Morning Lesson September 15, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Rosh HaShana - Selected Excerpts from the Sources
R. (00:27) Rosh HaShana, the beginning of the year is the beginning of a new period and we will try to renew all of our forces. The main thing is our connection between us that will be suitable for a new beginning, a new time. Let’s go.
Reader: (01:02) Expert 1 Rabash. “They must believe that there is a Leader in the world...” Twice.
1. R. (04:21) That means that all of our work is to rise above reason from the place we are in as a result of the sin of Adam HaRishon. A result of the evil inclination which dwells in us and as much as possible that to constantly hold oneself in faith above reason and in that way we can all be together as in ‘one man with one heart;’ in that Kli towards the Creator. With all our forces that is how we connect between us and to grab onto the Creator without letting Him go. In a prayer, in a request, in expectation until we feel that we are with Him together. We between us with one man, with one heart and with the Creator together. That is actually the beginning of the year, that is called Rosh Hashana, the renewing.
2. S. (05:56) There was the sin of the Tree of Knowledge and from that was created the need for faith above reason in the system?
R. That's on purpose in order for a place for a person to determine himself, to put himself in a way that he will determine himself as resembling the Creator, as Adam, similar to the Creator. That’s why everything starts from that sin, that the Creator to begin with makes the difference, the separation between him and Adam, and man in those two forms, in order to bestow on behalf of the Creator and in order to receive on behalf of the created being, nature is revealed and the gap between the Creator and the created being must be revealed and give man an ability to see his actions and steps he has to take in his thoughts and intentions and ability to come closer to the Creator and determine how much he is in Adam, similar to the Creator.
S. Without the sin is there no reality that a person can be similar to the Creator?
R. There is no feeling where a person is towards the Creator without that sin.
S. What did the sin create that allows us now to go in faith above reason?
R. The sin gives the feeling of the distance between man and the Creator. Then it gives man an ability to take steps towards the Creator. What are the means to take those steps? Just like a baby who cannot walk and we hold him, and then he can take his tiny steps that he is insecure and we are holding him, until every time he takes a step with our help and in that way, man with the group and take those steps towards the Creator. That he counts on the group and every time he feels how he is not able to anything more and more and he falls if he lets go but then he stands up as it is written, ‘The Righteous will fall and rise a thousand times.’ That is how he learns to walk towards the Creator, every time to come closer to Him.
3. S. (09:53) Faith is a burden or is it light?
R. Faith is the light, the force that lets man perform actions to come closer to the Creator; to resemble the Creator.
S. Faith is something that a person does from below or that he receives from above?
R. From below there's nothing that he can do, only to discover that as much in the good case, to discover as much that he is not in the force of faith yet, and to demand for it to ask for it to cry for it to get those forces. And to take some kind of steps toward the Creator.
S. What does it mean to accept upon oneself the burden of faith?
R. That is still against his nature and he needs to try to receive this new nature and to hold on to the hands of the upper one. Just as we learn in the beginning of our life, and in that way to start walking.
4. S. (11:39) I grew up in a secular family, but ever since I remember myself I always had a very strong feeling of the Creator in the world. Why is it only above reason?
R. That feeling is a psychological feeling. It's not grasped in the upper force. And even more a mutual feeling, “Me for my beloved and my beloved for Me.” So that's why we still need to work a lot in order to acquire the quality of bestowal, the quality of the Creator. It doesn't come to us in a simple way, a direct way. But we need, we need to determine these qualities between us, first of all in the group, that it's against our nature, that we need to build that connection between us now, help his friend, from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator. Only in that way can we return to the connection with the Creator.
S. So when it's written here to believe in the Creator, that's a certain level of attainment. It's not like we speak about in our world about believing in the Creator.
R. Of course, faith in the Creator is already a spiritual degree that we're in the same force of bestowal and somewhat as the Creator; as the nature of the Creator.
