Morning Lesson September 28, 2021, Transcription
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam - What Is, “A Habit Becomes a Second Nature,” in the Work?
Rav’s Introduction: We have gone through a good connection in the Congress. We still don't understand where we were and where we are now. It is like a little child who is not aware how he progresses day by day, when we look at him on the side, we can see he's starting to do this, and he can do this now but he himself is not aware that he progressed. This is how it is with us, we on ourselves cannot understand or know what is happening with us how we are advancing. Only later will we be in degrees in which there will be revelation of the light of the Creator then we will be able to gradually weigh them, those same states to know what the difference between one state to another is. When our coarseness will be arranged such that, it will be similar to the light then we will be able to weigh the light within the coarseness and then we will know what we are attaining and how we are progressing. There is one matter, that we can accordingly to understand where we are, are we justifying the Creator is the question. In the states that I am in, am I justifying the Creator, when I'm justifying Him, I am called righteous, when I am in some adhesion with the Creator already, being nearer to Him. On this we need to pay attention, are we even in bad states, terrible ones because each time we are falling into our desire to receive in order to take from it some part and to raise it into the bestowal and once again we descend into reception and once again, we rise into bestowal.
If we are in all of these states in both polar in reception and bestowal we are in joy. Joy is the check that we are progressing to good, that I am justifying the Creator and all the states that I am going through because all those same descents and ascents I am doing it in order to pass more and more from the desire to receive to catch something from it and raise it above and thus this is our work until bit by bit accumulates to a large sum and from this accumulation I begin to reveal the upper world spirituality and the Creator with in this world and this is how we reach spiritual life to the upper world, this is our work. We need now after the Congress that we began with a nice, good connection to realize it more, meaning to see ourselves how, day by day we are raising our egoistic desire to receive of each one and joining it to the Creator, how do we join the will to receive to the Creator?
That we want this will to receive also to work in bestowal in connection between us in adhesion because there is no other force and this is what we need to learn, how to do this and this is our workday by day until the end of correction. Until the entire desire to receive that the Creator created as it says, I created the evil inclination, how do we raise it to make a good desire to work in bestowal like the Creator and from that same spark the Creator reveals to us that only this we have from Him. In the meantime, by this we add to this spark more and more of our desire to receive, then the desire to receive begins to illuminate like the spark and that is called the darkness will illuminate as light, that we are joining to the spark of fire, more wood and another piece of wood until it becomes a large flame and our desire to receive will specifically work on the intention to bestow. There are many such examples of what we are doing with the desire to receive to enlarge the Creator in our eyes. That from the small spark that is in us we are drawn to Him, we are building and making this large fire to reach adhesion with Him. Let's read the article and see how we are progressing.
Shamati Article 7 “What is habit becomes second nature in the work”
2. R. (07:41) We see this on children and babies that we awaken them and we want them to feel and see and react to all kinds of states and by this they develop. If we leave them like this, they won't develop then what life will awaken in them, they will be small beasts. Only by this do we give them all sorts of stimulation that by this they grow and all our work is to invite from us more correct reactions on what we are hearing and reading from the upper world. How we, the spiritual world, which is not felt in our senses, how we will awaken each time to feel and discern something in it despite there isn't. It's like a child who sees the big world only his little world where he has a bit of Interest according to his desire to receive this is what he grasps and this is what he wants and not more than this. We need to awaken him to bring him all sorts of toys to shake him up and this is how we slowly develop him and this is what the Creator is doing with us. We just need to be alert that we will begin to develop, by us each shall help his friend in such states that each one will develop, and so without the society you cannot develop.
If a person remains on his own, let's say he was born and was left in the forest, we know that there are such examples that they are like beasts and they can't develop anymore. If one doesn't catch the opportunity given to him from above, the later even though he is taken at a more advanced age of 20 or 30, you can take him out and bring him to human civilization he can no longer develop anymore. This needs to be a unique time with a special atmosphere and then he will develop correctly, that the atmosphere is drawing him to all sorts of exalted and human reactions. This is what we need to develop in our society. This is what he writes here that there is nothing that a person can't feel in him, his reality even though a person has no sensation or perception of the matter, by the matter a person reaches a sensation. We are not in the upper world in the spiritual world according to our sensation, but we are. We just don't feel it, we lack to develop our senses and this is what we need to help one another all of us together. We have already a large society on the beginning of the path. The Creator is taking care of us as we are a unique group from all of humanity that has been privileged with progress in such quantity towards the goal, so let's go and make an effort.
