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

Daily Lesson (Morning) August 14, 2024.

Part 3: Loyal to the Path: Following the Footsteps of Our Teachers Selected Excerpts from the Sources

Hello. This part of the lesson is faithful to the path, following our teachers. We'll read selected excerpts from the sources, but our friend will give us an intro.

Reader: (00:16) Yes, our weekly topic is faithful to the path, following our teachers. This is our sixth step that's going to prepare us to the congress, which is strengthening for the collective. We brought excerpts from Kabbalist groups from the past. The Ramchal students, the Kabbalists of Beit-El, the Rabash students, the ARI students, how they, between them, wrote laws, they wrote covenants. Between the friends, how to keep their teacher's path going, with adhesion to the Creator and it's groups of 270 years ago, 300, 500 years ago, we brought it to get an impression. These are not sources we're used to read, because we're always only reading Baal HaSulam and Rabash, but we read it to get an impression, to see how other groups signed covenants between them. So, our hearts will open, and also in our upcoming congress, we also want, in our social time, to write our covenants, to actually write that text, like these groups, and publish it for us and everyone. So, reader, please.

Reader: 

Reading: (01:43) Excerpt number 4. From the words of the covenant of the RAMCHAL group, Padua, 1731‎

These are the words of the covenant, the laws, ordinances, and instructions ‎that the holy ‎friends have taken upon themselves. They have hereby signed ‎that they will observe, all ‎of them, for the sake of unifying the Creator with His ‎Shechina [Divinity], for they all ‎became as one man to do this work, the work of the Creator, and in this work, each of ‎them will be regarded as all of them.‎

This is what they have taken upon themselves:‎

First: Establish constant learning that will not stop in this holy house of prayer in the ‎holy Book of Zohar. Each of them will study his part, one after the other, from after the ‎morning prayer until the time of the evening prayer, every day, always …‎

And these are the conditions that they have stipulated in this study before the Lord:‎

‎1. This study will not be a vow for them, meaning so as not to fail with the iniquity of ‎vows. However, it will be upon them as strictly and as severely as the mouth can say and ‎the heart can think.‎

‎2. The learning will not stop whatsoever. Rather, when one comes to take his friend’s ‎place, the next one will begin before the first one stops, so the learning will not stop at ‎all.‎

‎3. If one of the friends is on a far or near road, the remaining friends will stand in for him ‎and it will be considered for him as though he, too, were with them.‎

‎4. This learning will not be with any expectation for a prize or a reward, or for any ‎thought and leaning, but only for the correction of the holy Shechina, and for the ‎correction of the whole of the people of Israel, the people of the Lord, to bring ‎contentment to their Maker. There will not be any reward from that, but only to merit ‎doing more such corrections and to unite the Creator with His Shechina, and for the ‎correction of all of Israel.‎

‎5. If, God forbid, some compulsion or mistake or absentmindedness would cause the ‎cessation of this learning at any point, that cessation will not make any bad impression ‎whatsoever, neither above nor below, and their actions in this study will be only to ‎correct, and not to distort at all.‎

‎6. To this learning, they will be able to add the general teaching of our great teacher Rav ‎Moshe Chaim [RAMCHAL], the learning that he learns at the seminary at midday.‎

‎7. Each of the friends will be able to occasionally endow someone else who is not from ‎the holy society, with learning instead of him, during his time, and it will be considered ‎as though one of the holy friends themselves had learned.‎

‎8. They have also taken upon themselves to connect day and night in this learning.‎

‎9. This learning will not be regarded for any of the friends as a personal correction, not ‎even for atonement for iniquities. There will only be in it a complete intention to correct ‎the holy Shechina and to correct all of Israel.‎

‎10. There will be no set time for any of the friends in this learning. Rather, each one will ‎come as much as he wants at a time when he can.‎

Reading: (08:09) ‎Excerpt number 5. From the words of the covenant of the RAMCHAL group, Padua, 1731‎

‎…Those who have been added and come to belong to the portion of the Creator add to the ‎first ones in doing the work of the Creator earnestly and wholeheartedly. This is what they ‎have taken upon themselves:‎