S. Meaning that I can say that I believe in the Creator in reason only if I'm an equivalence of form?
R. Yes.
5. S. (14:32) We learned that we need to feel the Creator like we feel ourselves. That feeling, does it come only above reason?
R. Yes. The feeling of the Creator can only be in the force of bestowal, that we need to give a lot of exertion in order to receive this force of bestowal, that in it we can feel the Creator according to the equivalence of form as we say. If we don't reach that force of bestowal we will never discover that there's a Creator that is in our field of view, our field of feeling and He'll be concealed. To discover the Creator means to be with Him in equivalence of form; in equivalence of the qualities of bestowal.
S. In our daily work there are efforts that we do. We do that work above reason, sometimes when there's some difficulty to connect or something?
R. I don't know. It could be that you're right. But the moment a person reaches the force of faith above reason so to that extent he starts feeling the Creator.
S. So, faith above reason, the feeling is real and until then?
R. Until then you are in your nature; the nature of receiving.
6. S. (16:30) If the sin gives a feeling of the distance between the person and the Creator and from that a person can make steps toward the Creator, so what is the correction of this thing? Why do we need to correct the sin if it always protects this closeness to the Creator?
R. The sin doesn't keep our closeness to the Creator. The sin shows us the distance from the Creator, as much as we are far from Him, opposite of Him. That's why these sins tell us, they tell us what those qualities are that we need to correct in order to adhere to the Creator.
S. Do we need to get rid of the sin at the end of the day, to make it disappear?
R. To cover it.
S. Because it's a trigger, it gives us the ability to advance to the Creator, it gives us the distance, it holds us?
R. On one hand, yes, on the other hand, we need to correct it, to cover it, to make it disappear, and above it to connect to the Creator.
S. How can we hold on to the Creator and not leave Him in the prayer?
R. In prayer it's something else, in prayer we need to try to be in that plea, meaning even though we feel the gap between us and the Creator, along with that we need to ask from the Creator to bring us closer and connect us to Him.
S. How can we find the renewal in each and every prayer?
R. To find that renewal in the prayer is by us feeling when we approach a prayer how different we are. How we are in a distance, in a disparity of form and then from that we can activate the force of prayer.
7. S. (19:28) The sins are supposed to bring us closer to the Creator. How does a person determine that there is a Leader; a Creator in the world?
R. That depends on the state a person is in. Obviously everything is activated from Above, by the Creator and on behalf of the Creator there is no action that a person can identify his state correctly. The Creator opens these relations towards man in order to show man as much as they are in lack of equivalence, in a distance.
S. Can a person identify the matter of sin before he received the recognition that it's the Creator that gave him that gift called the sin?
R. Not so much. Sometimes, yes, he'll feel that he's evil but this evil all may be towards people. But that still isn't the true evil.
S. At the start of the lesson you said that we need to see everything as new, that everything starts anew. What's the difference between Rosh Hashana and that we see each day as new? What is this precision that we make at Rosh Hashana?
R. “Every day should be new in your eyes,” means that every day a person feels that what is open for him is the will to receive as new and he feels himself in a new distance from the Creator and from the others and he needs to correct himself from this current state, and that's his problem that is before him. That should be every day as it is written, it should be new in your eyes everyday on one hand. So on the other hand, there is the matter of Rosh Hashana, the beginning of the year that already it belongs to all created beings, that they supposedly enter new conditions, a new period with the Creator and then they have an ability to determine the new period on the path.
8. S. (23:12) The feeling of distance that reveals in a person's heart is in the meantime it could paralyze us. Meaning that from that distance a person might not create a prayer but it might hold him in his own state and wouldn't let him, wouldn't give him the strength to progress and reach a prayer and sometimes it's one and sometimes it's the other that feels it but it depends on that a person has no strength it’s because he's not connected enough to the ten, and the strength, the force that lets a person go out to a prayer, the prayer itself to the Creator, what does it need to be on?
