The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning), July 9, 2024.
Part 2: Writings of the Rabash, Letter 75
Reader: () We are studying the writings of the Rabash, Letter 75.
You can find the study material on the Arvut System.
Hello and all the best to my friend,
I long to know how things are going with your work, and especially your health.
“If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments.” RASHI interprets, “Is this the keeping of the Mitzvot [commandments]? When he says, ‘and keep My commandments,’ then we are referring to keeping the Mitzvot. Thus, what am I keeping by ‘If you walk in My statutes’—that you labor in the Torah. ‘And keep My commandments’—labor in the Torah in order to keep and to observe.”
We should understand why he had to say that the verse, “If you … in My statutes,” comes to point to laboring in the Torah. Could we not keep, “and keep My commandments,” if we do not observe the study of Torah in order to know what we must do? After all, how can we observe Mitzvot if we do not keep “walk by My statutes”?
However, we can say that if the verse tells us to keep the Mitzvot, we must certainly learn the Torah first. It is not written that this is necessary because it is impossible to keep the Mitzvot if we do not know them.
However, there is a different issue here than the study of Torah in order to know how to observe the Mitzvot. That is, even when we know the Mitzvot, the body does not want to observe them. For example, everyone knows that there is a Mitzva [commandment] to love the Creator, but only a chosen few can observe the Mitzva of loving the Creator, while the whole world is under the governance of self-love.
In order to be able to observe the Mitzvot for the sake of the Creator we were given the remedy of Torah, as our sages said, “The light in it reforms him.” This is done specifically through labor in the Torah. To the extent that one engages in the Torah, to that extent he draws the light of the Torah, and by that he will have the strength to observe the Mitzvot.
This is RASHI’s precision: “‘If you walk in My statutes,’ meaning labor in the Torah.” It is so because we know about learning the Torah in order to know the Mitzvot that we should keep from the verse, “And keep My commandments.” Therefore, we say that the verse, “If you walk in My statutes,” comes to show that we should labor in the Torah.
RASHI interprets about that: “and keep My commandments”—labor in the Torah in order to keep and to observe.” Although there seems to be no connection, we should toil in the Torah in order to be able to keep and to observe because through labor we acquire the light in the Torah, and the light in it reforms him, hence the keeping and observing.
From all the above we see the power of labor—it can turn all the evil in man to good. We should also make two discernments in the study of Torah: 1) to learn the laws in order to know what we should do, 2) learn Torah by labor, in order to have the strength to keep and to observe. In the latter part, it does not matter if we are learning laws or learning Torah, which does not speak of laws at all, but only that in the Torah there is room for labor, and then the Torah grants one with the light in it.
May the Creator help us be rewarded with the light of Torah.
I conclude my letter with the blessing of Torah and may the merit of the Torah protect us and we will be saved in every way, in corporeality and spirituality. May we be rewarded with complete redemption soon in our days, Amen.
Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag
Son of Baal HaSulam
M. Laitman: Questions?
Question (Women Kyiv 7): (07:15) What is the most important effort or labor in the Torah?
M. Laitman: I think it's the first effort, to remember the Creator. Afterwards, it is what He wants from us, etc.
Question (PT 22): (07:44) What is the force of labor? What is the force in the study of the Torah called labor?
M. Laitman: That I have to labor in the study itself, to know what is written in the Torah; afterwards, I have to, as a result of it, to labor and observe it, keeping what I learn in the Torah. And to check if, when I take upon myself the observing of the Torah, is this enough? Or do I need something else as well? To learn from the Torah what I need. We should learn everything from the Torah.
Question (Women Turkiye 8): (08:54) What does it mean to connect to the Torah? How can we connect?
M. Laitman: Connecting to the Torah means seeing ourselves as being, seemingly, composed of the whole of the Torah.
Question (Women HEB 1): (09:29) What does it mean to learn the judgments in the Torah?
