The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Morning Lesson: July 31, 2025

Part 1: Recorded lesson - Oct 28, 2021. Baal HaSulam. Shamati 38. The Fear of God Is His Treasure

Reader: Hello friends, for the first part of the lecture we will be watching a recorded lesson from October 28, 2021 on Shamati 38, “The Fear of God is His Treasure.”

Reader: Hello, we are reading in the writings of Baal HaSulam, page 557 in Hebrew, Shamati 38, “The Fear of God is His Treasure.” You can find the study material on our website and in the Arvut system. When you click the study material button on the top menu, you can send questions through the system and selected questions on the study material will be asked during the lesson.

M. Laitman: It's a very interesting topic, how we can, through fear, check, learn, measure, the Creator, His relation to us, how much light we receive, how we relate to it; it all goes through fear. What is fear? We cannot feel the light itself. We cannot measure the light but only according to the vessel. Just as we see in our world too, we can't measure electricity. If we have an instrument, then we can measure it. In other words, we measure electricity or we weigh something on a weight. According to the impression on the Kli, on the vessel, on the instrument—to the extent that it's impressed—a dial moves or this plate on the weight comes down, etc. In other words, we don't measure the phenomenon itself but its impact on our instrument. The same happens in me, in you, in everyone. The Creator impacts something and we measure the changes in us. Accordingly, we say, “Oh, this I got from the Creator.,” good things or, God forbid—I feel the opposite—depending on the individual, how he accepts it. Although, we always receive good things but, perhaps, we interpret it as something else. Only according to the instrument do we check what we received, how much we received also. That instrument is called fear, spiritual fear.

Now, we have to measure, to see, know, to understand, what is fear? Then, according to the fear, we will feel if we are receiving something from the Creator or not and what we are receiving. This is why he says that “the fear of the Lord is His treasure.” Meaning, to the extent of—according to the amount of fear we have—to that extent we can measure the Creator. Let's read.

Reading: (04:19) Baal HaSulam. Shamati 38. The Fear of God Is His Treasure

I heard on March 31, 1947

A treasure is a Kli [vessel] in which the possession is placed. Grain, for example, is placed in the barn, and precious things are placed in a more guarded place. Thus, everything that is received is called by its correlation to the light, and the Kli must be able to receive the things. It is as we learn that there is no light without a Kli, and this applies even in corporeality.

Yet, what is the Kli in spirituality, in which we can receive the spiritual abundance that the Creator wants to give, which will match the light? That is, as in corporeality, where the Kli needs a correlation with the object that is placed in it.

For example, we cannot say that we have treasures of wine, which we poured in new sacks to keep the wine from turning sour, or that we took a lot of flour in barrels. Instead, there is a conduct that the container of wine is barrels and jars, and the container for the flour is sacks and not barrels, etc.

Thus, there is a question, What is the spiritual vessel, the Kelim [vessels] from which we can make a big treasure of the upper abundance?

M. Laitman: What are we getting here? We say that the Creator fills everything. He is present in everything. We are in an ocean of the Upper force, the upper light which is Good and Does Good and fills everything, but feeling it is possible only to the extent that we have a suitable instrument for it and, here, He is giving us an example. If you come with a sack which is good for holding flour but not for holding water then what is the vessel, the receptacle suitable for for the Creator so we can feel Him and even measure Him? He says that clay, that vessel, is fear which is what we have to establish. We have to understand it.

What is this vessel, how we establish it, how we fill it, how that vessel becomes filled, and how we feel it, how we measure it, how we advance? Meaning how we increase it but it's clear that we need a suitable vessel for the revelation of the Creator and we may bring a vessel that is completely irrelevant for revealing the Creator, for feeling the Creator and that's why we are in the dark. Our problem is with our vessel because the Creator fills the whole of reality. There is nothing besides the Creator. It's the common force of nature that fills everything.

Reading: (08:24) Baal HaSulam. Shamati 38. The Fear of God Is His Treasure

Thus, there is a question, What is the spiritual vessel, the Kelim [vessels] from which we can make a big treasure of the upper abundance?

