Morning Lesson August 31, 2023

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio

Part 1:

Rabash. Article No. 34, (1986). Judges and OfficersTesting 

1.S. (39:22) From what I understand is that the judges and guards are what the Creator put for us,  He each time gives us temptations so that we will not want bestowal,  that gradually it will be built on our behalf. But what is it that a person puts guards and judges?

R. This is actually according to a person's overcoming, according to how much the person responds; accordingly the Creator already plays with him.

2. S. (40:07) It is written that a person shouldn't say that the Creator will work for him, and also, it said that the Creator will help with his work. So, what's the difference?

R. Let's say that there is no difference.

S. But he writes that I'm not allowed to ask for the Creator to work for me, and here I have to ask for the Creator to help with my work. So, there needs to be a difference?

R. Apparently, it's okay to ask for help.

S. I don't understand the difference between the two?

R. So, we'll understand it through the work.

3. S. (40:57) He writes here, he explains very nicely how the guards don't let you emerge out of self-love, that the guard sees that he wants to come out of self-love and enter the work to bestow, more pleasure in self-love is added to them, and in that they're being pulled by shackles of steel to not be able to come out of that. It clothed very well and very clearly in our work and then, he writes that this is just one council, which is faith above reason. That all the guards that are saying is  right but the Creator is merciful and hears the prayer of every person and gives us the forces to overcome and so on. The thing is that when a person is inside that prison of self-love, what is that counsel and where can he go above reason when he's in that prison of self-love?

R. He should ask. He should simply ask the Creator to give him forces.

S. But pleasure and self-love is added to him, he doesn't want to come out of there, it’s good there, how can he ask?

R. Along with it he has a thought that maybe i could exit out of self-love if I get forces from above, so he asks for forces.

S. So what's the difference between this thought and this discernment, I see that I'm here and there and I want to be there, and the desire, where I want to emerge from self-love? not that I'm thinking and I learned and I read and I want to be there, that I have to go leave. What's the difference between these two?

R. One is potential and one is actual.

4. S. (42:44) It is written that a person is given additional pleasure in corporeality so he'll have to overcome those pleasures and then be worthy to later overcome the spiritual pleasures, so when they intensify or increase those pleasures and corporeal pleasures. It's written that they also measure how much they can overcome, that's how much is being added, the guards are doing that precisely so they add pleasure in corporality and it's as if he can overcome and he cannot. It's like he has zero forces to overcome inside of him. it's like you are told that you're capable of overcoming but you cannot overcome, and then tomorrow you're added more pleasure in corporality that seemingly you're supposed to overcome because otherwise it wouldn't be added and then you do not manage to overcome and it's like that day after day, you're added and you're not able to overcome, you are added and you're not able to overcome?

R. So what's the benefit? That it all accumulates and then you truly end up with recognition of evil that  you are not able to overcome, and a great sorrow, and out of that an outcry; save me.

5. S. (44:18) I didn't quite understand he writes about two gates; there's the gates of the prison that like the friend said they are adding more corporeal pleasures and then you have to overcome, and that's the guards there. And then there's the gates of the king's Palace; where there's also guards but what's the work there? What's the difference between these gates and those gates?

R. Well, we will get to that, it's still far away. Seemingly corporeal Gates and spiritual gates.

S. Yes, but what's the overcoming there?

R. There is work and overcoming also in the spiritual world.

6. S. (45:10) Day after day it's clear that the power to overcome is not in me, it's a force that I received from my ten and from my environment. So is that right, because that's how I feel?

R. Yes.

S. So if these guards and judges are being measured not by the force of a person but according to the force of his ten, is that right to say it that way?

R. According to the relation of the person in the ten.

S. Meaning my power to overcome depends on my relation to my ten and therefore the measure that i judged by is measured according to my connection to the ten and that's how I'm given forces to overcome. What can a person add every day in order to manage to create such a relationship that he will be given the next degree, because after all we want to advance, that's the goal. What can I do more, another millimeter to come closer to the ten so I will be given the next challenge let's say?

R. To always be in a prayer; and within the prayer each time to establish yourself in a more correct manner.

S. When I see all the time that there's no such thing as mere prayer, I can't just pray just like that, it's very weak if it's like that. There needs to be some kind of infrastructure of deeds or something that needs to be done in the actual corporeal world, i don't know, we have to meet and organize and do actions and then, there's some kind of background to this prayer, is that the right way?

