Morning Lesson January 23, 2024
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1: Rabash. What Are Holiness and Purity, In the Work? 28
1. S. (41:23) How can a person pray for something he doesn't want?
R. It will be a lie, it does not exist.
S. How can I ask for bestowal if I don't want it inside?
R. That is first we have to reach a certain desire that we will have to bestow to the Creator through the friends and on the band we can ask for the desire to bestow.
S. Until then?
R. Until then we don't have a desire to bestow, we don't want to have it so until then we can only accumulate inside of us the desire to get out of the will to receive.
S. Meaning, until I have the recognition of evil I have no impact on bestowal? Until I have the recognition of evil I have nothing to ask about the quality of bestowal?
R. How will you ask for it if you don't have a desire for it?
S. I don't know sometimes they say artificially, in acting it in games, we can hasten the process instead of waiting?
R. No, not to wait that of course will not help. What do you mean just wait? We need to be with the intention, the thought even the confidence that he will receive what you want, what you demand, that your demand is the correct demand. That is all of our work is about how to receive the desire to bestow, how to reach bestowal.
2. S. (43:53) We need to appreciate the Lo Lishma more than the Lishma as it is greater and more important to depict. How should we understand this and why?
R. That is as much as I depict myself the magnitude of Lishma according to my appreciation of Lishma, Lo Lishma is greater but it’s not that Lo Lishma is greater than Lishma, rather than what I can depict what it is.
S. Why do I need to appreciate the fact that I want a reward than to bestow in a pure manner?
R. You don't want to bestow cleanly.
S. He says, appreciate more in Lo Lishma for an order to receive than Lishma which is pure?
R. This is all in respect to the person as much as he can depict it to himself.
S. Now I am in some beastly desire. What does it help me that I now appreciate Lo Lishma instead of being in a beastly desire?
R. From Lo Lishma we come to Lishma.
S. It is still not clear why the previous step needs to be more appreciated than Lishma. Why does Lo Lishma need to be appreciated more?
R. If not the true Lishma that comes from the Creator is greater than the Lishma that you can imagine that you can depict to yourself.
3. S. (46:45) When the corporeal pleasures are more important than spiritual pleasures is it because of the concealment?
R. Yes, of course.
S. How does the mechanism of concealment work exactly? What is concealed from a person exactly?
R. Everything Is concealed from the person, everything. The magnitude of the operations, the magnitude of the thoughts, the magnitude of the desires, the importance of the friends, the importance of the society, of course it all pertains to the importance of the purpose of creation and the connection with the Creator it is all concealed.
S. A person who wakes up from his alarm clock has two choices. He can go back to sleep because his body wants to or to come here. Is he working before that concealment or is he?
R. Yes, opposite of concealment because right now he doesn't have any importance. The importance of the lesson doesn't shine to him, the meeting with the friends, with the teacher and therefore he goes back to bed, God forbid.
S. If he jumps out of his bed and runs here is that revelation or is he simply?
R. I could be, I'm not sure what kind of incidents you're talking about but nevertheless he prepares to be more connected to Kedusha than versus sleeping where while sleeping he is truly a beast. When he gets up and runs to the place of study, he enters an atmosphere where they talk about the Creator and how to attain Him, so he is already on a different degree of man's inclination.
4. S. (48:31) He writes here that the matter of prayer is not in his mouth but in his heart. It's the same thing with gratitude, with thanks. He writes in the article that the most important thing is to appreciate every small thing from above from Kedusha and appreciate it. How can you appreciate it with our hearts and not with our mouths?
R. Because what is most important is what I feel in my heart. How I truly appreciate in my internality the actions of the friends let's say, this is what matters.
S. If I don't appreciate it but I want to appreciate it, how do I ask for that for the time being? It is all in my mouth?
R. It doesn't matter, but nevertheless you should ask.
S. But does that tendency actually bring me to the desire?
R. Yes.
5. S. (50:00) This article is driving us through this wondrous process from beginning to end, it is truly genius if you could say. There's a part where he says you have to come to the lowliness of yourself in order to appreciate it and to address the Creator. How from that state of lowliness where you have nothing where there's darkness and you discover you are nothing, what point is that when you ask for the right thing because then you don't even have the strength or the power to ask?