There is a rule that the cow wants to feed more than the calf wants to eat. This is because His wish is to do good to His creations, and the reason for the Tzimtzum [restriction], we must believe, is for our own good. And the reason must be that we do not have the right Kelim where the abundance can be, like the corporeal Kelim, which must be right for what is placed there. Hence, we must say that if we add the Kelim, there will be something to hold the added abundance.

The answer to this is that, in His treasury, the Creator has only the treasure of fear of heaven (Berachot 33).

Yet, we should interpret what is fear: It is the Kli, and the treasure is made of this Kli, and all the important things are placed in it. He said that fear is as it is written about Moses: Our sages said (Berachot, p 7), “The reward for ‘And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look,’ was to be rewarded with ‘the image of the Lord does he behold.’”

M. Laitman: In other words, it seems as though it's as if as much as a person hides himself from the Creator—not that the Creator is hidden from us but we conceal and what is a person?—the ego, the will to receive. So the more a person hides his will to receive from the Creator, by this, he comes to a state where he does feel that he is filled with the upper force.

Reading: (10:33) Baal HaSulam. Shamati 38. The Fear of God Is His Treasure

Fear refers to one’s fear of the great pleasure that is there, that he will not be able to receive it in order to bestow. The reward for this, for having had fear, is that thus he had made for himself a Kli in which to receive the upper abundance.

M. Laitman: Okay, wait. Yes.

Question (Kyiv 1): (11:03) What does it mean to be fearful about the upper abundance from the Creator, to be afraid to receive it?

M. Laitman: That I won't be able to hold myself and receive the abundance in order to receive and become a Klipa, to the other side, to the Sitra Achra. In other words, instead of working in order to bestow and being in equivalence of form with the Creator. Accordingly, in adhesion with the Creator, I will be opposite from Him and, accordingly, I will move away from Him to the point of actual separation.

Student: It turns out that I am afraid to lose connection with the Creator because of that or what?

M. Laitman: No, no, we'll continue reading and you will see. The fact that I am afraid, afraid of losing connection with the Creator, this is one thing and being opposite from Him is another thing. There are many more discernments. Let's continue for now.

Reading: (12:36) Baal HaSulam. Shamati 38. The Fear of God Is His Treasure

This is man’s work, and besides that, we attribute everything to the Creator.

Yet, it is not so with fear, because the meaning of fear is not to receive. And what the Creator gives, He gives only to receive, and this is the meaning of “Everything is in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven.”

This is the Kli that we need. Otherwise, we will be considered fools, as our sages said, “Who is a fool? He who loses what he is given.” This means that the Sitra Achra [other side] will take the abundance from us if we cannot aim in order to bestow, because then it goes to the vessels of reception, which is the Sitra Achra and Tuma’a [impurity].

This is the meaning of “And you shall observe the commandments.” Observing means fear. Although the nature of the light is that it keeps itself, meaning that the light leaves before one wants to receive the light into the vessels of reception, yet one must do it by himself, as much as he can, as our sages said, “You will keep yourselves a little from below, and I will keep you a lot from above.”

The reason we attribute fear to people, as our sages said, “Everything is in the hands of heaven but the fear of heaven,” is because He can give everything but fear.

This is because what the Creator gives is more love, not fear.

Acquiring fear is through the Segula [power/remedy] of Torah and Mitzvot. It means that when one engages in Torah and Mitzvot with the intention to be rewarded with bringing contentment to one’s Maker, that aim that rests on the acts of Mitzvot and the study of Torah brings one to attain it. Otherwise, one might remain—although he observes Torah and Mitzvot in every item and detail—he will still remain merely in the degree of still of Kedusha [holiness].

It follows that one should always remember the reason that obligates him to engage in Torah and Mitzvot. This is the meaning of what our sages meant by “that your Kedusha will be for My Name.” It means that I will be your cause, meaning that all your work is in wanting to delight Me, meaning that all your actions will be in order to bestow.

Our sages said (Berachot 20), “Everything there is in keeping, there is in remembering.” This means that all those who engage in observing Torah and Mitzvot with the aim to achieve “remembering,” by way of “When I remember Him, He does not let me sleep.” It follows, that the keeping is primarily in order to be awarded remembering.

