lend him. He might also trust him with a hundred pounds but not more. Also, he might trust him enough to lend him half his possessions, but not all his possessions. Finally, he may trust him with all his possessions without a hint of fear. This last faith is considered “complete faith,” and the previous forms are considered “incomplete faith.” Rather, it is partial faith, whether more or less.
Similarly, one allots oneself only an hour a day to practice Torah and work out of the measure of his faith in the Creator. Another allots two hours, according to the measure of his faith in the Creator. The third does not neglect even a single moment of his free time without engaging in Torah and work. Thus, only the faith of the last one is complete since he trusts the Creator with all his possessions. The previous ones, however, their faith is still incomplete.
M. Laitman: Okay, well, you can hear me, we hear what it says here. What can we add? Actually, I also don't see any questions, because these things are clear and short to the point.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:34) We read the excerpt a few times. The question that arises from the Ten is that the excerpt is very clear, that a person basically needs to invest all his life in the work of the Creator, all his free time. So the three questions here, first, how do you really come to a point where a person has the power to invest all his time in the work of the Creator? Does the person decide that, or the Creator does?
M. Laitman: Okay, so the first question is, how does a person invest all his free time in the work of the Creator? So, he simply organizes himself such that he's among people who also yearn to be in the same conditions and to reach the same goals. This is how I understand it.
Question (Tel Aviv 1): (22:45) How do you move from a state of faith in one pound or two pounds or a hundred pounds, and then all of the possessions? How do you move from one degree to the next in this way until you really come to the complete faith?
M. Laitman: Apparently, we go from one degree to another degree in order to bestow more and more through the reforming light. It shines on the person if a person tries to accept these conditions that the Creator sends him, and then the person is rewarded.
Student: It is essential this matter, that it doesn't grow directly, but like a mountain that inflates. It doesn't grow directly. Is that correct?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Each time it requires more effort to rise to the next degree?
M. Laitman: It's true that to rise from one degree to the next we need to acquire additional forces each time, more and more so that we will have the possibility to control our will to receive.
Student: And the forces we get only from the friends or also from the Creator?
M. Laitman: Together with the friends, we acquire these forces from the Creator. There is no other source that can provide us the power to rise above nature. Only the Creator.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:59) It says here that according to the measure of faith that one has, he allots time to engage in Torah and work.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What is the work? What's the essence of work?
M. Laitman: The work? It's the spiritual work that we learn. By our overcoming above our forces we are rewarded each time with a greater degree. And we can control our will to receive that in the meantime wants to show itself in each and every place. And this is how we can grow. We can rise with a greater will to bestow that we get from the reforming light.
Question (PT 13): (26:33) He says that to the extent that he trusts his friend, if he can lend him a pound or more, then accordingly is the measure of faith. How can I reach a state where what I believe to be the reward from the Creator is something that I don't want egoistically? Because I can have faith, but there's always some room left for myself.
M. Laitman: If you want to acquire a connection with the Creator, then you have to rise above all the conditions that you see before you. And in such a way step after step, you rise to degrees where you see what you're going through. And even those forces that worked against you, you learn how it is possible to invert them to forces that will help you.
Question (Florida): (27:53) A person may not feel like his desire is strong enough to invest all of his time in engaging in Torah and the work. He feels a lot of resistance to it. So should he nevertheless try to build this desire, or should he take it gradually?
M. Laitman: We don't have translation? Let him ask again, please. Please go ahead, ask again.
Student: A person may not feel like his desire is strong enough to invest all of his time in Torah and the work. He feels a lot of resistance to it. So should he nevertheless try to invest all of his time, or should he build up his desire gradually?
M. Laitman: No, a person doesn't work against his desire. All in all, we learn that we have to work with our desire. The question is what is the goal that we are yearning for? Here he speaks about the yearning within the person that each time we need to overcome and see ahead of us a higher goal. This is how we gradually rise until we reach the good place, the correct state.