R. Yes. After you try to do something, you ask that the Creator will help you.

S. Meaning the prayer cannot be a mere prayer in short, we always need to have an infrastructure. And that is why we always do the framework and the regular actions that a person has to do so he will have an infrastructure of actions.

R. Yes.

7. S. (47:38) After all the rounds that a person goes through, eventually, he needs to develop some faith above reason for the Creator to help him.

R. It’s not that he pushes everything away and he just waits for the Lord’s salvation.

S. No, he goes through all those stages and deals with the evil inclination, he deals with the resistance and the arguments, with the jail and the King's Palace. But eventually he comes to a point where every movement he makes in both incorporality and spirituality, he does within reason or above reason. And the above reason is kind of like this rickety foundation, a person is not sure 100%. And within reason I understand, there's a book and a table and a chair, then it is hard, it’s easy, it’s like the intellect gives us this feeling that it's the truth. And all the sudden the person has to lean on faith: Someone told him, it's written somewhere, he has no foundation to hold it and it seems that all the work is to go on with faith over what the eyes see and the intellect understand. How can we strengthen that muscle called faith?

R. Only through the work, through effort, exertion in the group and connecting with others; to collect from all the others their faith, so that they will have a common faith, and also his part there. This is how he will advance. We need to try to work in that in order to make it tangible, to feel taste in it.

S. Let's say someone wants to be something, let’s say to be rich so he buys a rich person's book and he studies his philosophy and he tries to go on his way even though he is not in his state but he dreams, or to be a great scientist, he learns from other scientists. How can you take faith from someone else? How can you take something that he believed and that will be my faith as well?

R. By coming closer. By coming closer, as it also happens in science and all of the other things; when one person clings to another and he learns from him and he wants to resemble him as much as possible.

8. S. (50:30) About two years ago, I moved to another ten and I really learned how to love the new friends, to connect with them. On the other hand, the thoughts of the previous friends the Creator is sending to me non stop. I'm trying to talk with the friends here and understand what to do with it? Can you maybe help me with that?

R. No.

S. What should I do?

R. I don't know, but it's not an area where I can say something. Speak to those friends and these friends and I don't know, If you have no choice, try to solve it.

S. The question is how? I'm turning to the Creator and I'm not getting an answer.

R. I think that if you are two years already in a group, try to be incorporated in it without limits.

S. Yes but the thoughts from the Creator about the other friends don't stop.

R. Well, He's giving it to you so that you will connect even more strongly to your present ten and in order for you to advance.

9. S. (52:18) Rabash writes that we need to ask for help from the Creator to do all that one can do and to ask for help, and then if he writes, if a person does all that he can do then he needs to ask the Creator that his exertion bring fruit, what is this request?

R. that from all the efforts he's investing, that he will have some result in getting closer to the Creator.

S. In what way should I ask this?

R. With words. With words.

10. S. (53:10) What does it mean that I put before me a guard and a judge?

R. That you want to build your work through certain definitions.

S. And,how do I know that the definitions that I put before myself are suitable to that stage that I'm in?

R. In your work in your ten and your appeal to the Creator, by that, bit by bit you begin to feel the boundaries.

11. S. (53:50) What is it to find a gate? There are gates and I have to find them along the way.

R. That you see that a certain obstacle is standing before you and you don't know is it to your benefit or will it stop you if you overcome it will you grow stronger and succeed or maybe it comes in order to stop you in a way so that you will look for some other opening, meaning a different gate.

S. Meeting, every obstacle that brings me to connect with the friends to the Creator, is a place where I have to ask the Creator for the key there, that’s in the heart, the connection with the heart?

R. Well, yes. It turns out that if you do the right labor then you begin to feel in what way you should ask the Creator.

12. S. (55:05) What does the Creator want to tell a person when he falls each time with the same specific corporeal pleasure for a long time and he cannot release himself from it?