Thus, one’s desire to remember the Creator is the cause for observing Torah and Mitzvot. This is so because it follows that the reason and the cause to observe the Torah and Mitzvot is the Creator, as without it one cannot adhere to the Creator, since “He and I cannot dwell in the same abode” due to the disparity of form.

The reason that the reward and punishment are not revealed, and we must only believe in reward and punishment, is because the Creator wants everyone to work for Him, and not for themselves. This is discerned as disparity of form from the Creator. If the reward and punishment were revealed, one would work because of self-love, so the Creator would love him, or because of self-hate, for fear that the Creator would hate him. It follows that the reason for the work is only the person, not the Creator, and the Creator wants that He will be the compelling reason.

It turns out that fear is precisely when one recognizes one’s lowliness and says that his serving the King, meaning that one’s wish to bestow upon Him is considered a great privilege, and it is more valuable to him than he can say. It is according to the rule that with an important person, what is given to him is considered receiving from him.

To the extent that one feels one’s lowliness, to that extent he can begin to appreciate the greatness of the Creator, and the desire to serve Him will awaken in him. However, if one is proud, the Creator says, “He and I cannot dwell in the same abode.”

This is the meaning of “A fool, a wicked one, and a rude one go together.” The reason is that since one has no fear, meaning he cannot lower himself before the Creator and say that it is a great honor for him to be able to serve Him without any reward, he cannot receive any wisdom from the Creator, and he remains a fool, and he who is a fool is wicked, as our sages said, “One does not sin unless the spirit of folly entered him.”

M. Laitman: Yes, this is the article. I see that it's a little difficult. Maybe, it's confusing so let's take it slowly but it's important as are all those articles of Shamati.

Question (PT 19): (20:38) There's the famous line we just read: “You protect yourself a little from below and I will keep you a lot from above.” This keep—is this fear? What should I keep myself from?

M. Laitman: What should we keep ourselves from? From slighting the Creator because otherwise you move away from him. To the extent that it's important for you, precious for you, you get closer to Him. To the extent that it's not important, you move away from Him.

Student: But this keep—what should I keep myself from? What should I keep myself from? From whom? From what?

M. Laitman: You have to constantly check your intentions and desires; are they directed correctly, first of all, in general, toward the Creator and not toward something else? Because if it's something else, the minute you're not thinking about the Creator but about anything else and you descend from the level of man to the level of beast…first of all, keep your desires and intentions on Him, on the Creator; this is number one. Number two, what is the quality of these desires and intentions?

Student: Then I will be kept from above?

M. Laitman: Of course, in this you work together with the Creator because you can ask Him to help you be directed to Him in certain desires and intentions. You will constantly move closer to Him according to the equivalence of form. It's called, I to my beloved, my beloved to me.

Student: What I see is that he doesn't say you, together, have to keep.

M. Laitman: Yes, that's besides, that's in addition. Who else do we have?

Question (USA Northeast): (22:52) In the article, it mentions, it says, it means that the Sitra Achra will take the abundance from us. As an example, when we see something pleasurable, it immediately is felt in the will to receive. The question is, is our freedom expressed in constantly being in the intention to bestow and will this ever become automatic?

M. Laitman: It never becomes automatic. We always have to make efforts, to labor, toil, to exert—both to connect among us and to direct ourselves toward the Creator. Also, to check the quality of our aiming toward Him. This is always the work. Why? Again, to build the right instrument or the right vessel to reveal Him. For the Creator to reveal Himself to the created beings, that's all of His pleasure. By this, He gives and all the work He does before it which is concealed from the lower ones who don't enjoy Him, this is not, it doesn't give Him pleasure. The pleasure, His pleasure is to be revealed in the lower ones, to fill them and that they will enjoy His filling meaning to the extent of the adhesion with Him—the lower ones who receive the Creator and want to receive and want to be filled with Him, because by this they can please Him in return.

