Morning Lesson December 22, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot. #10
Reading Item 10. (00:10) “Come and see the words of the sage…”
1. S. (07:55) I read it now, not because I am in a bad mood, but because he finished me off completely! It’s as if despairing me from the whole work, look at what he says to me. It says that the Torah is not made but for the men of heart. So, I'm asking what's true labor if this is what's written here, what's true labor?
R. I guess the opposite of that, read what's written and read the opposite.
S. Look what he says, know the Creator was not given but for people of heart.
R. Look at this, you have to scrutinize, but if you don't have people of the heart then there's no one to give the Torah to.
S. What are people of heart?
R. Those are people who feel and understand, can control, and work with the heart.
S. Then he says that the Taamim is the soul, and if the person doesn't understand the Taamim, one’s entire effort is in vain, meaning whatever one does here doesn't mean anything.
R. Wait, wait, so what do you mean that it's worth? We wish to come closer to a state where we influence our souls and bring them closer to the Creator.
S. Then he continues, it is as though one exerts oneself to count the letters and words in the medicine book, no cure will come from this labor.
R. Of course, he is not using correctly the medicine.
S. What does it mean to come here and to learn in a true way and not to feel like a man of heart, what is that concept?
R. Meaning, first of all, you know that you came here in order to correct your desire from an egoistic desire to an altruistic one.
S. Nice, how do we do that in the Ten, how do we do that? A friend asked me here and I've spoken to you about this before. People are afraid to expose themselves, they're quite closed up. If you say a word then he gets offended, and he's not ready to respond, there’s this fear of not getting into another person and not battling like this in the Ten.
R. Why fight, we need to connect, we don't need to fight.
S. Great, so how do we connect, tell me; I'm sitting in a Ten, how do I connect with my friend, how do I do that?
R. Let's, first of all, talk about how if we don't connect, we don't come to the revelation of the Creator, we don't connect with the Creator.
S. Okay, I justify to you completely, how do we do that, how do I connect with the friend? He's closed, he doesn't want to speak to me, he's offended. He gets up and leaves, he doesn't want to speak to me, he's telling me he wants to leave and join another Ten. He's escaping, I'm remaining alone at the table, what do I do?
R. You have work to do.
S. Great, how do you recommend that I do this work? I've been told before that, you come here, you get offended and then he doesn’t even turn on the screen, he's sitting there in the dark. I tell him, turn on your screen, respect your friends in the Ten, respect them, why don't you open your screen? He doesn't and he stops coming. How do we, now it's also a very bad period and we need these people, we need these Tens, we need to do the work. We need to overcome this state, so how do we do that, how can we succeed to do that?
R. We will succeed, nevertheless, and only using the method of Baal HaSulam and Rabash.
S. Can you give me the edge of the road a bit of how to do that?
R. To come closer to one another, come closer.
S. That's a problem, how do we come closer to each other?
R. And stop looking at me, you need to try to look at the friend and see him as close and as on your path where only in the connection between you reveal the place for the revelation of the Creator.
S. What should I do, a friend of my friend doesn't come, what should I do, he’s in my Ten. Many friends don’t come, they come, they don’t come, what should I do, throw him out of the Ten, convince him to come, to beg him, to kiss him, what should I do?
R. First of all, to continue, to keep going with whoever remains. Again, when I came to Rabash there were five or six people there, in total, and they would sit there and study. And suddenly after a year or two, another person came in the morning, and I was sitting next to Rabash preparing the tape recorder and I was getting him coffee. And he's whispering to me, he hasn't been here maybe ten years. A few minutes later, another person comes in, Rabash whispers to himself, well, that's it they started to come back, they started to come back. Well, you know, what to do? You simply need to continue; you are delivering yourself to the Creator. I do everything that I can, this is the group, and the Creator brought me here. I'm staying here, I'm connecting with the friends as best I can, as much as I can do it. With the men, with the women, with the children, everything the society recommends to me to do, I try to do, that's it.
S. That's the thing that brings me to the question: What should we do in the Ten in order to overcome, succeed, awaken, and come to adhesion with the Creator?
R. In order to bring us closer, the Creator always cools our hearts, He cools it off. He makes it indifferent to the friends, to our study, to our teachers, Baal HaSulam, Rabash. That's how it is, so from within ourselves we will raise the importance of those things.
