Morning Lesson April 15, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Lesson on the topic of "On the Verge of Lishma"
1. Rav’s Introduction: (00:19) It's a very special state and I'm happy that we have reached it and we can engage in that as a whole and try to really go into it and help each other enter Lishma, to get closer. It is already a great award, a great luck and making steps forward like that so we have to pay attention and look at what we are going through. So we will see what is written and as we go from sentence to sentence, from letter to letter, we will try to nevertheless get closer to Lishma. This is already the quality of the Creator but we can already begin to grasp it, understand it, feel it. Let's see.
Reading excerpt #1 (02:01) “Concerning Lishma..”
2. R. (03:28) So, this means that we have to make efforts, labor, attention, focus together, do it as much as possible and if we see that we still don't feel a response then prayer; prayer. To ask that the Creator will direct his ears to us that he'll want to listen so that we will know how to turn to him so that there's finally a mutual connection between us where on the one hand we hear the Creator listens to every prayer of everyone, on the one hand. On the other hand we want to shape that prayer because each one is not in his true place. By the sin of the tree of knowledge we dispersed from each other like an explosion. We flew in many directions and now it's as if we begin to reconnect again and again with that coarseness that we have acquired during the sin. And then with all that return to our connection. So our work is very special. We will try to understand it and do it. We basically need to feel how far we are how much we can’t get closer to each other. There are many discernments here that can't really be communicated in words but you see the Kabbalists gave us a language, a spiritual technology, coarseness, refinement, the force of the light and so on. And by these words we can somehow find connection between our states and spiritual actions. Also, the language of the branches needs to be added here in order to understand what's the connection between Lishma and what we sense. We will see.
Reading Excerpt #1 Again. (06:49)
3. R. (07:55) Meaning that all in all we have to see how incapable we are of getting closer to each other and together towards the Creator. And by discovering that we can't, that we are not capable, that we are incompatible to that then we need to activate a prayer. And the prayer also has to be as close as possible to our common heart that we want to put together our desire, the heart is man's inner desire so we want to reveal it as much as possible and connect it to the desires of all the friends and then present that to the Creator that we wish to give him our heart. That's our work. To each one to try to envision that state to himself and try to be in it for the whole 24 hours.
4. S. (09:35) What does it mean to enslave himself to the Creator?
R. That all that I can do I will do in order to serve the Creator, to bring Him contentment, to get closer to Him and that's where I need to try to be the whole 24 hours.
S. He writes for a portion to be rewarded with Lishma is an awakening from above.
R. Right, but we are even before Lishma, we have to awaken that from above that's what we are talking about.
S. What do we need to awaken in order to invite the state of Lishma?
R. So that's what he says that all of us together, as one man in one heart, we have to turn to the Creator and ask Him to agree to accept us as connected to Him, as pieces of Him, as His servants. That we are capable or want to be capable to fulfill His entire will. Meaning to position ourselves before Him as a single block that is willing to fulfill the entire will of the Creator.
5. S. (11:57) When the Kabbalists write about his organs and the body of man, is it correct to look at it like looking at the friends in the group or in the ten who are the organ's and I pray for the friends and not for myself?
R. Yes, we are all one body also anyone from humanity who wants to connect to the Creator also connects to us and bit by bit we will begin to reveal that in our senses.
S. When we say one man in one heart, is that the intention that I pray for the friends or are they talking about how each friend's shares the same prayer?
R. Yes and no, depending on what each and everyone feels and understands but I'm referring to everyone. That's it, yes.
6. S. (13:18) Concerning the meaning of Lishma, two questions, one is: what is the meaning, why do we say for her sake in the feminine and what does it mean for her that we are on the cusp of this state?
R. Lishma, for her sake, means for the sake of the Shechina which means the revelation of the Creator to us and that is said in the female. That we are not yet in Lishma but we want to move in there to feel it, to live it. That is now our work after we have made an effort and we somewhat rose above our will to receive, we even haven't come out of it yet but there is still some feeling of elevation from in order to receive that we recognize that if we reach in order to bestow mutually between us then in that inclination we will feel the Creator.
