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

Daily Lesson June 4, 2025.

Part 2: Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #2

Reader: Okay, we'll continue to a lesson from the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. This is a recorded lesson from the Tenth of May 2006. Baal HaSulam, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 2.

Reading: (00:07) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #2

As we have said, the will to receive is innately included in the thought of creation with all its values, along with the great abundance He had planned to delight them and impart upon them. 

M. Laitman: This means that if we're speaking about the thought of creation, about how the Creator relates to the created beings, also the upper light. Then we're already talking about the fact that the created being is incorporated there. It doesn't matter in which form, as potential, as a beginning: a seed, a nucleus, a seed that develops. But there cannot be the thought of creation, that His self is relating to something, if the will to receive is not included in there.

Reading: (00:59) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #2

And know that these are the light and vessel that we discern in the upper worlds. They necessarily come tied together and cascade together degree by degree. And the extent to which the degrees descend from the light of His face and depart from Him is the extent of the materialization of the will to receive contained in the abundance. We could also state the contrary: To the extent that the will to receive in the abundance materializes, it descends degree by degree, as written below, to the lowest of all places, where the will to receive is fully materialized.

M. Laitman: This means that from above, from His Self, Atzmuto, when the thought of creation emerges, the thought of creation to do good to His creations, it already has within it the will to receive, this thought. This thought that exists in the will to receive, it's called light, and the will to receive is called a Kli, vessel. And then Baal HaSulam says that they are distanced from the Creator, they move away from His Self. They come out of Him and move away, and these degrees of distancing that are mutual, where the light seemingly becomes weaker, more crude and the will to receive. Or more faint, and the will to receive becomes more coarse, more crude, and they are tied together, they cascade together. On what does this cascading depend? This cascading depends on both of them, He says. It's according to how the light is materialized, it becomes weaker, so the will to receive becomes more coarse. According to how the will to receive becomes more coarse, the light in it becomes weaker, more faint. 

So, which is the reason, and which is the outcome, the cause and consequence? It's both of them, he says. We can also state the contrary, to the extent that the will to receive and the abundance materializes, it descends degree by degree, etc.. To the extent that degrees descend from the light of the face of the Creator and depart from Him is the extent of the materialization of the will to receive contained in the abundance. So, as the degrees come down, the will to receive becomes more materialized. So, it doesn't materialize by itself, but according to the descent of the degrees. Or we can say the opposite, according to the extent that the will to receive, the abundance materializes, it descends degree by degree to the lowest of all places, where the will to receive is fully materialized. This means that there is a matter of – I'll say it again, maybe I said it imprecisely, and I want you to understand. So, in the light that expands and in the vessel that expands, both of them together, right, in the vessel and the light, Kli and Or, they have within them, let's say, a gene or records, Reshimot. Even though there are no records yet, there is something called the records of the degrees. This is called the plan of creation or the thought of creation, those records of the degrees that they have inside. According to this, the light and the vessel must descend to the lowest place through 125 degrees. In which, they become more materialized, the light becomes more murky, the vessel becomes more coarse, what is the reason, who is the one who is causing it? The inner plan that exists in the degrees, this is what it says, that they are necessarily tied together and they cascade together. To the extent that they cascade down, the light becomes weaker and the vessel becomes more coarse. 

Reading: (06:07) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #2

This place is called “the world of Assiya,” the will to receive is considered “man’s body,” and the abundance one receives is considered the measure of “vitality in that body.” 

M. Laitman: This means that it cascades and reaches the world of Assiya, the world of Assiya. The will to receive is considered man's body, meaning the vessel down here – this is considered as a Guf [body]. And the abundance that it receives is considered a measure of the vitality of life in this body, so the abundance is called, Chayim, life; this is called the world of Assiya. The Guf is the desires, God forbid think otherwise – that it's our physiological body, our beastly body, and life means what revives the desires. What revives the desires. Why is it called life? Because in this life, light, because life, Chayim, also means light; but it's light where he doesn't feel it's a source, this is why it's called life. So, what revives the desires is called life, and the desires are desires that are not directed towards the Creator. If they were directed towards the Creator, then these desires would be called Klipa, shell, that it wants to receive specifically from the Creator. But because it has no direction, then it is simply called Guf, body. 

Later on, there will be a holy Guf, body that is already directed to receive in order to bestow somehow. Meaning this connection or concealment here, it is under concealment. And in the state of concealment, it is called, Guf, body, and life. God forbid, we should not think that here we have before us some person that we are familiar with in such a form, right? This is Behema, a beast. That's clear? If we are relating to this physiology, to this body, this piece of protein, we're talking about desires, always about the desires. I have within me desires that now are the subject with which I'm working and not with my body. And so, there is a difference between how we relate to the existence of landlords, who think that we need to perform certain actions with our body. And how the way that we relate to our inner desires, that we need to correct them, the desires. And it's not by working with our hands and legs, or with our mouth, what we call Mitzvot, commandments, but the correction of our desires. Even our small desires, even those that are not directed towards the Creator, but we want to direct them towards the Creator. That is already called it, we're doing the Mitzvot, the commandments, this is the difference between the Torah, called the reforming light, the light of Torah, and the Mitzvah [commandment], which is called, or which means the correction of the desire. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:45) It's written that the will to receive materializes to its full extent, what does it mean? 