R. Yes, even though it is written that the Lord is high, and the low will see, it seems to us that it's from minus infinity to plus infinity. Truly, how can it be that a person who discovers his own lowliness, he stands, asks, and even demands of the Creator to take care of him and elevate him and sanctify him. These things appear completely unrealistic, but we should ask.
S. That's called the stage where a person builds the vessel?
R. Yes.
6. S. (51:31) What is the order of the actions in the Torah?
R. From Lo Lishma to come to Lishma.
S. What is the order of actions upon a person? How does the Torah operate upon a person?
R. He writes about it.
S. I will refine the question. First of all it discloses the evil in the person? Is that the first action?
R. Evil, it's impossible to open that up to a person. He has to be ready for it. Do not place an obstacle before a blind man. The Creator doesn't reveal to a person more than he is able to understand and to overcome.
S. On behalf of a person it's the preparation of the study of Torah?
R. That too.
S. As far as the order of actions is concerned. Let's say a person is ready to know the evil in him so first it discloses a person the evil in him?
R. If a person is ready then the Torah discloses the evil.
S. Then she augments the evil in him even more?
R. She works correctly with the evil that was disclosed to him and then a greater evil, than a greater evil.
S. Then constantly the Torah just discloses the evil in him even more if he is ready?
R. No, if he overcame and performed the right act with the evil within him, that it already becomes a good force within him. Then upon this good force he can work with a greater evil. This is how he rises, left right, left right, this is how he rises.
S. When is the filling if always what is being revealed as evil? When does the inversion take place?
R. I don't know what you mean by inversion but rather the fact that a person overcomes the evil within him, that there are also a few stages. He wants to overcome it, or he also wants to use it and overcome or defeat the evil and in this way shift to the good. That is he wants that the good will be revealed in him in a way that he can use it.
S. What exactly is the good that is being revealed? If not greater evil? That is what I wanted to ask actually. What is the good that will be revealed if it's not a greater evil?
R. That too is true but that's already left and right but to a greater degree than the previous one is considered that I can work with it in using it.
S. I still don't get it, the evil is constantly growing and that is shining on the will to receive more in him if he is ready for it?
R. If a person is not ready for it he doesn't receive this illumination. It does not shine to him.
S. If a person is ready, the Torah constantly shines on the evil in him as there is always more evil to be revealed?
R. Yes.
S. Where is the good?
R. In that this evil through the reforming light becomes good.
S. Then there's even more evil?
R. Yes, which he corrects, and it becomes even better or good.
S. How does a person become ready for the Torah to operate on him? What preparation does there need to be on the behalf of the person so that the Torah will wash him?
R. A person becomes ready by the fact that he does want to shift from reception to bestowal and not to be under his will to receive but to be under the will to bestow.
7. S. (56:46) It is written that we need to give thanks to the Creator even for a small thing that evokes even the smallest thought. This small thing is small relative to a huge mountain of corporeality that’s at the same time. How to illuminate the small one and through it?
R. He doesn't look at corporeality. He comes to a state where he takes into consideration only the spirituality within him, only if it's even one gram. He starts to appreciate it through something that is precious, that is stronger and greater than all corporeality. It all depends on the appreciation.
8. S. (57:51) If everything depends on the appreciation that a person sees that in practice actually, he performs actions that are suitable for a beast. What does it mean that everything depends on the appreciation?
R. There’s this and that. It could be that he understands that he's still a beast, however his desires, his intentions are already aimed to becoming an Adam. Well what can you do? That's the difference between action and intention.
9. S. (58:54) He writes that if he was rewarded with a desire to bestow then the work of heavens is done by others, the work Creator is done by others and the others means the evil inclination. What changes in the work when a work of bestowal is done by the evil inclination?
R. That the evil inclination is revealed. When that happens a person is capable of praying and arranging it as such that it becomes the good inclination and we can work with it, buy it.