7. S. (15:27) Why do we have to be slaves or servants to the Creator?
R. Slaves means that he is the source of all desires we can say all the single desire we can say and I want to fulfill his will that's what it means to be a slave, that the Creator’s desire is as opposed to us it is the participation of being as one man in one heart, in bestowal, mutual bestowal and love of the world. Love is the highest degree so we want to achieve that in a blind manner so to speak. Meaning that before we rise to a degree, any degree that we rise to we don't know how to ascend, what exactly are we rising towards. We can say it in words and describe it in words but it's not really helpful to us.
When we achieve connection in each and every state and rise in the degrees more and more than we become more and more workers of the Creator and we can also say that before that, before we receive that we are as servants or slaves of the Creator. As slaves because being a slave refers to the highest degree in spiritual work. Moses was the Creator’s servant and so forth meaning the one who can follow the instruction of the Creator and as if not to pass through having criticism on it or to pass criticism and feel that he is opposite to this instruction and yet accept it with all of his heart and soul there are different states here but that's why our work is considered that we go out of the slavery of Pharaoh and into the slavery of the Creator. But that's just in our observation. Because with Pharaoh we can feel it and identify it and agree with it because that's how it is imprinted in us in our will to receive, that's why we see it as my self benefit, that it is worthwhile for me and so forth. We see this from in this world, we see this in the still, vegetative, animate and speaking levels how they all try to fulfill the egoistic desire of each and every one. Whereas the Creator’s desire that we need to find strength and justification for and on the condition that one shall help his friend we can do it. Ok well, bit by bit you will see.
8. S. (19:58) It says taste and see that the Lord is good and we also need to work, let's say in a blind way, in a concealed way. So how do those two work together? Not receiving for yourself and you have to feel that the Lord is good and we have to work in concealment otherwise we are rewarding ourselves so how does that work?
R. Yes, but to see that the Lord is good means that if we really taste then we see that the Lord is good. Meaning that the Creator created everything for us to receive the taste and feel Him as we get closer to Him because it is like in this life, there are many examples in life where you don't like something and then you are getting used to it and you taste a little bit of it and you thus, kind of sell to yourself things first that you didn't want to look at. That's how it happens to us in life, so taste and see that the Lord is good means that first we have to taste we need to reach that taste. That you receive and distinguish and then move from taste to vision and see that the Lord is good meaning that he has prepared everything for us to become incorporated in Him, in the light of Ein Sof.
S. So in what vessel do we taste this?
R. Through what vessel? Through the connection between us we acquire the Kli where the minimum of the majority of the many is two, right so that a person has to nullify himself at least towards one other and through that annulment he learns out to annul himself towards the Creator and then he receives from the Creator these feelings of giving, of bestowal and from that he begins to taste in that giving, in that bestowal, it begins to taste what is that status where he gives to someone or that someone gives to him because we are used to feeling only what we receive and in reception even if we receive from someone we don't regard his bestowal but rather what we receive. Because the moment that I receive what I receive covers or quenches that bestowal from someone and so it turns out that we only feel the vessels of reception.
S. Can you see the taste as a fulfillment?
R. Yes, it's fulfillment, it’s taste, the lights that we will discover how they come and fulfill our inner vessels, our Partzuf.
S. It also says it needs to be complete and we always talk about completing the vessel before it can be fulfilled so how does it work then that a partial fulfillment here on the way let's say to Lishma? Do you need a complete vessel before you really feel or will a partial vessel be able to feel fulfillment?
R. Yes, we rise through 125 degrees and in each degree there are several states as well until we rise from each and every state in it NRNHY and so from that we have fulfillments and discernments and we do want to integrate with them. That's our entire life here, how much we get closer, how much which we receive, how much we bestow, how much we go deeper from between us to the Creator seeing life in the world through him. That's the spiritual reality that we need to reveal and live in.
S. We also need to use our vessels of reception correctly along the way?
R. If we use our vessels of reception correctly then we receive in order to bestow in return to the Creator.
9. S. (26:52) You said at the beginning of the lesson that we are not in Lishma yet, we are before it and for that we need an awakening from below. The awakening from below is that the action of connection that we make basically?
R. Whatever you are able to do you should do until you reach a state that you will feel an influence from the Creator directly because then you will begin to distinguish between in order to receive and in order to bestow and by that you will advance in that more and more indifferent manners.
S. Are you talking about becoming tangible? He writes here that the body resists, he says that the person has to put out his heart to the Creator to raise a prayer but here again in the prayer I at least feel that you fall again into reception you don't continue with a certain connection how can the prayer get stronger?