‎1. To do their work before the Creator earnestly and in complete love without ‎expecting any ‎reward for themselves whatsoever, but rather for the correction ‎of the Shechina and for the ‎correction of the whole of Israel. They are to give the ‎whole reward for their commandments ‎and good deeds as a gift to the whole of Israel, ‎and to do mercy with the Shechina, and to ‎bring contentment to their Maker.‎

‎2. They have made themselves as one man to do complete and clean work ‎before their Maker ‎until any one of them who performs a commandment will be ‎regarded as though it was done ‎by all, for the correction of the Shechina. ‎However, should one of them commit a sin or an ‎iniquity, it will by no means ‎be regarded as within their society; their society is only for ‎correction, and not ‎at all for corruption.‎

‎3. They have taken upon themselves to love one another and conduct ‎themselves with ‎brotherhood and kindheartedness and accept each other’s ‎admonition with much love and ‎without any anger, much less hatred, but rather with love and ‎peace, to be pleasing to the ‎Creator.‎

‎4. They have taken upon themselves to be all the things they know from this holy seminary, ‎except for words of Torah—all of them as a concealed secret, not to be revealed at all unless ‎with the permission of our honorable teacher Rav Moshe Chaim.‎

‎5. They have taken upon themselves to all exert to attend the perpetual learning each day in ‎The Book of Zohar every day at a time when they can.‎

‎6. Everyone must be present in this holy seminary—except when forced—every Sabbath after ‎the noon prayer, at the time of the teaching of our honorable teacher the Rav.‎

‎7. To strengthen in their work before the Creator so as not to fear any scorn or mockery in the ‎world.‎

‎8. They have taken upon themselves that if the holy friends who were first to sign have to do ‎some hidden thing in the seminary, which they cannot reveal to them, they will leave without ‎any resentment whatsoever.‎

‎9. Anyone who wishes to come and join them later will be as one of them, including all the ‎conditions stipulated thus far.‎

‎10. To guard their mouths and tongues from any evil word and to behave with seriousness ‎and trepidation before the Shechina in all their ways and engagements, to not slight any ‎meticulousness and custom of Israel, God forbid, but rather to set a guard to a guard to be ‎clean before the Lord, God of Israel.‎

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:55) Is this like a future-corrected state, or is it something they got to? 

M. Laitman: No, this is what the students of RAMCHAL wrote.

Student: Yes, but was this a realization of the conditions between them? Are they really living it? Or, 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, it's something they have reached, and then they put it in writing? 

M. Laitman: I don't know if they wrote it, and then observed it? Or they observed it first and then wrote? But altogether, this is actually their order. 

Student: So, if we want to do such a thing for us, we have to think of the most-corrected state we can imagine, actually.

M. Laitman: What’s here is not enough? 

Student: Yes, but this is theirs. If we want to do one of our own. 

M. Laitman: I don't know. The act of the forefathers is the work of hands. 

Student: As you heard, on Sunday, we're going to meet, and we're going to try and write something. So, if there's such a level, why should we even bother, on one hand? On the other hand, should it be something closer to us? 

M. Laitman: Ask the friends. What are you asking me? 

Student: Okay, we'll also talk about that Sunday. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:29) Why, in number four, it says that there won't be a constant time, but each one will come whenever he can? 

M. Laitman: So that there will be free choice.

Student: We put a lot of emphasis on our framework. 

M. Laitman: So, for them, it was different. 

Student: Let's say this. If a friend can't come to the morning lessons, usually we tell them, choose an hour in the week and come then. Not whenever you can. It's like going against that rule. I’m trying to understand.

M. Laitman: Well, because we read that a friend that takes it upon himself to truly be his word. 

Student: I'm trying to think how it happened back there. If there wasn't a constant hour, so he just sits and studies. He doesn't leave until someone comes to change him?

M. Laitman: I don't know. I'm reading like you. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:00) Towards our state. What's the purpose of the covenant? 