Their intention is not to receive the upper light within them but to give the Creator an opportunity, a chance to fill them, to express their love, the created beings' love for the Creator so that the Creator will be able to express His love for the created beings. It all happens in the mutual force of bestowal, in reflected light from the created beings, and in direct light from the Creator because, to begin with, He is in order to bestow—He is entirely a desire to bestow—and they, when they work above their will to receive. What can we do? We have to build a vessel for the revelation of the Creator and that vessel will be called the fear of the Lord—fear. Why fear? Because we are afraid that we might not be able to bestow upon the Creator the conditions by which He can fill us. When we bring ourselves to the Creator so He will fill us, so He will enjoy us, so He will do with us whatever He wants—first of all—we have to make the restriction on our ego, on the will to receive for ourselves. Then, we give Him ourselves. Very simple. We give ourselves to Him above reason. Then, the Creator will be able to—to that extent—correct our vessel and to fill it. He knows how and to what extent He has to bestow in order to turn us into a vessel. Here, there is the matter of our adhesion, our annulment before the Creator, the level of our willingness to receive from Him everything He wants because He wants only one thing: to build, from us, a suitable vessel for His light. By the way, a suitable vessel for the light is not simple; in the lights there are many discernments. It turns out that it's like water and flour and seeds and other things; each thing has its own suitable vessel, receptacle—the Creator does them all. We don't know what to do. He does it but He does it to the extent that we can annul ourselves.

Question (Kyiv 3): (28:01) It says in the fear of the Creator, the Creator's treasure is no more than the treasure of the fear of the Creator and it says below that everything is in the hands of heaven except for the fear of heaven. It seems like everything He has to give is fear and later it says there's everything but fear.

M. Laitman: What we need to make of ourselves—this, the Creator does not have—this is the fear. We have to come to a state where our egoistic desire becomes fear, fear. We have to come to a state where we understand that if the Creator does not build a vessel, then we will not achieve anything—we can't achieve, we won't be able to achieve the form of bestowal if we are at all understanding that we have to achieve bestowal, that we have to come to it. In other words, our work is entirely to annul ourselves before the Creator, so He will make of us all the operations in the right order, in the right intensity that He needs to do in order to build out of us a vessel. Clear? Good.

Question (Natanya): (29:38) He says, he writes in the article that fear is specifically when a person knows his lowliness. What does it mean that the fear is when a person knows his lowliness?

M. Laitman: Yes, if a person recognizes that he cannot develop the vessel by himself and it's in the hands of the Creator, then he begins to see how much he is in the hands of the Upper One and, accordingly, he comes to an annulment. It takes years for a person to recognize how much he is in the hands of the Creator. He thinks he can position himself in some state that he can demand and the Creator will do, that he can cry and the Creator will do. No, here you can only pay with labor; before a person fills up the quota of labor, the Creator does not help him. Well, He does help him but not in a final manner—only in order to build the vessel.

Question (Tel Aviv 1): (31:12) According to the article, we understand that the most important thing is to have the fear of heaven. The question is, how do we cleave to being in fear and don't run away from it? I understand the importance of it right now but I believe that once I come out of the lesson and come out of the connection to the society, it eludes me. I hold other things as valuable. How do you cleave to it? How do we hold on to this fear of heaven?

M. Laitman: I will tell you. My neighbor in the building where I live, he is afraid of the bank. He's got a huge debt and the bank might stop paying the payments that my neighbor has to pay so he's afraid of the bank. Another neighbor is afraid of the police because several times, already, he did all kinds of—maybe—he was caught drinking or maybe he smoked in a place where he was forbidden to smoke—other petty things—but he's afraid that the police might come, maybe even come to his office at work, and that will cause him problems. We're afraid of what people will say about us; everyone takes this into consideration—our children, everything. We are in this network—even if we're not aware of it every moment—but we are in a network which positions us, establishes us in our lives and that's how we exist. In other words, I would say even more: out of this network where I feel myself toward the still, vegetative, animate, and people—how I behave, how they behave toward me—I feel myself, I feel that I'm alive. If I didn't get reactions, responses from them, I wouldn't feel this world. In other words, on the one hand, to the extent that I'm pressured by all those in my environment, in my surroundings—the still, vegetative, animate and people—on the other hand, without them pressuring me, I wouldn't feel my existence in a certain place. In other words, there are two things here: we want to feel the Creator so we need to feel how much He presses us and how much we, in return, can pressure Him, so to speak, to be in this kind of mutual communication or connection with Him. This is what it's about.