R. Each and every moment try to return to what Baal HaSulam and Rabash advises us to do until you feel through that, that the Creator is taking care of you through them.
S. And the dialogue with a Creator, I pass it through the friends, how do I pass it?
R. From your heart to the Creator.
10. S. (29:13) What is at first Lishma?
R. How can that be explained if we don't have such senses we don't have such vessels?
S. So what is for Lishma?
R. It is written that in order for to a person to obtain Lishma one needs and awakening from above as it is an illumination from above and it is not for the human mind to understand rather he who tastes knows. It is said about this; taste and see that the Lord is good. If your taste you will know, if you don't you won't. It is like any kind of food or something that you recognise. How do you recognise it? You taste it.
S. How to know what to want to approach?
R. So you have friends, you have the articles, you have the study. The main thing is the prayer, that if you long to understand what is Lishma, how can I make an action that will be in order to bestow in a clean way while as much as I can depict it to myself, this is called Lishma.
S. Yesterday you said that Lishma is when you are ready to push your friends to spirituality and you are willing to remain the last as long as they get in. How do you begin to get close to such work?
R. Bit by bit, by wanting to help the friends that I want to be with them as one man in one heart and that we will make some step, some little step forward but together, together otherwise it doesn't work, it doesn't produce the right response and so we are making one step after another towards the Creator until we feel that he approaches us.
S. What does it mean that we take a step together?
R. That we want to achieve connection between us in order to be a vessel that serves the Creator. Without that it is not going to happen.
11. S. (33:15) It says here before we take on the burden of the Kingdom of Heaven we have to be in complete wholeness meaning bestowal, without receiving anything for oneself. What is that state where I take nothing, receive nothing and I want to take on the burden of the Kingdom of Heaven?
R. You can receive only for the sake of the friends and nothing for oneself. So the Creator created this entire system so that we become clear about where we are, from the most corporal states to the most high lofty spiritual states. You can see the direction, what side, what goal are you aimed at. So what does matter to me is to connect with all the friends as much as possible at least in my ten and with it reach a state where the Creator wants our closeness to Him. Later we’ll find better and more understandable words.
S. What does it mean to receive only for the friends and receive nothing for myself?
R. I think that's clear, that you check yourself. Where is this desire of yours coming from that you want to activate towards the Creator, is it coming from you or the friends? And you raise that to the Creator and you ask, you ask for them. Meaning each and every one prays for his group as it is written, one who prays for his friend is answered first. Bit by bit we will get used to this new state, it’s not that new and we will activate it.
12. S. (36:00) You said that a slave of the Creator is one who is able to receive an order, a command from the Creator. What kind of orders are we getting from the Creator? We are like clay in the hands of the potter and His plan might not suit us so how do we know what to take, what to accept?
R. We in each and every moment receive from the Creator all kinds of influences and we are in this field, this infinite field which is really the Creator. He activates us and in this activation we will feel both the general activation and the particular activation. And we will try to choose from them, choosing what do I want in terms of feeling and receiving, realizing these forces. The thing is that as much as possible to connect and to turn ourselves to the Creator who will make of us whatever is needed so that all of reality will reach this complete one reality, as one man in one heart. That's what we should always try to see before us as a goal. And accordingly we’ll see what the Creator arranges for us in each and every turn and how we learn from each and every step to better and better understand Him.
S. Meaning that the choice is compared to this complete reality?
R. The choice is according to our reality with respect to the general connection between us.
13. S. (39:10) If we see broken parts in our connection in the ten should we vocalize these errors of connection? Some friends say everyone should do internal work and stay silent, some say if we stay silent the errors will stay. So do we need to discuss them?
R. I don't think we should be discussing the breakages and all the more so not to look for the breakage between us. It’s much better if we discuss the connection and get closer and on top of that we’ll discover the shattering, that's better. Meaning to always go from the side of the correction and on top of that tendency let the corruption become revealed.
14. S. (40:35) I understand that to the extent we become less slaves of the will to receive we become more responsible in front of the Creator and the others. The question is: can we understand from that that this is where our freedom lies, to serve the Creator?
R. No, the freedom we’ll feel that later on, that’s still ahead of us.
15. S. (41:40) Baal HaSulam writes in the excerpt we read that there is no other light but the prayer, to pray to the Creator to help him. This effort, this prayer what does it mean, what do we have to do?