R. The Creator wants a person to finally realize that he must be above the corporeal pleasure.

13. S. (55:47) How should I work if I see a very big ego in me that scares me?

R. Ask, get closer to the Creator and ask for help; also first become incorporated with the friends.

14. S. (56:06) When our corporeal pleasure is increasing is that a sign of advancement?

R. I don't think our pleasure grows that much. It grows but not that much.

15. S. (56:35) You said that if a person puts forth a correct exertion then he feels how to turn to the Creator, with what prayer. What is the right exertion?

R. That I aim myself as precisely as possible towards the purpose of creation.

16. S. (57:03) A person is often given opportunities,  study, and work, an unnecessary Journey, that distances him and disconnects him from the path, and then he turns to the ten and asks to think about him during this specific action that he's doing. And, yesterday we had this situation and our ten advised this person to cancel this action, not go into it at all. And I asked myself if maybe it's actually good for the person to actually go through that situation in order for him to later, by himself feel and not enter into such a situation again. The question is when does the ten know not to steal from a friend and how do we know when to advise him?

R. I cannot tell you like that in advance. I can't. But the most important is that in all of these states, we would work together, all of us. I'm talking about everyone. Each and every ten.

S. Is a ten also guards and judges towards each friend?

R. Whatever you want to say about it, yes.

17. S. (58:51) When a person starts to go on the path he finds himself between those two gates, the gate of the house of imprisonment and the gate of the Kings Palace, and he can be stuck in this for many years. Then you see that Rabash writes here that there is the matter of those heroes that manage to overcome and persevere. So how to be one of these heroes that sit patiently and wait and do the work, and not just someone who sits and waits as some sort of a leech?

R. Sitting and waiting is also work. But the more we try to advance in the spiritual work, it depends on how much we are together, first of all, together, trying to read the articles and speak about them and open them up, and Implement them. That is the most important.

S. What is the measure of patience?

R. The quality of patience is or the measure of patience is; the extent to which a person is willing to suffer until he will be corrected. 

S. We see that the work is between exiting from self love, but what defines left self love? how do I know that the actions I'm doing now are actions of self-love?

R. Actually, all of our actions are self-love. It's just a matter of which is more, which is less. What are you asking?

S. How now after all the work when I managed to do my actions from the side of self love or the side of in order to bestow?

R. I don't think there's such a question for the time being, but rather there is a question: Is it for the benefit of the person or the benefit of the society?

S. So here I have to place the guards and judges on me and they are coming from me and not from above?

R. You just need to detect them.

S. That they’re actually aiming me for society, or for myself? 

R. Yes.

 

18. S. What holds a person from asking for help? What is the reason the person does not ask for help?

R. Doesn't ask or does he ask?

S. Usually, I don't ask. Why?

R. What you have to do in life you are used not to ask, but to implement your desire by yourself.

S. At least half a day, maybe more, I walk with complaints, but why don't I have a complaint and then ask, why am I just like with the complaints all the time?

R. No, No, No. You shouldn't be like that all the time; rather you have to scrutinize, the most important thing for us is the scrutiny. And until we understand what is it that we need to do then we turn to the Creator, and all over actions towards the correction are actions in the group, actions in connection, collective actions in a group in the society; and therefore we have no choice we have to turn to the Creator that he will help us, and He will carry out these actions on us. This is called the work of the Creator. Just here these words: The work of the Creator. Not our work. The fact that we are searching for what in our path the Creator can implement and how will He do it, that we see oh here i want Him to do, and here i want Him to do, and that’s how we need to advance. like little children.

S. But let’s say the person wants to pray every day, so what protects a person from keeping and praying all day long?

R. He asks the Creator to help him in each and every step, like a little child; he is constantly asking and asking. That is what we need to do. Because of all of our forces, thoughts, and corrections, that is, we will not be able to carry them out all by ourselves. We don't have the strength or the understanding or anything. We don't have the right diagnosis.

S.  My question is what is the force that’s not enabling me to ask? What is the precise force that we need to overcome?

R. You need to overcome the fact that you want to feel and see and understand by yourself; and also later on to do it by yourself, and here precisely we have a very precise scrutiny of what is it that I need to do? How should I see the states so that each time I take the Creator as a partner, as a partner, and I go along with Him, I hold on to His hand like a baby holds on to his mother or father. And this is how I advance step by step and by that I learn from my deficiencies that I discover, and from the corrections that the Creator carries out; I learn from that how to walk, how to advance, and this is our way.

