The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) March 1, 2025.
Part 2 Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 2. Shechina [Divinity] in Exile
Reader: We are going to read the article "Shamati 2".
Reading: (00:21) Shamati, 2. Shechina [Divinity] in Exile
The Zohar says, "He is the Shochen [Dweller], and She is the Shechina [Divinity]." We should interpret its words: It is known that regarding the upper light, it is said that there is no change, as it is written, "I the Lord did not change." All the names and appellations relate only to the Kelim [vessels], which is the will to receive included in Malchut—the root of creation. From there it hangs down to this world, to the created beings.
All those discernments, beginning with Malchut, the root of the creation of the worlds, through the creatures, are named Shechina. The overall correction is for the upper light to shine in them in utter completeness.
The light that shines in the Kelim is named Shochen, and the Kelim are generally named Shechina. In other words, the light dwells inside the Shechina. This means that the light is called Shochen because it dwells within the Kelim, that is, the Kelim in general are called Shechina.
Before the light shines in them in utter completeness, we name that time, "a time of corrections." This means that we make corrections so that the light will shine in them in completeness. Until then, that state is called "Shechina in Exile."
This means that there is still no wholeness in the upper worlds. Below, in this world, there should be a state where the upper light is within the will to receive. This correction is deemed receiving in order to bestow.
Meanwhile, the will to receive is filled with ignoble and foolish things that do not make a place where the glory of heaven can be revealed. This means that where the heart should be a tabernacle for the light of the Creator, the heart becomes a place of waste and filth. In other words, ignobility captures the whole of the heart.
This is called "Shechina in the dust." It means that she is lowered to the ground, and each and every one loathes matters of Kedusha [holiness], and there is no desire whatsoever to raise her from the dust. Instead, they choose ignoble things, and this causes the sorrow of the Shechina by not giving her a place in the heart that will become a tabernacle for the light of the Creator.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (05:04) He writes, we make corrections for the light to shine on them in wholeness.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How do you make a correction?
M. Laitman: Probably, through connection between us. We expand the vessels, establish the vessels, raise the vessels, in which the light previously couldn't shine, and now it can shine.
Student: Practically, a person knows that he deviated, he harmed. Those are rights. He chose things that cause the sorrow of divinity, of the Shechina. From this point, he knows. He's aware. He feels. From this point, he wants to correct, he wants to change.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, what is it? An action, a change? What is the change here?
M. Laitman: These are actions that, gradually, he feels where he has flawed or blemished the wholeness of the Shechina, and then he tries each time to correct it. And his part in that vessel becomes corrected.
Student: Does it have to be a change that is expressed in the whole state, in all of the perception? That's the correction, that there's a change?
M. Laitman: Yes. Well, not every change is a correction, but every correction is a change.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:11) What's the difference between the dweller and the Shechina?
M. Laitman: The dweller is the one who dwells inside the Shechina and shines in her. The Shechina is the vessel that receives or welcomes the dweller and is filled and enjoys him shining in her.
Student: How can we, from our place, understand this connection between them?
M. Laitman: I don't know. Usually, we sympathize with the Shechina, with the vessels of Malchut.
Student: So, what does it mean on our behalf, the Shechina, the divinity?
M. Laitman: Will to receive, which is corrected to work in order to bestow, and therefore can receive the upper light in order to bestow, and this is what shines in it.
Student: This is the will to receive of a person, a private person?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Can we say that there's a will to receive of a Ten?
M. Laitman: There is the will to receive of the Ten, if there is.
Student: And then we have to connect to it in order to come closer to this thing called Shechina?
M. Laitman: Now, if they can, ten people, who want to make of themselves a Ten, then they connect among them and unite among them, so that out of the common desire that they have, it will bestow upon the Creator.
Student: That mutual desire, each one feels it in a different way.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But they still call it something common.
M. Laitman: Yes, that's why it's common.
Student: So, what's common about it?
M. Laitman: The Creator.
Student: So, the fact that there's a tendency to reveal the Creator, that's what makes it common?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So from that, what can we say that it's the Shechina?
M. Laitman: They connect together, and because they connect together, they come to a state called “Shechina”, where the upper light can be revealed.
Student: So, each one should put aside his personal desires and connect to the common desire.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And there, what is a dweller? Now that there's a common desire.