R. The effort in the prayer is that I try to find the Creator in all of my states and turn to Him in order to reach bestowal. That's basically what I need to be aiming for all the time.
S. Is it an effort in the mind or the feeling?
R. Well, what's in the mind that's in the mind, everyone can do it. But emotionally that's already for someone who delves deeper into it and makes efforts and then from the mind it moves to the heart.
16. S. (43:22) It says in the excerpt that he should pour his heart to the Creator to make his body consent to enslaving itself to the Creator. What does it mean, what happens when the organs disagree with the prayer, the kind of resistance that’s felt when the prayer is artificial, that it’s not coming from the bottom of the heart? There's a feeling of true resistance of the body to the desire to pray even when you feel the desire of the friends and so on. What do you do?
R. We’ve never felt true resistance to the entrance to spirituality as in the case that we are standing before Lishma. That’s the entrance to true spirituality and perhaps someone is still before that gate, behind that gate for a long distance and someone perhaps is already at the door and yet the resistance has to be felt in a true form. Therefore the deeper we delve into that the more we want to receive Lishma and accordingly we will stand and get closer and demand and the Creator will provide us with the qualities, the vessels of getting closer to Lishma. It's a second nature. As it says taste and see that the Lord is good; without it it’s impossible, without tasting it. So we have to feel how Lishma enters our emotions, our mind, our brain. It fills us in a certain form. It’s the upper light, the upper illumination and then we’ll feel it and understand it.
S. So what do we do with this resistance during the prayer? What’s the advice? What should we do when we feel this true resistance during the prayer?
R. We have to ask, to pray and do it as much as we can together. From that we’ll receive but without letting go of it, without moving away from it.
17. S. (46:52) Could there be times when you can get an illumination if the vessel is not ready for it?
R. There are of course such special times when a person receives a certain illumination and for some moments for a while it raises him above in order to receive. But that's in order to just recognise that there is nevertheless a spiritual force that works on him, that there are other concepts of life from what he knows. This is how bit by bit it comes in various opportunities. The Creator finds the state and place where it’s worthwhile to be revealed to the person a bit more and He does that. It doesn't really depend on us but the more we get closer to each other and pray to be incorporated with each other by that we bring these states of Lishma closer.
18. S. (49:02) If I understand correctly, on the path to Lishma a person goes through a desert. Is it possible to check somehow if you are in the desert?
R. A person needs to feel it in himself that he’s in the desert, that he has no connection with the spiritual world that between him and spirituality there’s a desert and he doesn't have what to fulfill himself with besides corporeal things.
S. It seems very difficult to distinguish the condition of Egypt and desert. And I want to find a way to focus on where you are, especially after this congress, and I can’t figure it out.
R. It will come, it will come for sure but try to make clearer discernments to yourself, to learn what it means to be in Egypt. That if you work for Pharaoh you have everything and in the desert you now have nothing and it's a higher degree than Egypt. We’ll see. It's simply needed to advance, to read more and to connect more.
19. S. (51:10) A question about Lishma and pushing friends ahead of you: when you’re in a Congress or a lesson there’s a feeling that you are ready and willing to push the friends forward and it seems to you that you’re in this soul devotion. There’s a field that allows you to think of the friends, to push them forward to think that they need to be ahead of you, it kind of settles with your mind and your heart. But when the lesson is over you go out and I live close by here, I run quickly to get myself parking outside of my house and I am not willing to give up the smallest thing. Between pushing the friends forward in the lesson and the Congress and a small corporeal concession for your friend the question is at some point does this gap close or does it remains constant, the gap?
R. I can't say, I can't say because each and every one has to learn that for himself. This depends on the root of the soul and all kinds of conditions that each and every one has.
S. So we can't measure it according to my desire to the concessions, corporeal concessions to the friend and some spiritual willingness, there’s no connection between the two?
R. No, no. You want to connect spirituality to corporeality and measure spirituality through corporeality.
Reading Excerpt # 2 (53:07 - 54:37) “The need for man's work..”
20. R. (54:43) That's why it is up to the person to do all that’s possible in the word in order to be rewarded with for the sake of Heaven and then he can give prayer from the bottom of his heart and the Creator hears his prayer.