R. On what a person discovers in the state he's in compared to what the state he has to get to.
S. So there are two discernments here: the feelings of the distance from the Creator and a greater revelation which is what the person really lacks is the force to hold it, that generally he does not have the connection to the ten. So the prayer needs to be on both of those things?
R. Yes.
S. On that I wish to come back to the Creator and also that I need to be in connection with the friends?
R. Yes.
S. How can a person pray for two things simultaneously? Either one thing he lacks or he lacks another thing?
R. No, one is a means and one is a goal. To connect to the ten is the means in order to reach connection with the Creator.
S. And the person needs to fill them and turn to both of them together?
R. Yes.
9. S. (25:20) The prayer of the wicked who asks the Creator to leave him? At the end he comes to reach a gratitude to the Creator that he helped him?
R. All prayers should end with gratitude.
S. Beforehand as he writes, that as Baal HaSulam writes that he should be grateful for the wicked that has been revealed in him, so it should be that way?
R. Yes because without those wicked that will be revealed, disturbances, man’s true qualities, he has nothing to correct himself for. That's actually the main thing of what the Creator does, that He shows the person what separates him and the Creator and from that starts the prayer and the connection between men and the Creator. If there's no recognition of evil in man, so man has no connection with the Creator; it's through the evil.
S. Every ten, let’s..?
R. Love will cover all crimes, that's what it's called. As much as there are more crimes, there's a reason to discover more love. It is interesting that we also see them a bit in our corporeal life but in spirituality it's really revealed as opposite contradicting forms that's why there we attain from one until the other all of creation.
10. S. (28:05) It is clear from the guidance from the lesson that the space that ruins us to connect not just to be here just because Rav is here but always to create that work with the friends, also with the building and also the lessons, everything that is taking place in the tens. What is unique about this space that has opened when Rav is not here compared to when Rav is here in relation to connection? It is felt that there’s this gift from Above but at the same moment you could easily lose that?
R. It depends on man, depends on the students. But I also saw with the Rabash, that every two weeks he was used to going to Tveria. He used to leave the group and sit there and for sure he thought that this was beneficial for the students.
S. Did he speak about that time?
R. He talked about a lot of things but I can’t speak about that yet but obviously it's for the benefit of the students.
S. What for you was good work of ours or correct work in the absence of the teacher?
R. That you determine the connection between you like the teacher who disappears and that connection between you that you determine, that you stabilize on that, you relate to that connection between you really as the center of the group and the center of the studies; your spiritual center.
11. S. (31:16) The ten is embracing you and supporting you and it was a wonderful period and we are entering a wonderful period of Rosh Hashana and according to the excerpt, Rabash, he writes, ‘when the person is in self-love the restriction and concealment are on him and the upper Light cannot shine for him and for this reason a person can believe in the Creator only above reason.’ What is the thing, when we sometimes say that the restriction that a person needs to do sometimes on himself and sometimes he also says that the upper Light cannot shine to a person, meaning that he needs to rise above the restriction and concealment?
R. That already depends on as much as a person opens himself and how he sees himself in the depth of his heart. As much as he closes or opens himself. It'll come. It's not clear yet, it’s not clear yet to all of us.
12. S. (33:10) We have a new perception and this creates irritation in the ten, how do we go along with that?
R. I didn't understand.
S. So as an example: It seems like one friend is believing and the other friend is not believing and the situation gets that I just want to run away. How can we make it that I'm not running away but instead connect the two friends?
R. We have to try in a simple way to connect between everyone and then eventually we discover as much as the Creator is playing with us in order to shuffle us His cards. That we will connect with one another in all kinds of ways, so we can all have a collection of qualities and within them we can correct everything.
S. How can we go deeper together? Should we be more silent, for example?
R. It is also right but it's all, there's nothing that we are completely erasing one thing and going to the other thing. We always have a connection even between contradicting things and from that comes the third thing is born.