M. Laitman: The upper light dwells inside the Shechina, inside these vessels.
Student: He gives each one the confidence, the answers. What does he give that dweller?
M. Laitman: Yes, relatively.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:41) He writes about two states here. One is called the “Shechina in exile”, and one is called “Shechina in the dust”. What's the difference?
M. Laitman: With respect to the receiver, there are those who feel that they have a connection with the general, the common Malchut, that it shines, but it shines like the Shechina in exile, or even like the Shechina in the dust.
Student: What's stronger, what's more advanced, if there is such a thing?
M. Laitman: There is, it is the Shechina in the dust.
Student: Because it feels lower?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It feels more coarse, desires?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So in the beginning, we have to feel that the divinity is in exile?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Meaning, in general, that there is no connection with the Creator, something like that?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, where does the Ten come in here, in divinity in exile?
M. Laitman: All our desires, by wanting to connect them, and bring them to the Creator, to fill them, and enjoy them, this is called the Shechina.
Student: All of our desires that connect together?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: For this action, we need the Creator, or is this our actions?
M. Laitman: For this action, we need the Creator. Of course, there is no action in spirituality that we can do. But the Creator does everything.
Student: The Creator does it, but we raise the plea.
M. Laitman: Okay, yes.
Student: So, the desire to connect already gives the Creator the opportunity?
M. Laitman: Well, we'll keep scrutinizing it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:54) He writes that the will to receive is filled with lowly, worthless things that won't let the glory of the Heavens be revealed.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What to do when the heart is filled with waste and filth?
M. Laitman: Ask for correction.
Student: And in a worse state, when a person tries to get rid of the waste in his heart, once and again, and it doesn't help, it doesn't let go of him. And he starts agreeing with that state already. How to come out of it?
M. Laitman: Don't accept it. How can he accept it?
Student: I'm starting to get used to it. Maybe it's part of me.
M. Laitman: So what? At some point it will be different.
Student: How does a person not get despaired by not seeing changes?
M. Laitman: Maybe, in a thousand years.
Student: What can hold that filthy heart for a thousand years, just to keep going?
M. Laitman: There is no choice. What are you looking at me? I have no other answer. A person has to be absolutely lost. And then he comes to the Creator, and with his last bit of strength, falls and asks for help.
Student: So, that's a tendency. A person has to see how he gets lower and lower and lower.
M. Laitman: No, no, you don't need to go to the abyss or to go down there. Maybe before.
Student: Before, a person feels lost, does he have any forces to make any change, or just prayers, worthless prayers?
M. Laitman: No, it can be. It can be not futile. There's no such thing as something disappearing, being lost. No. It always complements.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:13) We have a goal. So, we are unwilling to wait a thousand years. We don't want to wait another day. We understand that everything depends on the importance of the goal.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And the places where we feel that we are falling are in simple actions, corporeal ones, day-to-day actions. And the results of these actions out of our common goal should bring us closer internally. The conflicts we have between us in these corporeal actions, these conflicts push us apart internally. Maybe, that's the question. How, at the moment of truth, we are in a workshop, in workshops and meetings, assembly of friends, we talk about beautiful things, high and lofty things, but in day-to-day activities, that's where we fail. The pride takes over, the ego inflates.
M. Laitman: What's the question?
Student: In these points of the everyday life.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And that's where the result of our work is felt.
M. Laitman: Pray about it. Everything is corrected by prayer. When you feel that such qualities, desires, thoughts, states are revealed in you, so pray about them, bring them to the Creator and ask for correction upon them.
Student: Is this prayer, personal prayer or is it something that...
M. Laitman: Personal, common, that you'll see onward.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:33) He writes that there is a sorrow of the Shechina because he didn't give it a place in the heart. What does it mean to give the Shechina a place in the heart?
M. Laitman: That you feel that uncorrected vessels in your heart.
Student: Feel uncorrected vessels in your heart? But the heart, its default state is that it's not corrected.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, you seemingly feel the Shechina in the heart if the heart is not corrected.
M. Laitman: Okay.
Student: So why, as he writes, there is no place for the light of the Creator to be? He writes, instead of the heart being a place for the light of the Creator, it becomes a place of filth. So, that's what I'm asking about.
M. Laitman: What?
Student: How does it become a tabernacle for the light of the Creator?