21. S. (55:05) You reminded us a few times at the prayer has to be together and here we are reading the excerpts and he keeps talking about a single person, where is this togetherness?
R. This is usually not mentioned in the texts but it is clear that a person is in the group and he prays for the group, and he feels himself that he belongs to them.
S. I have to physically be with a friends, it's in my heart, and then I turn to the Creator together?
R. Physically no, actually no, but it's not that you just imagined it to yourself, that that you truly know these people and you nullify towards them and that's how you advance, each one helps the other and we are all together.
S. How to feel the friends more?
R. Without that you will have no Kli.
22. S. (56:23) What's the difference between the overcoming that we do in order to receive before Lishma and after Lishma?
R. Before we enter Lishma, we only overcome our will to receive from small to great; whereas after we enter Lishma, we overcome the will to receive in order to receive, and we move to a desire to receive in order to bestow.
23. S. (57:22) Is the exodus from Egypt the entrance to Lishma or does it happen before that?
R. No, it doesn't happen before, but after.
24. S. (57:48) The condition of the complete prayer, I was never able to understand it, I have all kinds of excuses in my mind, ‘what else I could have done’, another action like this, another action like that, more time with the friends, more prayer. How do we know that we have come to a complete prayer or the place where we can begin to make a complete prayer?
R. That's what the heart should tell the person, not for now yet, not yet.
25. S. (58:45) How does this change happen from seemingly working alone to starting to work together, when you're working together with the friends?
R. A good question: how do you explain that I don't know, it is a matter of feeling, a matter of feeling that you begin to feel that you don't have any other vessel. It is like, say, let's say you have a problem and you're facing it alone and then you suddenly feel that you have another group of strong friends who can be together with you and they are devoted with you to attain the same goal.
S. I simply see how how it is a wall, if you don't cross it the true work does not begin, it is not clear to me how to work from this ‘together’ that there is created between the friends?
R. You want to connect them together in order to break through the wall, can you imagine these things to yourself?
S. Yes.
R. So what are you lacking?
S. I can't say this is truly called ‘together’?
R. I think you have to turn to the Creator and ask that He will be with you in the same action, that He will be with you in the same action and that means with everyone, everyone you include in that work you do.
26. S. (01:01:03) The Creator can do everything, He does everything, is there something He cannot do, only a person can do, only a person could do that action?
R. Yes, He can't do, according to our understanding, anything without a deficiency, without, on behalf of the person, without MAN, without a person who arises to it and without that you can't make any action of correction.
Reading Excerpt #3 twice (01:01:56 - -1:04:03)
27. S. (01:04:12) What does it mean “to feel the vitality in the Torah”?
R. “To feel the vitality of the Torah means to feel the connection between all of us and to feel how in the connection the Creator participates and He fulfills that connection as inner light.
28. S. (01:04:54) Typically in Judaism, in tradition, there is no gift or freeloaders, everything is attained through exertion, and here suddenly he speaks about a gift, an illumination from above, you have nothing to do with it, you're not connected to it. And without any blows, any exertion, without problems and anger, how do you move something?
R. No that can't be, there will be blows until you until you enter Egypt and until you have to be in Egypt and then you escape who knows where, and then, too, you have another another chunk ahead of you so it doesn't just come as a gift, as a surprise.
29. S. (01:06:10) It says in the excerpt it has nothing to do with you, you don't belong to it, you’ll simply make it, it doesn’t matter how much I try to love them, despite I won't be able to improve, to touch it, what do I do with it?
R. You have to do what each and everyone in the world has to do: try and ask the Creator to give you connection to what is written.
S. In fact, I feel a bit disconnected from this subject, I can not cope with it.
R. The topic of Lishma and Lo Lishma is a big problem, it requires several years of being in the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to begin to somehow detect what it is about. Otherwise these rules just sound empty, like, what do they even belong to? So we will wait a bit more but certainly this way we will advance, we will advance. There are many people who don't feel anything about these words, Lo Lishma, Lishma, and there is no one to ask, to ask religious people, they’ll tell you such things that are very far from us.
S. I mostly talked about this thing, the gifts, this ‘free stuff’, free stuff is never actually free?
R. This will fall into place, I understand you, I understand you, soon, soon.
30. S. (01:08:33) You always say that in the ten we work with the friends only through personal example, and you say we can't convey feeling and taste, how do we share with the friends in the ten, “taste and see”?