Question (Turkiye 1): (30:26) How does a person…each time a person receives a new will to receive he has to work with?
M. Laitman: Again, what did the friend from Turkey ask?
Student: How does a person continue to work without being afraid when he feels that he's not ready yet to give all himself in devotion?
M. Laitman: Oh, that's something else already. So, indeed, we are always with light forces, let's say. And when we feel new, strong desires, we need to see that we have to search everywhere for support. I have to reveal the force of bestowal and overcome in such a way. We have nothing else in which to invest ourselves, but only to turn to the Creator upon all of those disruptions and burdening that one discovers, sees. Against that one has to place his demand, his request to rise to a degree where he will be able to forcefully place the good inclination above the evil inclination.
Question (W Moscow): (33:46) How to transform the forces that are against us to be in favor of us?
M. Laitman: How to organize those forces that seem to us to be against us, how to invert them into forces that will be in our favor. This all depends on how a person relates to these forces. If this is how he relates to them, he holds them in such a way that he accepts them first as working against him and later, following his scrutinies, he begins to relate to them with understanding, a new understanding, that the Creator does all of these things that are against him. And indeed, all these disruptions that repel a person from bestowal, from sanctity, he begins to accept them as things that are necessary. Precisely when he positions himself against that, and he's willing to be in favor of the Creator, then he receives forces that pull him up actually, that direct him towards the revelation of the Creator. It all depends on that person's choice. What does he choose? He always receives these forces that are outside of him, either as forces that repel him away from Kedusha, from bestowal, or vice versa, forces that actually help him to overcome and rise upon forces that disrupt him.
Reader: We will continue to the next item, item 16. We are in the writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction To the Study of the Ten Sefirot.”
Reading: (36:43) Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #16
16) This answers yet another question in the Tosfot (Taanit, p 7), who say there, “Anyone who practices Torah Lishma, his Torah becomes to him a potion of life. And anyone who practices Torah Lo Lishma,
Reader: Sorry, item 15.
Reading: (37:10) Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #15
15) Thus, it has been thoroughly clarified that one should not expect that engagement in Torah and Mitzvot Lo Lishma will bring him to Lishma, except when one knows in one’s soul that he has been granted faith in the Creator and in His Torah as it should be. This is because then the light in it reforms him and he will be rewarded with “the day of the Lord,” which is all light, for the Kedusha [holiness] of faith purifies one’s eyes to enjoy His light until the light in the Torah reforms him.
Yet, those without faith are as bats. They cannot look at the light of day because the daylight has been inverted for them to a more terrible darkness than the darkness of the night, as they are only fed in the darkness of the night.
Likewise, the eyes of the faithless are blinded to the light of the Creator. Hence, the light becomes darkness for them, and the potion of life is turned into a potion of death for them. It is about them that the writing says, “Woe unto you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you need the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light.” Thus, first, one must make one’s faith complete.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:48) He writes in the previous excerpt and also here that as a person advances towards complete faith, he has no fear, no fear to lose his possession. What is it that there's no fear?
M. Laitman: That the reward, the great reward he imagines to himself is to receive an addition of the force of bestowal and opposite that the great loss is if he would see or feel that the force of reception in him is greater than the force of bestowal.
Student: But it’s a process here. The question is, if the more a person advances in the spiritual path, I personally have a feeling that a person becomes more sensitive, that he has a kind of more fear about his time, about his health, about his sustenance. He becomes more sensitive to reality.
M. Laitman: Yes, this is true, and this is how it's going to be more and more, because one begins to feel also the forces of bestowal, the more the will to receive is added to him. And also, the more he's on a higher degree, it doesn't matter on which side, from the bad side or the good side, nevertheless, he can separate between the bad and the good, and he accepts them, the degree of bestowal and the degree of reception, one opposite the other, according to what they awaken in him.
Student: What gives the person, the more he advances, more confidence? More confidence. What to hold on to, to receive more confidence for the person on the path?