S. It feels as if pride has entered here, that pride is not enabling me to ask or something?

R. Pride hinders us from asking. That is also true.

S. Because I want to do it myself and…?

R. The closer you get to the society, the easier it will be for you to ask the Creator.

19. S. (01:07:12) How to get the force of faith from the friends?

R. It comes from inside of the connection, within the connection. You simply begin to feel that you have it, the strength of the connection.

S. The force of faith above reason comes from the connection with the friends?

R. Yes.

S. What is common faith?

R. This is common faith. Common faith, faith above reason, because we can't jump above our head, but through the connection with our friends, we can rise.

20. S. (01:08:05) Rabash explains here that the whole work in overcoming the corporeal pleasure this whole qualification that a person is going through in order to overcome corporeal pleasures. After a person has been through the testing and to overcome we can only receive them in order to bestow. That is the measure of overcoming the small ones and then he's giving the big ones. What is this matter when the person is not in spirituality, where he's still in prison, and it's called that he's overcoming pleasure and receiving it order to bestow?

R. We begin with whatever we have, a person can't yet discern if he is in spirituality or corporality.

S. What is considered to overcome pleasure in our state?

R. Overcoming pleasure means that I prefer to be in the connection with the group instead of being in a feeling of the pleasure itself.

S. Prefer to be in the connection with the group?

R. Yes.

S. In thought or feeling?

R. In the feeling.

S. And if a person sees that the moment he receives all kinds of pleasure that he is not capable, maybe he in thought that he could think about the friends and the Creator.

R. It will come, it will come.

S. What is the connection between overcoming corporeal pleasures and the advancement into spirituality and the connection of nearing with the friends?

R. It is a totally different kind of overcoming. Overcoming with the friends is truly a spiritual overcoming, while in corporality anyone can do it. Even if he has a spiritual goal ahead of him or if he does not have it.

S. So when does the corporeal pleasure become an obstacle on the spiritual path, and when not to deal with it whatsoever?

R. Corporeal pleasure becomes an obstacle if a person cannot overcome it, it is simple.

S. To overcome a pleasure you have to detach from it? You have to be above it?

R. You have to be above it, let’s say, detached from it. You have something in return for it instead of it, let’s say, the greatness of the group, the greatest of the Creator, the general goal. That it is more than what he discovers through the obstacle that he has ahead of him.

S. And if a person detects some kind of a pleasure that he's not able to overcome, that in this pleasure he is not with his friends. What should he do, so he removes this factor, that is giving him that pleasure? For example, I have an obsession for ice cream, each time I see ice cream, I cannot think of the friends. Should I stop buying ice cream, should I stop eating ice cream?

R. Possibly, for the time being, yes.

21. S. (01:12:01) What is beyond the King's palace, the King’s gate?

R. Beyond the Kings gate is the King's palace.

S. What is there? Why is everybody running there?

R. They think it's good there, I don't know.

S. So according to what I understand there's love and connection there, so how does a person run there?

R. This will come bit by bit according to our work.

S. Meaning why does a person need to be rejected from running towards the Kings gate if it's not attractive. Why is he repulse from it?

R. Those that want to enter are being repelled. Those that want to enter the Kings gate are being pushed away. Feel the states that the person goes through, the efforts that he shows will truly be such that they will open it up for him.

S. Meaning each time a person wants to connect with the friends and he’s rejected each time from that idea?

R. All that a person receives rejection from anything which is good, so he will have the possibilities to format himself.

S. And the person that wants to leave self-love, they add to him each time pleasures, like it's written here?

R. Not necessary to begin with, but later on, yes.

S. And all of this is in order to building in him a certain yearning?

R. Yes.

22. S. (01:14:07) Dealing with additional pleasure in the, let's say, compared with sports. Let's say a friend is exercising and weightlifting and so you will come today and you will put on a 20 lb weight. It will be hard, he’ll make efforts, and in the end he will succeed. Tomorrow his coach will come, we'll put 21, he will be hard he will an effort and he will succeed. When does he move from 20 to 21? When after he lifted the 20th, right?