R. I did not understand what you said, I'm sorry, can you say it in normal language?
S. In your answers, when we ask what is Lishma, you say, I cannot convey a taste or feeling, you can't convey different people.
R. That is what Kabbalists write, too.
S. You say the only help between friends in the ten if I want to push them, is only through personal example, so how do I model ‘taste and see’, as an example?
R. You can't.
31. S. (01:09:48) According to the excerpt, it sound like you can't go from Lo Lishma to Lishma without the reforming Light, so what is up to me?
R. To demand that it comes and influences me, and then they rise from Lo Lishma to Lishma.
S. Meaning there are no actions that I can do?
R. You have actions: you have to connect to the friends, you have to unite with them to single vessel in prayer to the Creator, and all kinds of ways.
S. What is between Lishma and Lo Lishma and restriction, screen, and reflected light?
R. Then we will begin to move to Lishma where there are these components as they exist Aviut, Tzimtzum, Masach, Ohr Hozer, Ohr Pnimi, and so forth, not before.
S. And direction doesn't come before Lo Lishma?
R. No.
S. First, Lo Lishma?
R. First, Lo Lishma then Lishma as an illumination from above that it builds in the will to receive the restriction, screen, reflected light and so forth.
32. S. (01:11:43) Is Lishma a state that starts and increases or is it entrances and exits that you have to renew each time?
R. Renews all the time.
33. S. (01:12:00) Sometimes I feel in a crisis because we're either working for Pharaoh or for the Creator, where is my freedom?
R. Freedom is after a person comes under the restriction, comes out from under the restriction.
34. S. (01:12:28) I hear the questions of the friends trying to understand, to feel what is Lishma, we can't understand Lishma before we experience it, you also said it in your answers. So is there any point to try and feel or we simply work in the group with envy, with examples, where it's clear that it doesn't create Lishma but from the pressure between the effort in the group to do actions to one another, and the ego, this Lishma is created somehow?
R. Not this way, we have to yearn to reach mutual bestowal so much so that it will appear as a natural saying to each and everyone, that the ten exists in such a state, in such an inner attitude of the heart towards each and every heart. And then we have to pray to feel in our attitude the participation of the Creator.
S. I understand what you're saying, nevertheless the student’s question, when he asked if you can give example of Lishma and you said you can't?
R. Because there aren't.
S. Because they aren't in externality, it's something in the heart?
R. Also inside the heart, it is still not there.
S. From the prayer and the efforts gradually the heart begins to soften up, to open up, we begin to feel it, so the examples, what is the purpose of the example when we give examples to one another good deeds and bestowal?
R. According to the external efforts that we want to advertise between us, we thus hold the friends and reinforce and strengthen them, and that's it, one shall help his friend.
S. And example also softens the heart to some extent, so that means when I act before the friends I also work on myself, to soften my heart?
R. Yes, it works this way as well.
35. S. (01:15:20) When we make efforts to connect between us, I especially feel how opposite I am, and from that state I pray to feel the friends, to be there for them, what do we discover on the way there, that we're all opposite?
R. On the way we discover that we depend only on the Creator's help and it is the only thing we depend on, literally.
S. But what do we reach, the connection or the opposite, and from that we pray?
R. We pray to be in connection between us and with Him so that He helps us connect in a true connection, this is called Lishma.
36. S. (01:16:20) What I don't understand is when we say ‘connection between us and from between us to the Creator’, so I don't know what the difference is because the connection between us can only be if each one tries to reach that form of the Creator, meaning mutual bestow without any reward, so what is the difference between and the connection with the Creator, it’s the exact same form?
R. So what?
S. So what is the addition?
R. The addition is what comes first and what comes next.
S. But it's the same form?
R. I don't know what you're talking about, ‘the form’, ‘the form’, that’s, it is a nice word.
S. Can I ask in a different way?
R. I won't answer.
S. Can I ask?
R. No.
Reading Excerpt #4 twice (01:17:24 - 01:20:07)
37. R. According to the extent, according to the intensity of the will to bestow of the lower ones so the upper one may fill him.