M. Laitman: It's an agreement.

Student: So, what's the purpose of our group's development? That we're before a covenant or performing a covenant? Or want to use the covenant?

M. Laitman: That it will help us. 

Student: What's the root? What does it matter in our relationships? 

M. Laitman: No, it's written, and we've signed a covenant. It's from the Torah, we have this. 

Student: So today, should we check if we have a covenant or we don't? What the conditions are? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, that's the purpose of the group, to scrutinize their state?

M. Laitman: Each one that is in the group.

Student: How do we reach the covenant? Like with Ramchal, they say that these are our laws. After that they make the covenant according to those laws? Or is that not the order? 

M. Laitman: You have to see. I can't answer in the name of Ramchal. 

Student: Not in the name of Ramchal, on your name. How do you see our state today? Should we scrutinize it? Should it be clear, these are our laws, these are our sentences, this is a covenant, and there's people that want to perform it, 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, is that right, or is it a different order? That's my question. 

M. Laitman: So, study it, and feel how much this actually fits you.

Student: Today in the group, let's say, if there's no covenant in a clear way, maybe also externally like with Ramchal. What are we lacking in our advancement? We’re relating to one another, but without a real covenant? 

M. Laitman: I didn't understand. 

Student: Let's say about the Zohar lesson, there's a good example. They say number six. We have an agreement, every evening for one hour we're studying Zohar together and we have a half an hour lesson, but there's no covenant. If you have an opportunity, so you connect. If you don't, you don't. It’s not a problem. It’s like free. It’s something very free. So, what are we lacking in our advancement that we scrutinize and agree, or we don't. What does it add? 

M. Laitman: There's probably a difference. It probably is a difference. You agree with it. You observe it and what it needs to lead you, is what you can demand. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:32) The covenant is between equals, because like he says here, maybe someone can study two hours and someone only 15 minutes.

M. Laitman: I don't know. 

Student: Is it determined by the strongest friends or according to what everyone can? 

M. Laitman: I think we have an example here. We need to see how we come to their state.

Student: Us as the whole ten or all of society? 

M. Laitman: Maybe the whole society? 

Student: I'm trying to understand if we just talk about it, or if the strong ones align.

M. Laitman: No, this has to be acceptable to everyone, but not the way it's written, where there's lots of demands. Yes? 

Student: So, what's the right form? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. That's something we have to think and discuss apart. These can be big discussions. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:03) About half a year ago, I sat and wrote to myself conditions. My commitment to the Ten, kind of like what they wrote and I also got ten conditions. Well, I'll read it. It's short. It's with question marks. One, am I in a covenant with the Ten? Am I in Arvut with the friends? Am I giving an example to the Ten? Am I indifferent towards what's happening in the Ten? Have we advanced in connection to the Ten since we're together? Am I giving an example to the Ten? Am I paying Masser? I am forced from not coming physically to the center. Do I have importance to come to the preparation on time? Do I have a role? Do I think I'm giving him contentment? Now, me, myself, I saw that I'm not keeping all these conditions. So, what do we do? So, we can all stand these basic conditions.

M. Laitman: We ask for the forces. We ask for seriousness and importance. 

Student: Until then? 

M. Laitman: We pray.

Student: It doesn't help that we decide. 

M. Laitman: No. That's just the intentions.

Student: The Ramchal group were able to keep it. 

M. Laitman: Don't ask about them. I don't know. I know who I'm dealing with. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:06) The difficulty is always revealed in the personal Ten. The question is whether the commitment towards the society, and the agreement and partnership for this vision and this society will help us? For it to just happen? Seeing changes in the Ten?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And that's the only way? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Otherwise, how will it take place? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:40) A friend just said that he put it on paper. The condition that he has to be honest with himself. He sees he's not capable alone, to observe. Now, if there's an agreement of friends, does it give the forces for a person to, yes, be able to do it? 