Reader continues (11:52) “We must know that there is a difference between the ….”
3. R. (12:37) We don't know how it's possible to feel something, rather there is I and what I feel is something that I feel outside of me. This is how it is for the created beings but the Creator is the reality and thus we can't understand Him or grasp Him, how He is in the nature, this force on its own that exists. By us, the attainment is incorporated from both discernments, the one who senses and attains and what is attained.
Reader continues: (13:20) “This is not so with a person as his whole existence….”
4. R. (13:30) Our vessel is entirely a vessel of sensation and desire.
Reader continues: (13:35) “validated as valid according to one who senses the reality….”
5. R. (14:45) The person determines his reality according to his sensation, besides the sensation he has nothing, if we are a desire to receive what is accepted in the will to receive, that is our perception and reality. According to what is accepted in the desire to receive without philosophies, I can feel this or that, that I can feel bad but it is good, no that is not enough. Rather how I feel that I am determining as my state and if I feel good, this that I received from the Creator, that I am called righteous, that I am justifying Him because he is truly such and if I feel bad then I am called wicked because despite the Creator is good, I receive according to my qualities, an opposite sensation. Accordingly, there are degrees both in the sensation of good and in the sensation of bad, everything is compared to what I feel and the Creator gives.
Reader continues: “We should therefore understand what our sages wrote….”
6. S. (17:27) If I understand correctly the Creator gives you suffering and you still have no attainment of spirituality?
R. The Creator never gives you suffering as He is the good that does good, it cannot be that He gives you suffering, rather you feel the suffering because you are in an opposite form from Him.
S. When you suffer and you're still not in attainment?
R. Correct yourself this is what is left for you.
S. How do you justify the Creator?
R. Until you won’t reach the good sensation you won't justify Him, your sensation points to who you are, it won't help you and you can't feel good and say the Creator is righteous and good, rather your sensation determines.
7. S. (18:40) How do I correct myself and justify the Creator or is that the other way around?
R. To the extent that I correct myself I can justify the Creator more as the good that does good.
8. S. (19:07) Real spiritual feelings, the feelings that you're talking about, are they covering a bad feeling on a certain level or is this just a good feeling?
R. The good state by us, by Kabbalists can only grow from the bad state. That initially I see how opposite I am from the Creator, from the group, I don't want to be with them, I don't want to connect and I have repulsion from everything. Gradually by this that I am in the group and in the study, and all sorts of actions, I invite some spiritual force on myself and gradually it makes a change in me. Spiritual force is called the light and thus we advance.
S. Do you need to search in some next degree some good feeling and immediately when it comes you need to be in a deficiency for it?
R. Of course, we need to yearn to connect all the time with the friends more and together with them to the Creator that they will be together, me, the group and the Creator and by this very quickly I invite the next more advanced states.
9. S. (20:56) How does it turn out that through habit we begin to feel?
R. By this that I annul before the friends, I reach qualities of bestowal and I begin to feel in them a new reality. It is only from the connection with the friends is made more important than my private sensation.
10. S. (21:56) If I feel a bitter taste do I need to correct it or discover a good taste in it?
R. To open in it a reason why I feel bitter and how to turn it into good, precisely like this, from darkness to light.
11. S. (22:25) A person justifies the Creator to the extent of attaining His thoughts?
R. Yes, and also between this and that, he is in greater falls that he begins to feel that the Creator is causing more bad and then accordingly more good and more bad, all of the time like this from minus to plus. Each time we are raising the sparks of the shattering, the breaking to correction.
12. S. (23:14) Is it possible to change reality or only how we feel about reality?
R. Your sensation is the reality, just like now, we live in a world that we are depicting to ourselves, there is no world without attainment, without our perception. There is nothing objective that exists if not us who attain it. There is no such thing, it is only with respect to the person who attains.
13. S. (24:12) How do we give the desire to receive some bait to use our activities in such a way that the friends have to justify it?