M. Laitman: It is to know what to do, what not to do, according to the laws of the Torah in a simple, literal, physical way. And then, try to learn them, spiritually. That I observe it, that I do it in my desire.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:13) You said to do or not to do, according to what the Torah says. So actually, what he's saying here is to change all the evil into good?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How do I do it in practice because we're leaning on legs, and the first leg is don't do to your friend what you don't want to be done to you. So, what can I implement in the work with our friends that I tell them, I want to be good. What does it mean to be good towards work with my friends?
M. Laitman: Look at what the Torah requires of you in relation to the friends?
Student: So, I read the Torah, and it tells me to do this and that but in order to really learn it, it's only in the connection between us. Then I know if I'm implementing it, right? Because he said that to study the Torah, you don't have to read it. So, what does it mean to learn the Torah without reading it? He said you can learn the Torah without reading it so what does it mean?
M. Laitman: It's on your heart, how you feel it.
Student: In the connection between us. When we have a common purpose, and we want to discover the upper force, the Creator between us. But eventually, I always make the comparison in the mind what I read here, what the Kabbalists are telling us here, the commandments. Do I have to make this comparison between what I feel with the friends, in this net of connection I build with them, to what I'm commanded to do here?
M. Laitman: That, too.
Student: So, where should more of the weight go: To what I feel with the friends or to what they write in the book, here?
M. Laitman: With the friends, you see where you are; and what you read in the Torah, you learn what the Torah requires of you. And in the gap between the two, that's where you exist.
Student: So, this gap, how does it really let me determine that I'm in the right direction and giving contentment to the Creator? Where is the actual determination, how do I decide correctly between what's written in the book to what I feel between the friends? There's always a gap, how do I truly know that I'm aiming correctly?
M. Laitman: I would answer it this way, always try to calculate for the sake of the Creator.
Student: So, like you said in the beginning, I always have to think of the Creator, to always, always see what gives Him contentment.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:45) A general question about Rabash's letters, every letter he expresses great concern to someone's corporeality: His work, his children, his family, his health. So, what is the sort of relation or attitude he has towards giving great importance to corporeality?
M. Laitman: That's his relationship.
Student: What can we learn from this, how can we develop such a corporeality of friends?
M. Laitman: That we need to maintain our society in such a way that it cares about the corporeality of all our friends, too.
Student: I feel that when I want to do this, it's very difficult for me. To develop such a deep relation to the corporeal state of the friend, I feel a wall. That there's like a place and beyond it, I can't. So how can I enter deeper into this corporeal Arvut?
M. Laitman: Because we feel by feeling our own limitations, accordingly, we have to arrange or set up something that will help us overcome our limitations and relate to the friends the way the Torah requires.
Student: What can help us overcome the limitations? You said to organize something that will help us, for instance?
M. Laitman: That the corporeal situation, at least of the friend, will be clear to me and I will take this several steps forward.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:57) You said that the first effort should be to remember the Creator?
M. Laitman: Yes, because He obligates all the other efforts you will have to do.
Student: What does it mean to remember the Creator, what is that action of remembering?
M. Laitman: That the Creator exists, that There Is None Else Besides Him, He is above us. And He is responsible for everything that happens to us and what He demands of us, etc., etc.
Student: So just knowing, just thinking about it, that the Creator exists?
M. Laitman: That you are adhered to that awareness, that you accept it, that it fills you.
Student: So, it fills you or not but the thought, that's the beginning?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How to make it emotional?
M. Laitman: Try.
Student: How to be full from it?
M. Laitman: Try. You're asking me about your internal actions, how do I know how you do them with your body?
Student: Is that exertion, that's called, the labor, he writes about?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:38) What is the division between the laws we have to keep and the commandments we have to keep? How can we depict this sentence? It's as if there are two things that say the same thing: If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments. What is this formula, what should we do, basically?
M. Laitman: There are laws and there are commandments.
Student: They seem to be the same.
M. Laitman: Why?
Student: What's the difference between the law and the commandment?
M. Laitman: The commandment is towards you; a law is towards everybody.
Student: I didn't understand, am I not a part of everyone? What is the difference?
M. Laitman: You're a part of everyone but along with that we're speaking towards you.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:04) Every time we speak of learning Torah, I'm thinking of the book. I understand that it's a broader definition. What does it mean to learn Torah, what are we learning?