M. Laitman: Could be. 

Student: Simply, I heard the example from you, when you stopped smoking, that there was a certain pact between a few friends and you were the force of those friends that agreed. It gave you the forces, the strength to do it. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: It's not just psychology, right? There's a certain spiritual force in that? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Meaning, if in the Ten, all the friends agreed about something, it already gives them the power? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:52) I wanted to ask teacher about the relevance, to take laws at once and to call them, does it seem to you, okay? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. As a principal, I don't know. I think you can.

Student: Yes, but we talked about it a thousand times, about the deterioration of the conditions. When everything exists and there's nothing, nothing to envy, nothing to expect. We have too much. Today, the devils in everything. Bad people are flooding the world. It's not the conditions that we used to have. 

M. Laitman: So even more, you have to make sure you keep these conditions.

Student: The question is, to begin with, you can observe such conditions. What do you care anymore? You're not capable in your current conditions to be able to observe such details, such commitments. 

M. Laitman: I don't think so. I don't think this is impossible. 

Student: Once you had to care for the earth a little bit, what I can imagine. Take care of your piece of dirt, a little bit of settlement. Do your little arrangements, little things, and that's it. That's where your life ended. That was the day it ended. Most of your time, you could invest, just in that. Today, you're flooded. In every thought, every action, there's the devil in it. Everything is accompanied with 10 other things. Everything is connected, and it's all flooded with poison, everyone and everything. When I'm talking about bad people, I'm not talking about the people sitting here. Here, maximum, they'll bring you coffee with or without sugar. I'm talking about people who are really bad from the root, and they're even proud that they're bad. When you're flooded with hatred and all that filth, to take the conditions from back then, and bring them for today and say this is a goal, it seems unrealistic.

M. Laitman: I have nothing to answer. Today, like it always was, the laws do not change. If they change, they change for everybody.

Student: The fact that he's saying, he’s asking for the forces and he doesn't receive. Isn't that a sign that he doesn't need to be in this? That he's not receiving those forces, that's the answer, no?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: He doesn't need to be where he thinks he needs to be. The answer, what's this path of the King, here? 

M. Laitman: The right path is to try and keep as much as you can of the conditions and even more on the rest—to ask for forces.

Student: What's for the rest?

M. Laitman: The ones you can't keep.

Student: There's so many things I can't keep. It doesn't matter to just ask like that, to just... 

M. Laitman: No, no, you check, check what you can't keep.

Student: If they came to some ideal, it's like some excellent laws that they're mentioning, so why didn't they remain? If they reached it, then why didn't it hold itself? Why was there a deterioration of the generations? Why were there such dissents?

M. Laitman: That was already planned. It was planned. 

Student: So, what should we aim for? It's already planned for, and people are... Only bad is being revealed in them. What’s the point in demanding and doing? 

M. Laitman: As much as they fight against the evil inclination.

Student: That’s possible? The fact that you're saying you're battling the evil inclination is not to come with the evil inclination to fight the evil inclination? You're fighting fire with fire.

M. Laitman: Could be. 

Student: How do you come to the truth, where all the answers can be, ‘I think so’, ‘maybe’, ‘we'll see’. Where is the foundation? 

M. Laitman: Just do it. Do it as much as you can. So don't do everything. The percentage you can keep, do it.

Student: But you have a goal to come close, no? If you do 60%. 

M. Laitman: Okay, 60%. Okay. So, you did 60% in something. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:42) There's something interesting here, Rav. In 5b, they decide that if someone does something good, it will be considered the correction of the Shechina, but if one of the sins, God forbid, it won't be considered. It will only be for correction and not to distort at all. It's as if they're changing the laws of nature. Baal HaSulam writes in the Arvut article that even if they sin a little, it makes everyone fall. So here, they're deciding that, no. Is it possible that friends decide about such a thing and it takes place? 

M. Laitman: Could be. Check, do it, see it, and then complain to the Creator, what's happening? That’s how you can see, how it takes place.

Student: I'm asking if you can decide things that are not according to nature? That we want it to be this way? 

M. Laitman: No. What they're writing is according to the laws of the Ramchal, or who was there? Ramchal, yes. Ramchal, yes. Yes, that's it.