S. If something is revealed and there's no faith for example in the friends..?
R. We will get to it soon and everything will be clarified.
13. S. (37:29) When you weren't here we were like mature kids, we were following the schedule, etc.. If the prayer is exertion in order to enter into the state that we have built, so when we restrict for a moment, testing and we move forward, so is that answer to the prayer?
R. When we reach the true state we don’t need the efforts, we don’t need that tension, we don’t need that effort in order to reach the prayer because it itself comes from, the prayer comes from equivalence of form.
S. Can we call that, to bring that distance closer between us, is that called a prayer?
R. That's not the main purpose of the prayer but you can call it that way.
14. S. (39:23) I just heard that the innovation in the prayer comes from a distance, and that Rosh Hashana is the revelation of the distance each time from the Creator. Are we in a state of a new distance from the Creator?
R. Every event starts from a revelation of a new quality that separates between us and the Creator and throughout that time, the holidays we say, we attain Dvekut [adhesion] that quality with the Creator. That's why Rosh Hashana, the beginning of the year is the head, it’s the beginning of all of our development and in it all the qualities are revealed that will be revealed later on in a fuller way.
S. What do we now wish for the next year?
R. That's what we will study. We haven't studied it yet.
15. S. (41:00) What kind of deficiency for faith should a person have in order for him to be aware of the true importance and that he will come to it?
R. The Creator also reveals that. Gradually we feel that we lack this and we lack that etc., and above all that we build the quality of bestowal, the quality of closeness until we start revealing in these qualities these new steps of ours.
16. S. (41:57) What characterizes a sin that a person does before entering spirituality?
R. His awareness. If the person is aware of the sin that he's in and that is the beginning of the spiritual advancement.
S. What should we not do during the convention?
R. Everything that could distance you from others.
17. S. (42:55) I heard we should cover the sin. With what actions can we cover sin?
R. Actions of connection, we have nothing else. The entire start of the creation is the breaking, the revelation of the breaking and everything we need to do is above the breaking; is to yearn for connection.
18. S. (43:40) If I understood correctly, as long as a person is in self-love he cannot have faith. So does that mean that if I don't have a quality of bestowal I'm not in faith?
R. Certainly, you're not in faith.
S. So what's the difference between faith and revelation?
R. Revelation is a result of that in which a person is in connection with the Creator.
19. S. (44:30) What is considered a sin that a person has to repent for?
R. We have no sin other than the sin of Adam HaRishon which tears the connection among all the created beings; that is the sin.
S. How do we make the self- examination, what is our responsibility, where we sin, what do we change?
R. Where we reveal where we are, detached from each other, not in one heart. So we need to correct those things, to pray, pray and that it will help you.
S. Is the scrutiny only towards the ten or towards everyone I am in connection with?
R. First and foremost toward the ten.
20. S. (46:06) A question in relation to the excerpt: it is written at the end of the excerpt that when a person is in self-love the restriction and concealment are on him and the upper Light cannot shine for him and a person cannot believe in the Creator but in above reason. What is that mechanism that tears between one reality and lets a person jump into the Creator in Good and Benevolent?
R. That's a philosophical question that we will scrutinize later.
Reading #2 (46:55) “The failure that Adam HaRishon had with the tree of knowledge..” Twice.
21. S. (49:18) What does it mean to feel God personally?
R. It seems that you turn to the Creator and He turns to you and you feel that you have between you a direct connection.
S. So what does it mean that he doesn't need the help of the collective? Everything happens in the collective?
R. You need the collective but after you connect to the collective, through the collective you reveal your personal connection with the Creator.
S. And then you are in some kind of connection that we're trying to understand a connection that doesn't go through the collective or it does anyway?
R. Yes.
S. But it's not affected by the collective but I can be in contact with the Creator?
R. You are influenced by the collective and you include the collective but it doesn't disturb you from being in connection with the Creator. On the contrary, it only strengthens you.