38. S. (01:20:21) We know that the biggest distance was in the beginning of creation when He distanced all parts of creation and now it is a law to correct on bringing it closer. Now what we're going through in this process it's only scrutinization of all forms of revelation of the Creator between us. So here we are in an environment that gives us the means to discover that influence of the light in the way of Achishena, hastening the times. And all our scrutinies what we're doing between us, supposedly also come, well that is what I hear, from suffering, people are suffering. How can we be in gratitude because the Creator is really giving us, you see this process from above and you understand and you have the forces to motivate everybody, to lift everybody, and we always have complains, ‘why is it this way, ‘why is it that way’?
R. ‘Why is it this way’, that is clear because this comes to us from our ego, from our will to receive, so our arguments are natural, they come out of the will to receive that are still in us, that still controls us and this is what happens.
S. How can we bring a vessel, first, that is the only thing we can do is to bring the vessel first, to speed up the process and not constantly be at its own pace and wait for the suffering to cause us to connect?
R. To the extent that you will take care of your friends, your questions will grow bigger and it may be that the answers will be bigger as well until you will get the right true answer that will fulfill you, nothing else to do, just keep on coming closer to your friends, it takes time and once you will succeed.
39. S. (01:23:35) It was written about corporeal pleasures and spiritual pleasures in this excerpt, so what do we do when the Creator just drives you crazy about corporeal pleasures?
R. Well this happens to everyone, it happens to everyone, as it is written that until a person truly reaches spirituality, it doesn't, only then he starts feeling the pleasures of the corporeal things, only then the corporeal pleasure start awakening in him. As it is written that, “the flavor of copulation is left for the ones who serve the Creator”, all kinds of verses that is not clear at all but that is how it is written, each have to acknowledge it, to get to know it to a certain extent.
S. So what do we do with this stupidity?
R. Nothing, only strengthen yourself in the group, pray to the Creator and a Creator saves the person from all these states, somehow; but the truth is no one goes through that easily.
40. S. (01:25:31) In the excerpt we just read, it’s written that “the root of the lower one is the will to receive and the prayer called MAN rises up, and then the upper one corrects this MAN and places of the power of the screen, which is the desire to delay the abundance before the lower one knows about himself that his aims to bestow. That is, the upper one bestows upon the lower one the good taste and pleasure in the desire to bestow”. So what does the lower one ask from his will to receive and what does he receive in the end?
R. Hold on, where did you read now?
S. The last part of the excerpt four.
R. Yes, “it follows that the root of the lower one is the will to receive and the prayer called MAN rises up, and then the upper one corrects this MAN and places of the power of the Masach, which is the desire to delay the abundance before the lower one knows about himself that his aims to bestow. That is, the upper one bestows upon the lower one the good taste and pleasure in the desire to bestow”, yes?
S. First of all it seems like there's a lot, a lot, in this excerpt, so I don't want to ask about everything it might be too complex but?
R. No, we're not yet there, we're not in it.
41. S. (01:27:10) So in the state of Lishma I received it as if from the Creator?
R. The fulfillment.
S. Yes.
R. In the state of Lishma I get the fulfillment as if I am the Creator?
S. Right.
R. Alright, yes, yes, you get the fulfillment from the upper lights seemingly as your on the degree of the Creator, that is all right nice.
42. S. (01:27:57) What does it mean that “the upper one corrupts the MAN of the lower one”?
R. The upper one corrects the man of the lower one, yes, because the lower one doesn't really know what to ask about and how to ask, and the upper one, just is in our world like a mother understands her child even he says half a word, just the sound, she already knows what he wants to ask for, so this is how we are with the Creator.
43. S. (01:28:46) What promises the lower one that the upper one will correct his prayer, meaning what has to be included in that prayer in order to get that detaining force of the screen?
R. What should our prayer include: that we in our connection want to reach a screen that protects us from all the thoughts, desires that are evil, and that it will enable us to connect between us so that we all can bestow to the Creator one hundred percent.
44. S. (01:29:35) What does it mean that the Lo Lishma gives the first moving force of the lower one, who does that action?
R. Lo Lishma is something the Creator does for a person so that he will feel that he is in Lo Lishma, not for her sake, without that a person wouldn't understand that he's in Lo Lishma. Lo Lishma is a certain discernment, which is spiritual; if you ask out in the street, people think about themselves that they understand something about the Torah, what Lo Lishma and Lishma means. When I started asking I was told all kinds of answers that Lishma means if someone teaches others, like the teacher at school, that is considered that he is studying Lishma, for her sake. So I stayed with a question, it’s just that inside I felt that this is not the truth there were such years that I was walking around, I didn't know who can answer because I felt that Lo Lishma and Lishma are the source, are the key, but where to get to know about it.