Student: So, I'm asking, they're saying that if we do something together, it's for correction. Something good. Everything someone does it's for the correction of the Shechina. That’s  okay. But if, God forbid, one of them sins, it should not be considered as a corruption.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: How do they decide such a thing?

M. Laitman: They decide. One is one, and everyone is everyone. Different forces, different decisions. Everything’s different.

Student: Doesn't it contradict the law of Arvut?

M. Laitman: You can bring me a bunch of complaints here. I don't know. They decide this way. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (33:06) Okay, we see that even in the citizen it was a big community and a big congregation, and there's a small little group that studied with the Kabbalist where we read the bylaws of that specific group, We're going also through a process of the society like they described, a certain this process. It is clear that such bylaws, such guidances, would be for a small group. Is it right to do such a process for the whole of the society? To come to such a refinement that is so tight? Or do we need to do a process that's specific towards the general society, another process to those who are, let's say, to lessons every day, etc., because we see that our society has a very broad selection of forms of participation. So, who is it meant for? 

M. Laitman: Whoever wants. Whoever can. Whoever develops importance to these corrections or those corrections, and so on.

Student: Is it correct also to write some document for the whole of the society or only towards that nucleus that is kind of willing to commit, like you said? 

M. Laitman: I think he's writing for everybody. I guess it doesn't reach everyone. 

Student: We see that there are different levels of participation from nature. Moreover, if someone in the 10 is pressured to reach such a level of commitment, in many Tens, people leave because they feel that they can't withstand it. So, you lose some of the people. That's why I'm asking. Where should our sensitivity be towards the collective of the whole of this? 

M. Laitman: This isn't for all of society; it's for a special group. You can't knock this down on all of society. 

Student: That's exactly my question. We're going to do a discussion in all our society towards a certain document or something? 

M. Laitman: No, no, it's not right. This is only suitable for (word garbled).

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:34) When we read it as preparation for the lesson yesterday; this question awakened in me. We see that there are Kabbalist groups from a thousand years ago, a thousand years, five hundred years, and they're learning the same sources on the same love of friends. In parallel, there's also this axis of development of humanity from the days of the barbarians, destroying and developing. Is there a connection between these two processes of development of the groups of Kabbalists, and the development of the world? That they have an impact on one another? 

M. Laitman: Very bit. 

Student: Okay, so a question about us, too? Now as we're concentrating on working on the connection. Are we expecting that the spiritual development will influence the world or also not? 

M. Laitman: Each one, as much as he understands the necessity in this, so he goes and he performs it, implements it. He sees his obligation for the collective and for the individuals.

Student: We shouldn't pay attention to what's happening on the side because, I mean, with the development of humanity because not necessarily one has an influence on the other, 

M. Laitman: of course. 

Student: So, we don't need to connect everything that's happening and the blows that are happening in this. There are two processes. 

M. Laitman: Right, 

Student: Because, when you read this, it's so amazing that the same words like we're learning, they take also what Rabbi Shimon was there, and all the rest of the Kabbalists. It's the greatness of the method and it exists kind of like throughout the axis of humanity's development. When he's talking about the point in the heart needs to be given the power of the greatness of our method.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:35) If there isn't such a connection between the development of humanity and the development and the form of development that Kabbalists work in a group, the way they work. We say that we're responsible for the correction of the world, actually. If there's no connection, then is the responsibility re-expressed? 

M. Laitman: Bestowal. We're still influenced from what's happening in the world, and humanity, the world, is affected by us, too.

Student: So, it turns out that there is a connection. 

M. Laitman: There is a connection, but not direct, because we don't meet with the world. We bestow onto them. We affect them with our intentions, and they affect us with their general desire. 

Student: If a group of Kabbalists perform a correction, does it change world history?

M. Laitman: Of course, in some way, yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center and Women Moscow): (38:59) From the lesson shall never stop at all, what study is it talking about?

M. Laitman: What they were studying, the Ramchal students.

Student: They emphasized the study of the Zohar. 