M. Laitman: The will to receive, the desire, that it materializes means that it is disconnected from the Creator. It loses its root. What exactly does it lose? What exactly it wants, what it wants to be filled with. This is considered that it materializes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:13) What does it mean that they're bound together, as he says? 

M. Laitman: They're tied together, the light and the vessel, they're bound together. What does it mean that they're tied or bound together? That you cannot distinguish between them. Just as they come from above, so they together become smaller, or materialize. As they were in the world of Ein Sof, where they could not be distinguished, you can distinguish between them in the same way they descend and descend and descend in such a way that they're adapted to each other, the light, and a vessel. So, you can say that the way this one materializes, the other one materializes, or the way the other one materializes, this one materializes. 

Student: It's difficult to grasp because we say that in spirituality, if there's equivalence of form, then it's one thing. So, is that the same thing, is it a state of equivalence of form? 

M. Laitman: When it descends from above downwards, then we have smaller and smaller measures of the light and the vessel that, of course, they are in equivalence of form between them. This is why it is considered that they materialize together and that they descend together. Let's say the vessel, the Kli is in the world of Beria, or the vessel is in the world of Atzilut, in the world of Adam Kadmon. So, in every place, the vessel has a degree of equivalence of form with the light that according to this equivalence of form, it fills the vessel. Then it is considered that they're bound together. If the light will not fill the vessel according to how the vessel equalizes the light, if they are not bound together, it would not be considered that they exist somewhere on the spiritual ladder.

Reading: (13:15) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #2

It is similar in other creatures in this world. Thus, the only difference between the upper worlds and this world is that as long as the will to receive incorporated in His abundance has not fully materialized, it is regarded as still being in the spiritual worlds, above this world. Once the will to receive has fully materialized, it is regarded as being in this world. 

M. Laitman: What creatures in this world? What does it mean, creatures, where the will to receive takes on all kinds of forms that are called, creatures. Are we nevertheless talking about the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking that we see? No, we're talking about creation. Or a creature called the will to receive that takes on different forms of desire. In a state of concealment of the body and the life in it. We're not talking about the still, which is let's say, rocks, and the vegetative, which is let's say, trees or grass, or an animate, which is all kinds of animals and the speaking, which is a human being. But rather, he can take these names according to the language of the branches and use them to call the forms of the will to receive. This means that the world of Assyia is not the world that we feel in our five corporeal senses. The world of Assiya is a spiritual world. 

The wisdom of Kabbalah never speaks with even one word about what we discover in our five bodily senses, our beastly senses. This is called the imaginary world, we don't talk about it, it does not exist in the spiritual sense. It exists only in the beastly sense, and it does not change. We can take this Guf and the life in it that I drew here, we can raise them to spiritual degrees, to the highest spiritual degrees. And along with that, the person that I drew down here as a beast will remain together with my existence that I'm also at the highest degree. But my body does not change, I need to give it the same food, and the same things in order for it to exist and live. Along with the fact that my spiritual vessel with the spiritual light can be at the highest degree, in adhesion with the Creator. And this beastly body is completely unrelated to my work. A person must live inside his desires to diagnose them, to sort them and correct them. We're only talking about the desire. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:05) You wrote there, a light that doesn't feel its source. Is there a light that does feel the source? 

M. Laitman: What does it mean, our life on the lowest possible spiritual degree? Now I have desires. Let's say I am now in the world of Assiya, not my body but my inner me, my inner self. So, I feel my desires, all kinds of desires, these desires are not directed towards the Creator – I don't know Him, I don't know Him; I don't know who He is, what He is. These desires, something spiritual revives them. I'm not talking about my desires to fill my belly like a beast, right? I'm not talking about the human desires, which is money, honor, knowledge. I'm not talking about desires that have to do with this body called, the beast, where we have the bodily, physical desires, and we have human desires, right? Physical means food, sex, family, let's say, and human, as we said before, it's money, honor, and knowledge. I'm not talking about those. These relate to my beast. 

These desires that I'm talking about, that I have within me as my inner Guf, with my inner life. These are desires that are searching for something higher than what this beast is looking for. So, those have no desire that is directed towards the Creator, I don't feel Him, I don't know Him. This is why it is considered that he's under concealment. So, I'm talking, let's say, about the point in a heart. I'm talking about a vessel that is so small that once it was adhered to the Creator, and now it became so small that it has lost its connection with the Creator to the point that there is just minimal life there, minimum. This is what he's telling us.