S. I want to ask you, people study here, and we have been here for twenty years, even though I've been studying for twenty years, I haven't succeeded to do this overcoming and not making myself escape from the chair. So, what are we lacking, where are the men here? Meaning we know the work, but we will not escape, but we will sit here, even argue with our friends, we know that we have our common goal, why is this escape? Why do people not overcome this thing and not escape, not to close the screen, not to be in the darkness, how can we overcome that?
R. Why didn't you run off?
S. I have escaped a few times from the work, and also from my wife. I escaped and I came back because I understood that if you don't do the work then you are just going to die on the outside. You'll come as a dog, you'll come through another incarnation; I don't want people here to suffer as I’ve suffered, and I suffered. So, I asked myself what can I do together with you, together with the friends in order to truly, finally bring myself not to escape from the work, not to close my screen in the middle of the zoom. And not to escape, not to get offended, where is this wall?
R. I understand you; I also went through all these things.
S. What are we doing in order to succeed already?
R. What are we doing?
S. What else is lacking?
R. We're lacking persistence and perseverance.
S. For twenty, twenty-five years?
R. Mister, if you want, we will fill your time with all kinds of matters of commandments that you will carry them out, physically, so you at the end of each day will be able to count how much you've done. And you'll be proud that you didn’t spend, didn’t waste another day.
S. Because he said what the mind doesn't do, time will, you always say that.
R. Right?
S. What's with time, people have studied here for fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years, so what’s happening? I know people who are not here but what about the rest, what's with the rest of them, there's many people here together.
R. I'm not responsible for that, I bring everyone the study, the general study, to everyone that everyone; I don't meet anyone four eyes, private, or anything like that.
S. Maybe it'll help, these four eyes.
R. I saw it myself as well.
S. What does it mean?
R. What Rabash did, he related to me of course, and how. We would travel with him for two or three days to the North or other places, to spend the night, to study. We would take food with us, and does that mean that he didn't invest in me?
S. What does it depend on me, on each and every one of us?
R. I offer an equal approach to everyone.
S. There's, I'm not talking about your efforts, that's an example, but does it depend on each and every one in their soul?
R. Each one according to his desire, according to his soul, he must simply open his soul more and more.
S. Okay, thank you for the explanation.
R. We're advancing, we're advancing, and other than that, in our time, I can't see there is any other place where you can develop internally, externally yes.
2. S. (20:08) What does it mean that according to your place, you need to reveal your soul and that is why you came here?
R. According to your place at the Tree of Life in the general soul, where you are and where you need to get to in order to reach connection and correction.
3. S. (20:36) When I see the faces of friends it awakens all kinds of emotions, fear, and rejection and with that, I seek the Creator each day. How can I connect with their hearts and annul or cancel all of my thoughts, all of these images that I see?
R. That is what we are discussing, we are learning about this, how each and every one must come closer to the other. To feel that our hearts are getting closer to one another, and they are connecting. I understand it is difficult because from that one let us say, you are in all kinds of different places, some of them very distant from one another although we speak one language. There are those who live close to one another, but they don't understand the language of the friends, in all kinds of situations. We are making these corrections by trying to overcome everything we can in the connection between us. This is the call of the hour, everyone around the world needs to be closer to one another.
4. S. (22:20) We receive guidance on how to connect in order to awaken the heart. Now we make efforts but very quickly we reveal that we have reached a certain boundary. That we cannot soften the heart more than that, and we try here and there, but there are more and more places that you stop. Where you find that you cannot move more than a few basic efforts, and then the heart softens more when you enter into the study, when you read something together, or when you come to the lesson together, or when you engage in the sources that is where the heart softens more. What is the correct balance between these two parts in order to invest more in them? Can you reach a connection without studying the sources, for instance?
R. The sources to read, I don't know; when I was with Rabash we studied only from The Study of the Ten Sefirot, TES, without any additions. And the Shamati articles that Rabash gave me the manuscript and I read it, that is it. Not the Torah itself, although I studied it when I was younger before that. So, neither the Torah nor, I don't know, the main thing we need is to study. It’s what can influence our desires, we should all come closer and become available, free to receive the Creator.
S. I meant our sources where they speak about the work of the heart, these sources of Baal HaSulam, Rabash, mainly. These sources influence the heart to a higher degree than my own efforts to reach connection with the friends. I can look and do all the efforts in order to invert my feelings toward the friends but in the Ten, we influence each other and give us the force to make that transition to the love of others to the love of friends. That comes mainly from the advice and the force that are in the advice of our Kabbalists, our sources. So how much emphasis should there be on reading or is that incorrect? That all of our efforts are just in the force of the person without receiving the advice that he gets from the reading?