S. The evil inclination pushes him to greater adhesion with the Creator?
R. Yes, it doesn't push him, the person arranges it in such a way that he becomes even more inclined to the Creator.
S. What should we be rewarded with?
R. That's after a great stage in the previous work.
S. This is already the work with two lines?
R. Yes.
10. S. (01:00:15) I have a great impression from this article. It really takes us through all the stages. It doesn't matter if it's up or down, it's all a part of the process. My question is and the friend touched upon it, but I didn't understand the answer you gave. In the end, how do we intensify and how do we increase the reforming light? That is the bottom line, that's what it's all about. That's where we have to focus with what actions we as a society as Tens. Which action should we take in order to intensify this process? Everything described in the article will have but how do we intensify the process? What can we do with our hands and legs and intentions in order to intensify this process?
R. By bringing our heart closer to being one heart. By approximating our hearts to being one heart.
S. I don't understand the sentence.
R. We want to bring our hearts closer as we want one thing and for this to happen. If we all want one thing we breach the boundary. It is like we are coming from desire to action. We are entering the desirable into action. If a person wants its desire, the second, also the third also but when they come closer to the Ten then their desire becomes an action.
S. We know that right now we are in the morning lesson, we are delving in it and we're going to have a Congress soon and there too we will make an effort. It's a part of the process we do not know any other actions. These are the actions that we're doing?
R. We don’t need anything but to unite our hearts and present them before the Creator and demand for these hearts to be corrected and for us to be able to praise the Creator in them.
S. Precisely, what you said now, apparently this will be our intention all day long with the Ten we will advance all day long I'm certain about that. How do we turn these words to a desire and an inner cry? What you said now, exactly now?
R. This is through persisting in thought. I need to constantly be thinking about that. I need to write about it, even a few pages in my notebook. I need to search for where Rabash talks and also Baal HaSulam maybe even, about this.
11. S. (01:04:12) I think we all share this great impression from the article and how it opens up here. In an earlier stage of the article he writes that sometimes a person doesn't want it that the Creator will give him this desire, how can one pray for something that he's not certain that he needs and the evidence that he does not need it so much. Many times he does not even want to be given this desire. Therefore it follows that one should pray to the Creator to make him feel the need for this desire meaning to yearn for the Creator to give him that desire since he does not always understand the need for this desire?
R. Yes.
S. I am asking because it seems like there's an earlier state where there's not even recognition of evil, but I realize that there is something greater that should I advance towards and with respect to that I ask for a deficiency. I'm not sure how to phrase the question but how do I awaken a need for something when I don't even have a recognition for evil. Evil, I don’t even have a deficiency for it.
R. Yes, that's correct, it's not something that we decide upon. In advance, this is something we need. The Creator arranged all these degrees, and we need degree by degree to rise like that. What do we do? We hold as much as possible to the friends and above that truly, because our entire future depends on that. To the extent which we connect between us and that we unify the hope in the hearts that we want and by that we come to one desire. You cannot make from a small desire a big desire; you can only ask to connect desires. This is actually our vessel, our Kli. No one is a Kli period and even less than a point but let's say even a point. What we need is to connect these points and by connecting these points we are also sanctifying them. In order to connect with the friends, I must be in order to bestow with love, with connection above my ego and so on and so forth. This actually gives us the nearing to holiness.
12. S. (01:07:33) He writes here that it turns out that the beginning of one's work is the recognition of evil, meaning when a person asks the Creator to feel how bad is the will to receive. We always say that we should depict how good bestowal is, how good the connection between us is, and what is the difference between asking for a desire. Well, let's put it this way in both cases it's a desire that we don't have. We don't have a desire to bestow, and we want to have such a desire as you describe once where Rabash said where's this pharmacy that we can buy that desire and in order to reach that. What is the difference between wanting to do good and wanting to see how bad the evil is?