22. S. (50:30) It is still not completely clear because he writes he has to reach a state that he doesn't need the collective. So, it's not clear what collective he's talking about. Will that person not need a ten or is that not the collective?
R. A ten is the vessel that a person needs for sure and that is how he connects to the Creator.
S. So what does it mean when he writes that a person has to reach a state where he doesn't need the general public. What public or collective is he talking about that I don't need them and that’s the desired state, how can that be?
R. Let's put it this way, a person who is connected to his ten built the vessel through which he can connect to the Creator and through that vessel he can, he also connects from the Creator back to himself. That is called that he's connected to the public, to the collective. Now the second public is the general group, which is the collective, and then he connects to the ten more seriously, more generally in a higher degree, a higher spiritual degree and as such he rises more and more and more until through theses ascents, these integrations with the tens, he comes to a state where the whole world Kli is him; it is inside the person.
S. So, in that state if I understand correctly what you said, the ten and the world Kli becomes his vessel but it's not the collective?
R. The collective is always higher, it's the whole of humanity or at least all the sons of Israel, as one there’s the other.
S. And here he says that in order to correct himself a person somehow needs to disconnect from that collective, all of the world or all of Israel?
R. Time after time he needs to find some kind of differentiation between himself and the external ones and each time he brings a part of the external ones closer into himself and then his own collective rises higher and higher.
23. S. (54:23) I want to connect the things that the friends have said with a prayer of gratitude to the Creator. Every day we are in a ten meeting, we have two meetings everyday in our ten, in the world Kli we pray for your health and that you come back to us quickly. And here we were rewarded for that exactly on the eve of Rosh Hashana. Let's pray that it is a time for a change, of equivalence of form, for a correction as it is written here and the second part of the lesson to correct the sin of the tree of knowledge and the feeling of Godliness. Thank you.
24. S. (55:44) I want to connect to Gil about the space we built this week. They say that in the noon you cannot see a candle light because the sun overpowers it. This week we discovered that in the center of the ten there's a candle and to the light of that candle that we worked with, suddenly the greatness of the friends in the ten was revealed. And the friends were really crying from this revelation as much as the friends in the ten suddenly became great in their eyes. My question is: This distance and that candlelight in the center of the ten, when now the Rav will start shining again in awe, how can we keep it, to still see the greatness of the friends?
R. You need to connect to each other to find in any case tighter and tighter connections between you and accordingly you will find deeper, internally the center of the ten of each and everyone, of each and every group and in each individual group and to progress as such until you feel as tens, that you connect and turn into “one man.” That's all I can say, we need to work on that, we need to work.
S. This candle seems very fragile. We are really very concerned about it. We did a few workshops about it but we didn't understand how we can keep it, guard it because it seems that it can be turned off or like it's written that in the noon we won't see it anymore. So what is an action that we can do in the ten in order to keep seeing that candlelight?
R. It all depends on your attention, your focus.
S. On what?
R. On connection, on the connection that's all.
25. S. (58:35) Is it constantly involving a feedback loop in the Upper and the lower ones which creates a collective. Does the collective include the Creator?
R. Yes.
26. S. (59:10) Where the world Kli becomes in man, the moment he starts connecting more seriously to the ten, so it becomes a state where the whole world Kli is in him. What is the state that the whole world Kli is inside you?
R. The person starts seeing that Adam HaRishon is he, himself.
S. What does it mean that the person is the Adam HaRishon?
R. That he is the created being that the Creator created and he needs to hold himself as responsible for the whole of creation.
S. What do you feel, what does it mean that now you..?
R. I cannot communicate those things, I don’t know.
S. How do you start to be more seriously connected to the ten?
R. When I feel myself as responsible for everything that is taking place in the ten.
S. Why does that lead you to the state that suddenly you feel the whole world Kli inside you?
R. Because it's the same thing, that the whole world Kli and the ten are one and the same.
S. And what is it, the same?
R. That they are connected, where in my eyes they are connected.
S. So they are connected? What, two different entities? The ten, the world Kli are different bodies. How are they the same?