M. Laitman: To learn Torah means to know and to keep, to implement what the Torah demands. And the Torah is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings until it's complete form.
Student: Can a person learn Torah without the book?
M. Laitman: To begin with, yes.
Student: So, what, a person who conducts himself in this world, how does he begin to learn Torah? It seems very fundamental to me because I have this fixed pattern in my mind, learning Torah, is like, what I know from my physical life, to open a book and read. But it's something more fundamental.
M. Laitman: Okay, you bought a book and?
Student: So, I'm asking, this learning, how does it, a person wants to learn Torah, how does he do it, simply and directly, is there such a way? Why is it not approachable that a person can be born in this world, and he lives around learning the Torah, that it's something that is very basic?
M. Laitman: The Creator wants it to depend on the ones who gave birth to him, the environment, the nation, and so on.
Student: Why?
M. Laitman: I guess He has a purpose in this; that the Creator also has a meaning.
Student: Now I understand that learning Torah has a special force to it.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: How does a person come in contact when he learns Torah and receives a strength to change. And learns Torah and receives the strength, the force? What conditions should be met so it will be like that?
M. Laitman: The fact that he's learning the Torah, he gets a certain illumination every time that gradually surrounds him, and in this way, he grows.
Student: He says that this illumination depends on the labor.
M. Laitman: Right?
Student: Can you tell us what a person should labor in so he will constantly be around this connection?
M. Laitman: He has to be around this connection with the Torah all the time.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:11) To continue the friend's question, very simply put, a person hears this beautiful maxim, what you hate, don't you to your friend. Now, instead of like the whole world takes it, it's a beautiful phrase. So, he really exerts to implement it in his life every moment, meticulously. Will he start learning Torah of his own, on his own, by himself?
M. Laitman: No, that's not enough, he only keeps one condition of the Torah. Not to do to friends, to a friend, to friends, what he hates that happens to him. But how will he know that that's right and that isn't right? He needs to learn of himself, about himself, too.
Student: Doesn't he learn by himself?
M. Laitman: No, how does he know that what he feels is right?
Student: So, what should he add to this? From where does a person study himself correctly?
M. Laitman: From all the laws.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:30) All this labor that a person makes in the Torah and waits for the light, he writes that in the end he needs the help of the Creator. What is this help of the Creator that he needs?
M. Laitman: The help of the Creator in order to see, correctly, what the truth is and what isn't. Is he coming closer to the Creator by that or not? That's the light that comes to him from the Creator, it helps him see it.
Student: Does he discover the Creator who helps him? Does he actually come in contact with Him so He will help him?
M. Laitman: Yes, it could be.
Student: It's only through the light though. The question is what comes first? The Creator or the labor because the Creator is the purpose of everything, He is the first and He is the last. So, a person should still give something of himself from below in this labor in the Torah. So, with what does he begin?
M. Laitman: From the Creator.
Student: So, it's all the Creator in the end?
M. Laitman: Of course, also the same awakening a person got in the beginning that also came from the Creator.
Student: So, we just need to be in contact with the Creator?
Student: Why this whole labor?
M. Laitman: That is the exertion.
Student: To be in contact with him all the time?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:16) I just heard now that it's as if there's an order of actions, operations that we need to study. Then to observe, to do and then to check if it's enough. Is this order of operations like a wheel, like a cycle that you keep doing? First, second, third; learning, doing, checking. Is this correct?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: On the level of the group, does it work in the same way? That there's Torah from Baal HaSulam toward the group, the group work. And we too need to work in this way, where we learn what they write, try to implement it, and then checking if it's enough, or not?
M. Laitman: It's not exactly.
Student: What's missing?
M. Laitman: That, in itself, isn't whole.
Student: So, what's the right approach?
M. Laitman: The right approach is to learn, that's it, and then, whichever way it works out in your head, accept it and keep going.
Student: How does the group or a team check itself with respect to what to do, what not to do, what to add, what to stop?
M. Laitman: According to what's written.
Student: So, is there a phase or a part in the work in the group where it gathers and takes. For example, yesterday there was a lesson concerning strengthening the group. And there were points, I don't know, 12, 20: What we do, what we don't do, what we relate to, we don't relate to it. Is there a part of the work in the group or is this not necessary and all we need is to learn?