45. S. (01:31:13) So what is the difference between people who work in Lo Lishma to other people who work for a reward?
R. One who is in Lo Lishma knows he’s in Lo Lishma and he is advancing to stay, just like us, that he can cross the boundary and be in Lishma; someone who is not in Lo Lishma, he's not there, he doesn't know at all what that means, he performs actions and he’s told, “later you will get something for it”.
46. S. (01:31:58) I heard you say that a person has to bestow to his ten, what is an action of bestowal towards the ten and how to do it?
R. True actions of bestowal to the ten is when I try to connect them together, that is it, and set an example for them of connection.
47. S. (01:32:37) In the beginning of the lesson you said that Lishma is for the Shechina, for the Divinity.
R. In the name of the Shechina?
S. For the sake of the Divinity?
R. Yes.
S. Until now I thought it was for the Torah?
R. Yes, for the Torah, for the Creator, for the Shechina, yes.
S. What is the difference between Lishma, for the Creator or Lishma, for the Divinity, it’s in male and female, why do we say in female?
R. There are many interpretations to what you're asking: Lishma is for the sake of the Creator and Lishma is for the sake of the Shechina, the Malchut. When the created being performs an action towards the Creator, they are drawn to, how should I say it, they’re planning, composing the Creator, they are building Him, no it's not the right word, this will confuse you.
48. S. (01:34:20) In the previous excerpt he was speaking about when a person reaches his full degree with the Torah, that “with the light of the Torah it brings him to complete form”,so how is the wholeness expressed in his attitude towards his friends?
R. Ask again?
S. In the previous excerpt he was speaking about how from Lo Lishma you reach Lishma to your final qualification, that the light of the Torah qualifies him and then he can go to Lishma. So my question is how does that qualification that he reaches through the light, how is that expressed in his attitude towards his friends, what is that qualification in the attitude towards the friends?
R. He feels his friends as one body and he has to integrated in it, there one will find a connection with the Creator, he can't be in the connection with the Creator, in contact with the Creator, if he's outside the friends, he simply starts feeling that this is the vessel, and this is the fulfillment.
S. Does he feel a greater dependency on the friends, like connection; me, I see that I constantly lose the friends and I also think I can do it in front of the Creator alone, so how does that connection work, how does the connection with the with friends, how does it obligate him and make him go in that wholeness?
R. You’re trying to say something but I don't have grasp it, what the center of your question is?
S. What I'm trying to say is that we're constantly searching for our direction towards the Creator through the friends, right?
R. Well, because that's the vessel.
S. Exactly, in the previous excerpt, he was speaking about the qualification that a person reaches his limits, he filled the cup, and then he goes to Lishma. So in that qualification, how does he go inward and that, connect it, to the friends, how do you create the wholeness, that qualification with the friends?
R. By the Creator focusing all the prayers and filling them, that it’s it, it's not something a person can do.
49. S. (01:38:17) The person is the will to receive, right?
R. Yes.
S. As much as we act that we are bestowing we always want to receive more, when does the state come that when you ask to receive that the Creator will give you bestow in advance?
R. I do not understand you, when you want to receive and you're not asking for bestowal, nothing, just like an ordinary person?
S. No not like an ordinary person, we're asking for the quality of bestowal but inside, deeply we’re the will to receive, the truth is we're asking to receive more, so when does the Creator take this request to receive, I don't know how to say it, correct it or something and brings back bestowal instead of that?
R. That is His work, that is His business, you will never know about that, each one has his own time and it doesn't depend on you.
S. So what does it mean here that in the excerpt, it says that the upper one corrects the MAN of the lower one, that’s our MAN?
R. That's already MAN that something else, it's like two degrees that depend on each other.
S. How can you compare that to us?
R. We're not there yet.
S. So what is our request, what’s the main part of our work when we’re buried under our own will to receive, what is our work?
R. Our work is to connect together in the ten as one man in one heart and to ask of the Creator to give us proximity to the force of bestowal, coming closer to it.
S. So why doesn't He give, we all day long we are praying?
R. I don't know, complaints are not for me.
S. So just to keep on going, that is my work, to keep on going?
R. I don't know, search.