R. The important thing is to carry out actions of connection with the friends, that is what I understand. And among this, you have reading together, studying together, reading of the articles or parts of the articles, and studying together. The rest of the text of our teachers, well, meaning parts of the Zohar and parts of The Ten Sefirot.
5. S. (26:48) Taamim, flavors revealed through the group through connection and common study or is there a personal matter here as well?
R. No, there isn't in the Wisdom of Kabbalah any room for individual work or personal work. Everything is to be group work because we wish to unite unified hearts of the soul in each and every one into one collective soul, which is also a part of the general unified soul of Adam HaRishon, that is why we study in this way.
Reading Item 11. (28:07) “According to these words, our eyes...”
6. R. (32:00) He thinks that through these questions, we will be able to get deeper into the problem that he wants to, in any case, open to us.
Reading Continues. (32:12) “We must understand these two conducts…”
7. R. (37:08) Everything is understood and humiliating, what can you do?
8. S. (37:20) I didn't quite understand the matter of mercy, righteousness, and truth met, righteousness and peace kissed?
R. We will get into that later.
S. But all in these first seven questions he speaks the truth that was thrown to the earth, can we scrutinize that?
R. We'll scrutinize that according to how much we can delve into the land and through what and then we'll talk about it. What do we gain from the truth where precisely what we need to bring out.
S. Truth is the will to receive, that is what controls the person that is the truth, right?
R. Yes.
S. When he tosses it to the earth, he says he comes to the work on the corrections of his will to receive?
R. Let’s say. What is written here that you don’t understand?
S. I don't understand anything.
R. You'll need to sit at home or somewhere and read it a few times until it becomes clearer to you. I'm sorry but in such a way it is impossible to scrutinize.
Reading Item 12. (38:50) “We discern two opposites in the ten Sefirot...”
9. S. (44:59) It says, therefore we need men in this world that in his smallness he exists in the Sitra Achra, and he inherits their vessels, and he passes and connects to the matter of Holiness. What does it mean that men of this world when he is small, he exists in the Sitra Achra?
R. That is the will to receive, we only speak about it. At one time it is in bestowal upon the will to receive in order to receive it is under that influence, and the other time it is under the influence of the upper light which brings it to the intention to bestow.
S. Then in him these two opposites connect?
R. Yes.
10. S. (45:57) He says that we need to understand these two opposite governances that are opposite completely. At this time, we feel mainly the confusion orders, the war on the outside, and all that, so should we understand from here that we receive reality through the system of the Sitra Achra instead of Holiness? Is there a reason for everything we see?
R. I wouldn't put it that way, I don't know what is happening here on the outside, but something is in that.
S. I'm asking because, in the previous item, you said we have to understand these two governances and then he explains them, so is this the explanation for why we perceive two opposite governances?
R. Yes.
S. What is the correction there?
R. Correction is that we rise above these two governances into one force, which is always good.
S. Is this the correction opposite of our reality ultimately?
R. Yes, that is all we need.
11. S. (47:21) Is Shechina the meaning of Truth?
R. You can say that.
12. S. (47:33) Is the main request to the Creator to unite everyone?
R. Yes.
13. S. (47:43) You told us hundreds of times about dissemination that we are the ones stepping on the pipeline on the conduit that people come to us complaining that we are not disseminating it. If you look at the world, people have all these complaints to Israel in their externality and also internality. This demand to give back the land, you don't deserve it. What can we do at this point, right now?
R. Promote why we are here, that we are holding this place where in this place humanity needs to reach correction of the world.
S. When you stand before a person who is completely convinced of his opinion and he is entirely against you, is there something you can do or say or are you only working internally on the connection?
R. I have nothing else to explain, nothing more to explain because we have reached a state where they call this area the land of Israel and it is not the land of Israel. The land of Israel never existed on the planet, and we truly are divorced from here Seven Nations that were here, and they told us that we are robbers, that we are these robbers. What we need to show them that what we do here is we save the world really, the whole world if they agree, but if we will not do that than our entire work is really worth nothing and we disappear.
S. Is the correct way to show it to the connection between us here?
R. The connection between us here in the land of Israel and also to show everyone that is an example for all the nations because we truly are an example of all the nations. There is no such Nation of Israel, there is none. Therefore, we invite everyone to connect with us because you have the prayer for all the nations. My house will be the house of prayer for all the nations.