R. Connected doesn't mean that they are simply connected. They are connected.
S. If they are connected, why is this called a ten and this a world Kli? Are these different vessels or the same vessels?
R. In terms of the collective they're not the same vessels in relation to the individual. They still both reach the full correction.
S. In the Convention we are not in our constant tens but we work as a ten, the world Kli. So what's our work going to the convention towards the world Kli? What is the work of the individual towards the world Kli during the Congress?
R. At the Convention I act as one to all the participants at the Convention as one including ten or nine and I want to be together with them so much so that I have no, that there's no difference between them, that I'm included in them.
S. It sounds like work towards the ten?
R. Yes because the entire group is a ten and the convention is entirely one ten.
S. How to prepare ourselves for this change because it is a change to the work in the constant ten to two intensive days of a convention towards the whole world Kli?
R. I prepare myself in that with my true ten is the Convention. In that I am in my individual ten, as I always was, and it's only preparation in order to connect inside the general ten.
27. S. (01:04:24) Let's say I'm putting goals before us. Now we're going into a new year, how can we put a goal before us of connection between us? Where are we aspiring for? Let’s say in the convention you say there's no limit to what we can attain. It's hard to depict some goal if there's no limit. Should our purpose be G’mar Tikkun and the world Kli in this Congress, should that determine the way?
R. Yes, yes this too. You can also say that there's no boundary but it's clear that it is a boundary.
S. Can you give us examples of goals, intermediate goals of connection between us or where should we aspire towards because now we are entering a new stage, a new year?
R. I don't really understand the difficulty, what does it matter, a new year, a new period, an old period. It’s as if it all changes and rolls on. We are in connection in this process of correction and in the process of correction we always have another millimeter and another millimeter and another millimeter, and if you can expand that, we also have the period of Ein Sof and the period of the tens and all those millennia afterwards. All in all it is, there is no difference, it's something that never stops, it is something that always keeps spreading out.
S. But still if we want to make a calculation, some soul searching and we want to see what one step ahead is or ten steps ahead are?
R. Did you read all this document?
S. No.
R. That's why you're still stuck. The spiritual path is that you have two points and from those two points we build an infinite amount of points and states and therefore we move on.
28. S. (01:08:00) Without the Rav in the lessons I felt a great deficiency. So I want to know how I can strengthen my faith in order to keep going on the spiritual path?
R. When you connect to the group, you grasp it with two hands and two legs and you don't want to detach from them. That is considered that you wishing to enter faith.
29. S. (01:08:48) We heard that each one must feel that we need to feel responsible for everything that happened in the ten, everyone in the Congress is connecting to the world Kli as one ten, so how can we feel responsibility from everyone in the whole world Kli?
R. Then you will feel that you can do that. All that is revealed according to the level of your maturity.
30. S. (01:10:02) What we just read here about this topic of the lack of faith describes a state where the Creator stopped relating to the vessel and every individual has to attain the quality of faith, so that is what is separating the two authorities, the two entities?
R. Yes.
S. They are special times where it feels that we are sent an addition of energy, a force of faith on behalf of the upper One and it's these times before Rosh Hashana and it’s really felt in the actions, more forgiving, more consideration, that all the contradictions and all the resistance suddenly disappears and as if we get some mercy from the upper One. Why is it especially during holidays? Why not during the whole year?
R. We haven't reached the end of correction yet but we have these special days where in them we come to some points where we grasp onto the Kli of Adam HaRishon, where afterwards it connects and becomes integral among everyone and then it will be a general holiday.
S. We always attain from closeness and distance, also more yearning and also our advancement. In G’mar Tikkun will there be a state as much as you know or attain and as much as Rabash updated you that actually we will not need the distance, that it will be that same state of keeping the faith, of keeping the yearning in a constant way, no changes, no ascents, no descents?
R. Yes. Okay, if that's the situation, so we finish the lesson now.
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