M. Laitman: Well, if he is in the force of bestowal, then accordingly, he is in adhesion with the Creator.
Student: That's a process that I feel, the more I adhere to the Creator, then there's more sense of confidence?
M. Laitman: Yes. For the time being, let's accept it, that this is how it needs to be. Later on, we will see.
Question (French): (42:48) He’s talking about the portion of death and the portion of life. How do we know when we study Torah if we are using the portion of life or the portion of death?
M. Laitman: It’s according to what we feel. In the end, the Creator is not interested in throwing us off completely from the ladder, but rather those who advance as much as they are capable of, let's say, they feel that from one time to the next, the Creator nevertheless gives them forces to continue to bestow, and this is how one advances.
Question (W PT 8): (44:01) You spoke before about how if a person feels that he has disturbances, how to make it to his advantage. When a person feels that, say, it's hard for him to wake up for the recorded lessons, then it's easier for him when Rav is there. How to relate correctly then to the recorded lessons?
M. Laitman: I don't understand that. Either I have a possibility to come to the recorded lesson, or.
Student: In days when Rav doesn't give a live lesson and we sit and listen to a recorded lesson, watch a recorded lesson from the archive. So she's asking how to relate to that. When I watch a recorded lesson from the archive, what's their attitude to it?
M. Laitman: It's difficult for me, I can't promise that I will be, nevertheless I'll be there. But in the lessons we have in the archive, if a person doesn't give up on them, but rather goes and acquires them one after the other, then by acquiring these lessons, they're absorbed in him already. Even if he doesn't quite understand it, or maybe he's not really incorporated in it, he doesn't come out with a feeling. So there are a few conditions here, before one can say that he's in the lesson. To be in the lesson means that he's absorbing and understanding. Maybe it's through remembering, and he is able to awaken within him records that wake up in him, additional forces that awaken in him towards Kedusha.
Student: So it doesn't matter if I'm in a live lesson or watching a recorded lesson, it all depends on my preparation and my approach to the lesson, to the study?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Reader: I recommend we continue to read. We'll read the next item. So we are reading item 16 now. In Hebrew it's page 773.
Reading: (47:44) Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #16
16) This answers yet another question in the Tosfot (Taanit, p 7), who say there, “Anyone who practices Torah Lishma, his Torah becomes to him a potion of life. And anyone who practices Torah Lo Lishma, his Torah becomes to him a potion of death.” They asked, “Yet, we said, ‘One should always engage in the Torah, even if Lo Lishma, since from Lo Lishma he will come to Lishma.’”
According to the explained above, we should divide it simply: One who engages in Torah for the Mitzva of learning Torah, and believes in reward and punishment, but associates self-pleasure and benefit with the intention to bring contentment to his Maker, the light in it will reform him and he will achieve Lishma. And one who learns Torah not for the Mitzva of learning Torah, since he does not believe in reward and punishment to the extent that he should labor so much for it, but exerts only for his own pleasure, it becomes a potion of death for him, since for him, the light in it is turned to darkness.
M. Laitman: Okay, I don't see any question here. No question. Maybe now, yes.
Question (Africa): (49:42) On the topic of giving work from the Creator, being given disruptions that can be pleasing or rejecting. So in the scenario of the host and the guest, so the host says have some bread, I've made it homemade for you and first I need to put the screen, meaning say no thank you, I'm already full. So, what is the calculation there before I do a reflecting light, meaning how much should I receive and how much should I give? How do I calculate that in relation to even pleasure or rejection?
M. Laitman: We'll understand this later on, soon, a bit more. Okay, more besides that. I don't see more questions.
Reader: We will finish now. So thank you very much and we will move on to a summary workshop. So let's summarize the main points we heard now.
Reader: We'll move to the next part of the lesson. Before that, we'll sing a song.
Song: (57:26)
Reader: We like to continue building ourselves up as a spiritual society. So last week we started scrutinizing our next spiritual stage.