R. Yes.

S. When He add pleasures in corporeality for a person, he needs to overcome it. What to do if he does not succeed to overcome it?

R. You lower the weight.

S. Lower the weight, he can't overcome that either?

R. So they lower it even more.

S. So yes he can't succeed there.

R. Bring it down until he succeeds.

S. What does it mean until he succeeds?

R. That he can lift it.

S. And if he never succeeds?

R. So there's nothing you can do with him. You let go of him, he went down to the level of beast.

.

S. So what does he do from here?

R. Nothing.

S. All of a sudden he’s given some idea he has to be a beast?

R. Maybe.

S. What does he do with that thought? So he begins to climb the mountain again? He goes back into the gym, he’s given the weight and he doesn’t succeed.

R. He continues this way it through his life until he dies.

S. So why is he tricked this way?  What are we doing to him here?

R. In the mean time he did some work. He did some overcoming.

S. What overcoming?

R. He did something, he wanted to do it. It worked out, it didn’t work out, he succeeded, he didn’t succeed, it’s liike that. That is what can be said according to what you have, but he has no choice. If at the end perhaps he will be placed in different gym, in a different team with a different coach, maybe other things will change for him, them suddenly he will begin to feel different values towards different things. All kinds of elements will be replaced in him, he becomes a different person basically, in some way.

23. S. (01:16:55) To succeed in overcoming, so what that is called is the importance of the goal and the friends, of the connection? It fills me to such extent that it isn't important to me anymore?

R. It's important, but this is more important.

S. So I don't just stay away from the weight?

R. The weight will not disappear. it will not become like air.

S. So if I don't get into attractions with it, so it’s as if I did not work. If I get an additional pleasure or more weight, I must lift against that, the greatest of the goal, the importance of connection with friends? That will be against that pleasure, against that weight, that will fill me.

R. Yes.

24. S. (01:18:13) I want to continue with what the friends asked. When we talk about the corporeal pleasures, what enters that discernment? What is it definition? Could it be food, sex, family, honor?

R. Everything.

S. Everything, okay a person has to overcome corporeal pleasures, so where is the exertion? To restrict the desire? Not to touch that pleasure? Not to think of it? What is the overcoming?

R. Whatever you want.

S. A person can’t deceive himself that he's overcoming?

R. He overcomes.

S. He got more desire, stronger than desire for money for sex. He feels it like a man who got medicine now he feels a stronger desire, and he knows it's not natural,  it was given from above. He does not agree with it, so what does it mean that he overcomes it? How does he build a connection between a final goal, his state, the connection with the ten, and that he feels more of a desire for corporeal pleasures, and he does something called I overcame?

R. I'm not interested in answering all of these things because they only come to confuse us. You be confused on your own.

S. He also writes that not only to overcome, but receive in order to bestow. So we usually talk in that way if a person gets a corporeal pleasure because if it's necessity it's okay. If he is important of the goals, so anything corporeal is okay, but when the person gets that it is not necessary and don't only at that point he can overcome it in order to or the opposite or restrict it and not receive it?

R. Necessity is neither praised nor condemned. We don't talk about that, that's it. Besides necessities, the other things we talk about Him to the extent that through Him, I can come closer to life's purpose.

S. So can a person overcoming a corporeal pleasure receiving in order to bestow to come closer to the meaning of life?

R. Yes.

S. When we talk about that it’s known that a person does not relieve himself from prison, corporeal pleasures, so what is my role towards the friends, towards the connection that they will be able to help a person come out of corporeal pleasures?

R. They can help a person come out of prison.

S. If a person feels greater desire towards corporeal pleasure?

R. Then they help him see in the spiritual pleasure, in the spiritual goal, has more importance.

S. Through the importance that he gets through the enviroment can you bribe the officers in prison or my friends?

R. I have not come to that yet. I don’t know.

25. S. (01:22:01) I understood that the correct action is a common action. so what is a common action?

R. In the group.

S. What makes it common if each one has a feeling of himself?

R. Of course each one has a feeling of himself, and an obstacle that he has in front of him, but they still help each other. They help each other and are incorporporated in this way and advance.