M. Laitman: No, you have to learn and implement it.
Student: So, do we check how we do it, or do we not check?
M. Laitman: You check.
Student: How, in what way?
M. Laitman: I don't know but it's written.
Student: I'm sorry, I didn't understand.
M. Laitman: It's written how to check yourself, how to exist. How to see that you're implementing and so on.
Student: Not personally, I'm asking about the group level. How does the group check with respect to what is written, what we heard in the lesson from Rav today, or it doesn't matter, or maybe a week ago, or in the articles of Rabash. How does the group check itself, what is our situation today with respect to what we are learning?
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: How, how, that's the question.
M. Laitman: The group reads and checks if they're implementing this.
Student: In the lesson we only learn, and meals we do differently, and the Yeshivat Haverim pertains to the importance of the goal, the importance of the group, etc. So, the question is when should we do it?
M. Laitman: All the time.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:49) If, for example, I were to receive this letter from Rabash, the main advice I would be hearing here is engage in Torah and await redemption. Now, we are scrutinizing what it means to engage in Torah, and I know that since I started learning, engaging in the Torah meant drawing the light in it. And in fact, only the light can really teach you what is good. And until then, we need only to continue drawing the light and wait for it to give us redemption. That's the only work I see he's speaking about, is this correct?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:03) How does self-alignment, incorporation, and inspiration make a person a human being?
M. Laitman: I don't know.
Student: Have the conditions ripened to equivalence a form that takes all of reality?
M. Laitman: Not yet, not yet.
Student: How do we turn all of our lives into a connection between the Creator and the created being?
M. Laitman: By exertion and thought.
Student: Okay, we'll continue to labor.
M. Laitman: That's it. Reader, what are we doing next?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:10) Maybe we need a platform where we can talk about these things. What we have in our hands, where to discuss our situation. We're speaking generally but when do we talk about the situations we have in our terms, how we can advance all of society? Because we get awakenings from society, in the Tens we're not getting so much. We're afraid to tell a friend so we don't offend them, but in the group, like the social committee, we can talk about our situation. So, it becomes clearer where we are, as the friends said, where do we check it, what we're doing, what we're not doing. I think that there, there will be much more awakening that friends receive and see where they are. And from there, we make decisions and move forward. Right now, there's no platform where we can talk about it.
M. Laitman: So how should we do it?
Student: To create a social committee that's not related to anything, but only to one thing, to the spiritual advancement of the group, and do this.
M. Laitman: So, how do you depict it?
Student: Well, you choose five or six people, and after some time, they change, right? And they begin, from the bottom, to see the deficiencies of the friends. Not that we let them do something from above. They check what deficiencies there are, what problems there are, what each one thinks. I don't know, once every month or so we get together and discuss. Because the lesson is not for this. The lesson is more.
M. Laitman: And everybody should go into that group, into one group?
Student: Yes, it's mainly just like we have a social committee in Moscow, right? The same, we should have a social committee, here in Israel or in Petah Tikva, I don't know, to really talk about our problems. If we want to really check our situation.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:13) There's a management that's made of several friends, and we now started a movement on Sunday evenings. We meet the whole world, clearly, in order to discuss our social situation. How we're getting stronger from event to event, from congress to congress, from lesson to lesson. That platform is open to everyone to come and participate. And also, anyone who has an idea, or an initiative, or a thought, or a suggestion for a social discussion should come and suggest it. If there are more suggestions for social activities, we're open to hear any idea. We're trying to implement any idea that can be. It's not only to start a committee, we need to implement it, in the end, in the society. So, any friend who has an idea, please, come and say what is the topic you want to discuss in the coming week, and we'll open it.
M. Laitman: When?
Student: Sunday evenings, we meet physically here and in the Arvut system, the whole group; currently, that's our common social platform. Each Ten convenes in itself, what the friends talked about is more us as a society, to present our problems and discuss them.
M. Laitman: Society is what I see before me?
Student: The world society.