14. S. (51:18) Tomorrow morning the men from the entire Israeli Kli will come here, all those who will come will gather here, and also in the afternoon the women and the men from that Israeli Kli will all be here together our home. How can we take advantage of this Shabbat in order to grow stronger between us, to bestow favorably, and to the war, and humanity to turn it into a breakthrough, a spiritual breakthrough?
R. Well that all depends on the direction of the hearts, how we aim our hearts at connection. There needs to be drinks, meals, songs, and discussions and in such a way we will come closer to each other.
S. How do we turn a lesson into a special lesson? What turns the lesson into something greater, more important than just another lesson, tomorrow we have another lesson but how to treat it not as another lesson but as a special lesson where we can make a leap?
R. That all depends on the public, on the audience that I can press a button here I have a few buttons and you think I can press a button and activate the hearts?
S. What activates the audience, what button do we have here?
R. To bring the hearts closer together and in them to try to lower themselves and give a place for the upper light to fill our hearts, to elevate us, all of us the whole world, all the friends around the whole world.
15. S. (53:52) When the Creator cools the heart what should be the reaction of the warm-up of the heart?
R. The warming up of the heart is only through bringing the hearts together to bring them close together, then each one warms up the other. What we do instinctively, look at animals and look at how much they want to be close to each other to enter into one another as if.
S. What is his action when you bring the hearts closer? How do you bring your heart closer?
R. I convince myself that without my friends I cannot reach my corrections. That it's really impossible so I have no choice, I need to be more connected with them.
S. I just heard you say earlier that we have an opportunity, each one of us has an opportunity to open up his soul. How do we take all these opportunities that we have? We also have tomorrow, how to leverage those opportunities the Creator is giving us in order to open the soul?
R. It is just to warm up the heart to be closer to each and every one. I have no other advice.
16. S. (55:52) I heard a question yesterday and I heard him asking the friends about buttons and no buttons, I want to tell you the feeling that we all have. We feel very bad about what happened in the South very severely, and now why am I saying this to you? I remember a few years ago, eight to ten years ago you came and said that this light is approaching slowly like a spaceship until we are going to feel it in our flesh, I remember those words as if they were yesterday. And I asked you what do you mean, and you said a lot of light will be revealed and the question is what are we going to do with it? That's the feeling meaning we feel full of light, a ton of light and I'm asking you, is this what is causing these frictions, this blow of light? I'm asking how we can, like tomorrow you invited all these people and today here, how do we create a force of resistance because a lot of darkness is revealed. How do we manage to bring the light from within the darkness because the light is approaching, approaching, we feel terrible pressure?
R. Look, in the Wisdom of Kabbalah, there are a few parts. There are those who escaped to the study of TES, all kinds of its parts, and The Tree of Life, and they see themselves as it is possible to drag along in that way and there are those who don’t. I do not know what to recommend to you. It seems to me that you should again try to scrutinize the current state in the world to convince yourselves to connect.
S. Yes, we feel it, we feel bad, I'm telling you we are sitting here, and I'm seeing people who do not study Kabbalah with tears in their eyes. You see the mothers, the parents, and people who lost their children, your soul is crying, and everyone is feeling the need. Suddenly I heard people calling Psalms. People never read Psalms, my neighbor, a paratrooper came back from Gaza and I heard her reading Psalms, maybe there is something in their internality that they demand something for which they never had demand for. She's reading Psalms, she never knew what Psalms are. I’m telling you there is a demand, there is a tremendous deficiency for something, that until today we didn't need as we call it, the desire for the Creator, and there's a huge deficiency in the people. How can we channel it, bring it to a point and you say, well there aren't many deficiencies but let's see how to channel it in the direction of the Creator. There's a great group here and we know how to do it more or less, but how do we ourselves channel it even further? Each one has a deficiency and desire, each one is coming from home, and they see what is happening. How do we do it, that is what a friend asked, how do we channel it in one direction, all of us tomorrow for example so it will help the people?
R. We will do it.
S. How, what do I need to do?
R. Think, the main thing is our work and thought, how can we unite our hearts and bring such unity that that unity will swallow everyone.
S. To pray together tomorrow, to have a whole and common prayer to concentrate on something specific?
R. We need to focus on something specific. The thing we should focus on is only connection to give a place from the Creator.
S. Only connection between us.