S. Should a person feel in practice that the action is mutual or should he believe the friends?

R. He needs to feel it too, he needs to try to feel that we are performing common actions.

26. S. (01:23:08) Can I, when I am in the recognition of evil, can I overcome and turn to the Creator for help?

R. Yes, of course. That is the way. That when I see what is in front of me and I see that I can't go against it, deal with it, and I turn it to the Creator and I get help from him. It is not simple to turn to the Creator for the help and not run away. It is overcoming. 

27. S. (01:24:08) The article feels so to the point in our personal work as with the ten. We are always going through ascents and descents. So how can we understand that at least to some extent that it is the Creator playing with us, and mainly in that way, soften the suffering that we feel?

R. We have to work together, talk about it, and it will be clear to you and easier.

28. S. (01:25:09) We see from life that different friends go through different feelings with the goals. What depends on the way they go through the states?

R. On the root of their soul, on the root of the soul, there's nothing you can do.

S. What should the ten do if they see a friend that is stuck on a gate for a long time and nothing changes?

R. Never mind. Love everyone as much as you can.

S. How can the ten, then fight increasing despair and frustration? Should we blame ourselves for that or…?

R. Everyone, you're not helping him, he can't turn to you. it is an experience for all of you.

29. S (01:26:26) Rabash gives a plan, a work plan to build a program of what to do and not to do. To divide between good and evil and to scrutinize it and everything you are doing through the efforts, so that is the judges and officers and then you have to use it practically to implement the decision you take. So how to perform this planning from potential to actual?

R. I think we will see it from life.

S. How to do it practically? Maybe write down the list to plan my day, what to do, what not to do?

R. Try.

S. Is that connected to what connection with the friends?

R. Connection with the friends and turning to the Creator.

30. S. (01:24:32) When I noticed that I feel some pleasure from my ego, should I thank the Creator for this or should I ask him for change? To change it for opposite feeling, for power of bestowal?

R. We will scrutinize it. There's a question here, I agree.

31. S. (01:28:33) I think of myself that I'm worthy to come out of the prison that means that I'm dwelling in self-love. It's also not good to think that I can't come out of the prison, so will the gate open from inside, from my forces, or from the outside from the Creator’s and the friends forces?

R. The gate is not opened by me. I raise a prayer and the Creator opens the gate, well by himself, that is a really very high degree, but the gate is open through the guards, the officers.

32. S. (01:29:37) We prepared the article last night in the ten and we have some questions. What does it mean actually to keep Torah and commandments?

R. It means to shift all of our desires from the ego to in order to bestow, all over the world. This is called observing Torah and commandments. Torah is the upper light that corrects us to the bestowal and the Commandments means that instead of egoistic actions, with which we were born, and develop, we will turn them into acts of bestowal, altruistic ones, acts of love. And this is done through Torah and Mitzvot, commandments. Torah is the general light that correct all of our egoistic desires which are called transgressions into altruistic desires which is called a Mitzvot, a commandment.

S. Does self-love increase on the path or is it the consciousness above the self-love that increases?

R. Both the awareness and the self-love itself,  because they want to give us great powers and on the left line and on the right line, so that we will advance on both lines towards the purpose of creation.

S. So it is written that it said that Mordechai was sitting at the gate, what does it mean? What is the spiritual insight that we gain from this?

R. Mordechai is the representative of all those that want to come out of their ego. He sits at the King’s gate, meaning he still wants to enter the King, meaning he himself contains all those who want to come into the King's Hall and adhere to Him. This is called Mordechai sitting at the King's gate.

33. S. (01:33:15) How do we make simple corporeal pleasures become a prayer?

R. Through the society. We have to strengthen the connection between us in the group, and this will help us not escape our work and attain the goal.

34. S. (01:33:53) I enjoy being in the lessons every day because the ten is giving me forces to do it. So the question is how can I judge my deeds so that they will be those guards helping me work for the ten and not for the self-love?

R. You have to see all of your states, how much they compel you to adhere to the group, to the ten, to adhere to them, to cling to them, because if you don't cling to them, then you will simply lose yourself.

35. S (01:34:54) The person's laziness which is given by the Creator, how can a person uplift above his laziness?

R. He cannot. It is only through the environment, only through the environment.

36. S. (01:35:30) What is the difference between these two categories – the judges and the officers?

R. Read the article and it will be clear to you.