M. Laitman: By the corrections that you want to feel with your heart. The Creator.
Student: What does it mean to change the heart? It's like a different heart. It's not the same heart.
M. Laitman: That he will want bestowal.
Student: And if the heart still probably doesn't want bestowal, how do you make it want bestowal?
M. Laitman: Talk to the heart.
Student: How can we talk to the heart?
M. Laitman: Try.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:53) In the previous article he said, he called oppressive thinking, that he can… When a person attributes everything that happens, what happens to himself, he calls it heresy. And he was talking about corrections. Is it correct to say that the corrections we need to engage in are to stop attributing to myself reality and to constantly try to bring it to the realm of the friends, the Ten, the Creator, and then work on them? Because it seems like, we just read both articles one after the other, and it seems like the main failure, my main failure, on a day-to-day level in being connected to the Creator in that I attribute to myself all kinds of… Is this the right direction to look at it this way?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, how do I begin this work of corrections? What should I do with the friends that in the Ten? Because it's suddenly clear that it's not me opposite the Creator. There's no such thing as me opposite the Creator. So, what should I do with the Ten? In order not to attribute to myself this reality that is constantly falling on me, and I'm sure that it's because of this, and because of that, it's all because of me, and I need to do this and that. What do I need to do?
M. Laitman: You need to turn to the Creator as a representative of the Ten, and to ask for them a correction.
Student: And then, when each one does it for his friends, then we are called a complete Ten, a united Ten, connected Ten?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Woman Heb 1): (22:00) How do we constantly come out of lowly things into the quality of bestowal?
M. Laitman: By prayer.
Question (UK 1): (22:14) If a person doesn't feel what's required of him on the path, can he still hope and pray, and that prayer will be answered?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Darom 1): (22:27) If a person finds a need for correction, of a quality that's not expressed in the Ten, how does he use the Ten in order to perform that correction?
M. Laitman: Incorporate in the Ten, and from it, turn to the Creator.
Question (Woman MAK 43): (22:58) If the Shechina is in the dust, and a person feels sorrow about it, how to work correctly with this pain?
M. Laitman: As much as she has, to work with that deficiency.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:26) The article is called, Shechina in the Exile. What does Baal HaSulam want to convey to us, mainly, in this article? What should we focus on? Because it writes about the vessel and the dweller.
M. Laitman: In every article you have everything.
Student: So, what does he want us to take from it?
M. Laitman: He wants to discuss the relationships between the dweller and the Upper Light that builds her.
Student: If I am to take it to the Ten, is it the direction of the Ten toward the Upper Light all the time?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Izmir): (24:33) How can we make the Shechina a complete vessel in the Ten? How can the Ten be a complete vessel?
M. Laitman: We all connect together and scrutinize what the general common deficiency is and raise it to the Creator.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:06) The last sentence says: “giving a place in the heart that will become a tabernacle for the light of the Creator”. What does it mean to make a tabernacle in the heart for the light of the Creator?
M. Laitman: It's the end of all of the work of this article. That we will all be connected. All the desires in the vessel will connect together. And in Malchut, which is their will to receive, it will be revealed as the general deficiency.
Student: Deficiency for what?
M. Laitman: Fulfillment. What fulfillment do they want to attain?
Student: When is the heart a place that is suitable for the light of the Creator to be in it?
M. Laitman: When the heart can feel all the nine Sefirot that are before it and connect to them.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:36) He says that this situation where each one lowers matters of wholeness in a state of lowliness down to the dust.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It's an unpleasant feeling.
M. Laitman: It's annulment. It's annulling the vessel in the complete way.
Student: Why should a person want to feel that state and remain in it?
M. Laitman: No, not remain in it. You can't. But if he sees it, it's enough in order to start ascending.
Student: How not to run away from it into forgetfulness, into nonsense? How to stay and demand correction?
M. Laitman: He keeps going. He asks for correction. That's why there's a continuation. Divinity in the exile isn't the end of the way.
Student: Yes, but it's like there's this trail, or a course, where there's the Shechina in the dust, and then there's a demand for correction to lift it from the dust.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But is there a choice there where a person says it's unpleasant, I don't want to be in this?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How to choose what's right? How to choose a request for correction and not run away from it?
M. Laitman: It depends on what we want to do onward.
Student: So, it depends on the preparation beforehand?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Song: (28:41)