My neighbors who are afraid of, well—I'm afraid of everything. I'm afraid of the school where my son goes to. I'm afraid of the police, social security, health insurance. Suddenly, at work, I'm afraid of my bosses and what will happen tomorrow with this virus and a thousand other things that might fall over me. I'm afraid of everything and anything. That fear, we're not aware of it, of how much we—the desire to receive to enjoy which is what we are—we're these tiny insects that want only to enjoy and nothing else, only to enjoy and then we feel how it presses us, how the environment constantly pressures us and designs us by this, so that we feel that we are in the world.

Now, if we want to be in a different world, a higher one, then we have to try to develop, of ourselves, vessels for it, the senses for it. In our world, I'm afraid of the still, the vegetative, the animate, and people. The still might be natural forces, climate, hurricanes—you name it. The vegetative are what is happening with crops and things we live on. The animate are anything from the smallest to the biggest and speaking is people. In the end, I live out of fear, out of pressure of all those things: the still, vegetative, animate and speaking that are around me. I'm not even aware of it but let's feel how it fashions, designs the picture of our lives, the picture of the world, how we exist. If it disappears and I won't feel that I want them, that I need them, that I'm afraid of them, and that they're pressuring me, then I will not feel reality just as we don't feel the Creator.

Here, Baal HaSulam asks, in this article, “The Fear of God is His Treasure,” how we develop our feeling of the Creator, right? Our feeling toward this world is also fear. We are constantly in scrutinies, in measurements. What is happening to me with this world? How is it pressuring me? How am I pressuring it? This is our mutual interaction, connection with this world. If we want to feel—and we are desirous to receive and we remain desirous to receive, each of us—if I want to feel a different environment which is called the upper world: Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, the world of Adam Kadmon, the world of Ein Sof as we learn that we have them, I have to constantly change myself. I have to constantly ask what desires, what thoughts, what fears and trepidations and anxieties and checks I have to be with respect to this external influence. Here come Kabbalists and say, “Don't worry. Don't worry. The Creator is good and does good. It's not as you're thinking now that you are in concealment, that you are, that you have a problem; you're not, you have no problem. You need only one thing.

To the extent that you want to feel that He is doing good to you, to that extent build a vessel of wanting to do good to Him, to do good to the Creator. And according to this, according to the equivalence between the two of you, you will feel Him, and you will see that there is no better state than this. It will give you confidence, pleasure, satisfaction, everything. Just relate to Him nicely, kindly. That's it.

This is what He's talking about. Because what is this about? What is a treasure? A treasure is where we want to receive the filling of the upper world, the Creator. What is that treasure? So, he says, this treasure is the fear of the Creator. What is the fear of the Creator? I have no reason to be afraid of Him. He will not do anything bad to me. Rather, I myself cause myself all the damages. In me there is an evil inclination and there might be a good inclination, and I choose between them. So, the light that comes from the Creator can be as light for me or as darkness. And then, so it all depends on me. This is what we now learn. So how do we enter the Creator's palace, the King's palace, a treasury, and receive there with our receptacle, with our vessel. So, it is suitable for us to receive there when I take this vessel, the receptacle, and I go into the treasury of the Creator, and I receive there a part of the light, and I bring it out. And then it spills over, disappears, like everything else in our world. Everything is incarnating, and it goes to eternity, so only in the end we get it. So, I go in again and receive more light, and I come back to me, and it spills out again. But each time I rise to a greater light, each time I bring a greater quantity and quality of light, and this is how we begin to know this work. The Creator wants us to come to a stage where we shift all of His light, all the light of Ein Sof, that we bring it into us, or in other words, that we rise on that ladder, on the steps of the ladder to Ein Sof. This is what's ahead of us. So, let's advance, well, let's answer a few questions, but we'll have to go back to the article again.

Reader: Friends, in the next part of the lesson, we will study The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, item 72. So we will read The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, item 72.

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