R. We need to continue, according to what you're saying there is nothing to do but just simply in each and every moment to check what I feel in the society and how I connect to it, how specifically by this I see my spiritual reality, my life and without this I truly feel myself that I fall from the connection between them I fall to beastliness. Ultimately that I will want to stop and to see and to feel the world by myself and only through connection with them.
14. S. (25:36) How come in reality we can agree with everything we see?
R. How do I know that everyone is seeing the same thing, no, everyone grasps reality in their own vessels, now too and in spirituality as well.
15. S. (26:09) Normally when the Creator senses a certain state that a person feels right now as bitter because he is opposite from the Creator, the main thing that a person tries to do is increasing the importance of the goal through the ten so the states will seem less important than the goal. Is this the process or should the bitter become sweet, or does it become less important?
R. There is the entire process that we are raising ourselves above the bitter, that’s called that we are reaching the degree of Bina and after, all of this bitter, the entire will to receive we turn it to be the intention to bestow. That’s called that we are already reaching the degree of Hochma. So, there are two stages here: to bestow with the intention to bestow, the first half of the process, and to receive with the intention to bestow which is the second part of the process. Everything ends on the intention to bestow, everything.
S. So our main work is to turn the bitter into less important than our goal so the goal is more important than the bitter?
R. You said correctly. That’s called ‘’love covers all transgressions,’’ all crimes, just cover. But afterwards, the crimes, the transgressions, also turned into commandments, into love.
16. S. (27:55) The Creator pushes a person away from the ten and disconnects him entirely?
R. Where do you see that? That’s happening to you in the group?
S. Yes. What does it mean to justify in that state, to just agree with it?
R. That all the disconnect is not really to disconnect a person from the ten, rather to give him an opportunity to connect to the ten in greater effort, and then by this he grows. We need to understand that the spiritual Partzuf is measured according to how much it has coarseness, and screen, and reflected light. Then, according to all these components, with that he turns to the Creator.
S. But in a state when a person cannot, he tries to do everything but he is failing, he prays and nothing is working. What should he do then?
R. Turn to the group, if you can't on your own, why do we have Arvut (mutual responsibility)?
17. S. (29:27) Can we come to a state where we justify the Creator every moment through the connection with the friends?
R. Yes. Even more so, until I don't connect with the friends, I don't feel that I am in some contact with the Creator, where do I attain contact with the Creator if not in the friends? The Creator is in connection between us, the connection between us exists, just that we are in breaking and so we don't feel the connection between us and we don't feel the Creator that needs to be revealed as filling us. That’s it, in sum total.
S. The approach of measuring if we succeeded or not at the congress, is this an approach where we place ourselves in front, ahead of the Creator?
R. By what can you check if you’ve succeeded or not, I don't know. But we need to check, just by what are you checking?
S. So, by what do you check?
R. By my urgency in connection with the group, with the entire world Kli, the entire world Bnei Baruch. That I feel, that now, that I have more necessity for spiritual advancement to connect with the entire world Kli, that’s it. According to this, I feel that if I am disconnected from them, I feel immediately I am in a fall, a descent, that I have all sorts of calculations and thoughts, and sensations that are egoistic and private. If I am among them, immediately I am Incorporated in them, and in my heart and mind. What is occurring there is already different, it’s spiritual.
S. How do you justify the Creator in the first state and in the second state?
R. That too, is only by being in the society. If I am outside the group, I cannot do any correct action, start from this, no correct action, it's very simple, it's written in every place. First of all, for me is to connect and then, from within the connection, we begin to advance, to correct inwards.
18. S. (32:50) Can faith above reason become a habit?
R. Faith above reason is the quality of Bina, the quality of bestowal which dwells upon the quality of reception. So surely, we organize ourselves such that we, more and more, tie ourselves to faith above reason until we begin to live in it, until whatever we are not capable of inserting into faith above reason. It’s in restriction of such desires, egoistic ones, in restriction. That’s called the end of the Partzuf. But the Rosh (head) and Toch (body) of the Partzuf are all in faith above reason. Meaning in this that I appreciate bestowal above the reception, both in the Rosh (head) according to the calculation and force, and also in the Toch (body) of the Partzuf which is an action. Thus, I correct the vessel of my soul, I build of myself a spiritual creature.