R. It is revealed along the way. I have nothing to say. The necessity to connect with the desires of the foreign desires of friends that's foreign. It's called foreign, but it's outside of my body. It's called foreign. The necessity for that brings us closer and we begin to feel that the stranger is not strange, and he is not outside of my heart. More and more we feel that our heart is somewhat ready to receive others. That is the impact of the influence of the upper light.
S. The question is to see how much I do not want to receive it or how much I do want to receive it? Here he says that the person asks the Creator to feel how bad the will to receive is, his awareness the will to receive is called bad and only the Creator can make him feel it?
R. Yes, that is already clear until we come to a feeling of the desire, the true desire to receive them to that extent as much as he is opposite of the Creator, opposite of giving which just pushes us towards hatred.
S. We're always talking about not asking for the bad but only about the good. The fact that the bad will be revealed, okay it will be revealed but here he actually says this awareness that only the Creator can make him feel it. Is this another kind of work or something that will be revealed?
R. All our work is in stages. In the first stage, we want to be in bestowal even though we do not know what we are going to discover later, what it means to be in kind of a small bestowal and then the Creator shows us where we are in bestowal, and so on and so forth.
13. S. (01:11:22) Rabash gives us advice, he says that the person should depict in his mind as though the Creator is speaking to him, and he tells him my son behaves the way I'm telling you. Many times Rabbash uses this expression that a person should depicted to himself, seemingly one should imagine the states that the person does not see because if he would see it there would be no need to imagine it, he would say look, but seemingly he has to depict something that he still does not have in his attainment, in his awareness. How do we perform such an action where we depict something that we do not have a grip on?
R. Yes, a person can depict it to themself.
S. He can depict many things?
R. So from the many things he has to depict one thing that he wants to be in a desire to bestow.
S. How can the person depict to himself that the Creator is speaking to him? What is that?
R. I do not know. Those are things that I do not know how to describe.
S. This statement that seemingly there's an upper one that is telling you that you do not know and send your situation you should be here the way I'm telling you it's like a father telling his child this is permitted, this forbidden, don't ask any question and you will discover?
R. There are also as such, yes.
14. S. (01:13:19) He writes that a person receives a greater need for corporeal lusts to compliment what he was used to, what pleasure he used to receive from Torah and Mitzvot, it means that I or friends get a greater desire for corporeality it means that we're advancing, it's progress. Is this how we should see it?
R. To the extent that you can rise above and rise to the acts of bestowal.
S. A friend in the Ten is performing at corporal action. He tells the friends in the Ten that he will be for a week, he will be in the corporeal environment. From the perspective of the friends and from the friend, what is the best way to guard him?
R. To think of him that he's with us.
S. From his perspective, what should he do?
R. Also despite the fact that he is there in not such a pure environment, he needs to think that somewhat he’s with us.
S. He writes that the smallest act is important above and the person cannot appreciate it therefore one a person must try to believe in the sages in everything that he's going to do even without any intention that too is a great and important thing. What is an act? Is it also with the hands and their legs?
R. The use of the desire is called an action.
S. Desire for what?
R. Doesn't matter.
S. It should always be for the friends, not just any desire?
R. Ok, if you're talking about the desires of Kedusha or the desire of the Klipa but any desire that can go to an action.
S. Should it be expressed with hands and the legs?
R. It could be yes, or it could be no.
S. If I'm going to buy food for friends for a Tens meeting. Is this an act?
R. It's an action, yes it is an act.
S. It's an act. Ok thank you.
15. S. (01:15:55) The will to receive cannot do anything without a reward. How does the will to receive agree to the recognition of evil? What reward is there in recognizing evil?
R. Again?
S. How does the will to receive agree to the recognition of evil and ask for the Creator for it? What is the reward? What causes it to agree to the recognition of evil because it's death for it?
R. Yes, but there is a point called the point in the heart which is the root of the soul which pushes the will to receive to recognize its nature.
S. Is this the reward? It’s help, assistance from the Creator. Recognizing our true nature?
R. It's not a reward. It is a help, an assistance from the Creator. Some people do not understand what it is about, and some people do understand that it is about our ego, our will to receive.