M. Laitman: The world, it can be a mess, lack of order.
Student: So, what, we should be speaking only Petah Tikva among ourselves and that's it?
M. Laitman: No, but let's say Israel. I don't know, I'm asking, how do you think to do it? That everybody depends on everybody in Israel, and everybody has to discuss the social issues, the social problems?
Student: The discussion is not about solving some global problem we have but strengthening each of us in our Tens. And as a society it makes us stronger.
M. Laitman: (to student) Is that's what you were thinking? No, so, say.
Student: What we have on Sundays, wait, that's how I feel it. It's more about dissemination, how we, as a society, toward the whole world. I'm talking about the problems we have in our society, in the society, in the relationships between us.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:05) So, let's open it. What problems do we have in the society that we would like to discuss here only among us? Give us examples of problems in society that you think we should resolve between us?
M. Laitman: Take another microphone.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:28) Well, let's say in the Tens: In the Tens, there are people who. How we relate to people who, say, should come each day, but don't come. Or, in general, don't take any duty, don't do any duty in the Ten. Like, for example, the connection duties, we don't know how to relate to them. Maybe what we have in the society is, how do we, through the sources? We change all the time, and we begin to, we understand the sources according to the vessel that has changed, so, how do we advance? In all the articles of Rabash, there is abundance, and we need to, constantly, make adjustments to how we advance. And I think we're not doing it. And besides the deficiency in the society, we see that there are many people who are very deep inside, but are silent. Maybe when there is a platform, when we get together, physically, they will open their hearts, say what's on their minds, what they think. When we have this development, we'll see all the deficiencies that exist in society. And we see the direction, and the tendency, so, if there is a deflection, a diversion, we can correct it; not that each one will think for himself whatever he thinks.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (39:41) The approach we went for was to get strong or not, place problems on the table. I don't want to suppress the ideas that friends have, it doesn't sound like that. But the idea is to get ourselves stronger and stronger from week to week. I want to ask Rav, do you see the approach of opening the problems and trying to resolve it, discuss it directly, do you think this is the right approach?
M. Laitman: It doesn't matter what I see, that's not important. What's important is what Rabash and Baal HaSulam write. According to that, you have to do it
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:30) Exactly, through the source. We see through the sources different things and also the conditions outside change. So, through the sources, we need to see how to take steps because when the whole society is together, everyone gets awakening immediately in the Tens. It's a completely different force.
M. Laitman: Correct, correct.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:01) Yes, that's exactly what we want to do on Sundays. We did it only once, that was the beginning, and this is what we intend to do until the Congress. It's exactly what the friend said, and we will do it because the fact that there is a Ten, we see that it's not enough, we need a big society. But we don't see a reason why we need to close ourselves only in Petach Tikva? We open the broadcast, we are a world Kli, we have no problem. The same problems exist in Tens everywhere in the world.
And concerning the Tens, I want to say, we are in contact with you and what the friend said, for example, yesterday. What we discussed yesterday, that right, there are Tens where people do things that are clear in corporeality. And I don't know about checking internal things, checking opposite the articles of Rabash. Each one checks it during the lesson, it's got its inner work, there are clear criteria. Some meet those criteria, and some don't, and so it creates pressure. You said, we can solve the pressure through patience and love when we came to you. People don't know but these problems have existed for five to six years. So, when we came to you, you said, don't touch the Tens, right now, don't dismantle them. We asked, should we make stronger Tens? You said, don't do that because the weak Tens, disappear. And besides, who's strong and who's weak? And your recommendation until now was not to touch the Tens, although there are a thousand ideas what to do. I guess we will make a change but it's not clear when. So, exactly for this, we have Sundays when we want to discuss, and anyone who thinks it is a topic, we also need to know how to organize it, it's not simple. The process of leading thousands of people, the fact that there's a problem, okay, but we need to know how to organize a discussion. So, anyone who has an idea how to do it, is invited. Those people who will come and do it, this will be the social committee.
M. Laitman: Okay, alright. So, Reader? What are you, would you run away from your…
Reader: We shift to the next part, excerpts? We have a document: Equal As One - There's No Strong Friend, Only A Strong Society. So, we'll move to the next part of the lesson.