S. It is written that habit becomes second nature. So, it’s as if the effort disappears? As soon as you have a second nature, everything is clear?
R. If I already have a screen on a certain will to receive, that I work with this will receive in the correct manner on the intention to bestow, I receive more and more broken desires to receive, that are revealed, and I make an effort to make on them a screen.
S. Is a screen a degree from which you can begin to work above reason?
R. The screen isn’t that same vessel that attained the screen, and it directs the desire in the vessel to be in the intention to bestow. On those that he cannot direct to the intention to bestow, he restricts, and that’s called the Sof (end) of the Partzuf.
19. S. (35:38) Bestowal above reception, does it become my feeling?
R. Yes, bestowal above reception gives you the spiritual sensation.
S. So, only habit can cause it?
R. No. Rather, by this, that we each time make an effort to be in force of bestowal, that in that same force of bestowal we begin to feel the new reality, the spiritual reality.
20. S. (36:21) The attempt to justify the friends causes you kind of a quenching for the bad feeling, that it puts out the bad feeling, is there something to do about it or is this part of the process?
R. It is a stage, you are seemingly connected at first and then you use the state of connection to scrutinize your personal state.
S. Concerning what you said about a necessity to connect with the whole Kli that the Congress left such a flavor strengthening the feeling in the 10 that this is your home and it is your life, but it also gave a flavor of an informal connection with the world Kli with a diversity and you feel that when you bring it home afterwards it was very special and it awakened the necessity to connect even more. You also speak about how we have to move to that next state so how do we take it forward, what do we do with it?
R. We have nothing more than what the Kabbalists wrote and even if we did write more which I don't think you would understand how much more, we have to implement the connections between us as much as possible and then we will begin to discover more and more what they meant when they wrote these words to us. Everything as he writes here, all of the changes are with respect to the receivers, from the perspective of the attaining person. I have nothing more to advise you, speak amongst yourselves, search amongst yourselves how to put together a network of connections among you throughout the world in all of the groups, in all of reality. That we will try to establish ourselves. This all depends on us as we have to do it, by this we put together the soul meaning The Chariot, The Merkava, the structure of Adam HaRishon that was broken. This is really what is ahead of us in our generation to make the general correction. They wrote, I don't know, it seems to me that the only thing that is left is to implement, if you ask me questions about this I can add as much as I understand about it. But basically, they wrote everything.
21. S. (40:05) What kind of prayer should I raise to the Creator to give my friend a good mood, what is the prayer that would bring about this ascension?
R. Start speaking with the Creator about all of your deficiencies, all of your desires that you think you should have, start talking to him, constantly to him and you will see how things begin to materialize more quickly. Turn to the Creator all the time ceaselessly, everyone and each one.
22. S. (41:31) If I understood correctly, the force of bestowal, the 10 and the Creator, they always remain in some static level and the more I advance to them such my sensation becomes a better sensation, that I have a better opportunity to justify the Creator?
R. Yes and no, because our way in progressing contains left and right, I feel more descents or disconnection from connection among us and with the Creator, less understanding and more confusion. Then I get up from that state and I understand more and I feel more and again I fall into confusion in my feeling and understanding and likewise every time, ascent and descent, left right, left right. Because I can't understand and feel something new unless I discover a new broken desire to receive that I correct and in the corrected desire I begin to discover the new degree, the new spiritual degree. Likewise, every time this is why it is written the thousand times will a righteous fall and rise, every time you rise and fall and every time you fall deeper and you rise higher.
S. Precisely in this stage of the fall a person needs to get up and return to that same point in the connection with the 10?
R. To a greater connection.
S. So where is the justification?
R. Because you are rising to a greater connection thanks to falling deeper, as the advantage from within the darkness the greater the darkness, the darker it is so the light seems to shine more.
S. By what privilege does he rise?
R. By connecting to the Creator and asking him only with connection to the upper force says you have nothing else in reality that does anything to which you can connect and ask. We don't have such a question, by what, who, how it is all only from him.
23. WSQ. (44:50) I can feel myself in the Garden of Eden if I justify the Creator 100%, I am then called the righteous. What activities do we need to do in order to feel that we are righteous in the Garden of Eden?