M. Laitman: Okay, for them it was all concentrated in the Zohar.

Student: We relate to the morning lesson, the afternoon lesson.

M. Laitman: Yes, especially the morning lesson. 

Student: What's the meaning that, the study shall never stop? 

M. Laitman: That you can't cancel it. You can't give up on the studies. 

Student: Is it in the hands of the students? 

M. Laitman: I guess so.

Student: What is to learn each, their part from the others? 

M. Laitman: What are you asking about? 

Student: It was written there, sorry, in item 4, and this is what they took upon themselves at first. To have a regular study that will not stop in the Holy Zohar. To study each of them in part, one after the other from after the morning prayer until the time of the evening prayer. All the days always.

M. Laitman: Yes. They had the ability to sit and study for so many hours. We are at different times, and we have problems. We have short time and a lot of work. So, we are doing what we can in our time. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:25) So what happens with the rest of the time? 

M. Laitman: Whatever they don't state here. Obviously, they study. They do something. 

Student: Meaning, it's with us? The rest of the time, we're not studying?

M. Laitman: We need to study every time we can rid ourselves of all kinds of obligations of this world.

Student: But also, what the friend said and also what you just said right now. We are in different times. There's…

M. Laitman: Okay, so it's clear that for us the laws are different. 

Student: So, these are nevertheless... The times that are defined are accepted as if there's 100% or... 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Can I ask another question? To continue this. In the rest of the time, where should a person's thoughts be? Where does he aim himself?

M. Laitman: We're talking about people that constantly think of spiritual advancement. It doesn't matter if they're in all kinds of necessary jobs. 

Student: What's to think about the spiritual advancement, while you're... 

M. Laitman: That he's always concerned how to take another step and another step on a spiritual path.

Student: The connection with the friends? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: He's also saying here, the correction of the Shechina.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: But for us it's not clear what the correction of the Shechina is yet. 

M. Laitman: So, for us it's not clear. What can you do? You're so crying out.

Student: So, to aim at what's closest, to what's… for a connection with the friends, to… 

M. Laitman: Yes. Everything that was in your power to do, do it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:44) From what I know about the times that the Ramchal lived was 300 years ago, his life wasn't simple like the friend says. First of all, he came to the truth through the study with his teachers, and simply they made his life difficult for this. They made him truly, coercively commit to not advertise the books that he wrote. They truly shut it down in some box, and he went through a lot of oppression. The group that he had were like the people that were in attainment. That’s  why they managed to keep some kind of covenant within those seven friends. Their life wasn’t simple. They didn't… They weren't accepted, meaning the generation wasn't ready whatsoever. Today the generation is more ready, so we have actually a more important role even to disseminate it. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (44:57) He writes that if a friend went far or close, they will include him as if he was with them. If it's really like that, and he has no… He's forced from above, and let's say it's like losing a lesson for example? What’s the condition? Let's for example, we have a friend in the Ten has to go to China for a month. What's the condition that, he will not miss? What do we need to do? What does he need to do, so that it will be as if he doesn't miss anything in this time? 

M. Laitman: There has to be an inner connection, and as much as possible. Also, through the internet and all kinds of means. 

Student: Can I ask another question? 

M. Laitman: Yes

Student: I hope it's connected. It rose in our Ten today, about talking during the lesson. We have… Sometimes there's friends who have this tendency to throw a sentence here, a sentence there, during the lesson, where we're sitting physically in the class. After, a friend asks to relate to it. Here a word, there a word, and there's people that it really bothers. Yesterday we had this scrutiny in the Ten. The question is to what extent there needs to truly be silence at the table, and to what point is it okay. Because, the friend that's talking, I feel for him, it's kind of like interaction with the friends.

M. Laitman: There is no such thing. In our table, when we sat with Rabash, not one word comes out of anyone's mouth. Nope.

Student: Thank you. 

M. Laitman: It can't be. Impossible. Okay?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (46:53) What's the advice for a person who is nullified in time, kind of gets stretched, and when there's a yearning for Kedusha, it's like you don't have enough time. How to balance these things? 

M. Laitman: You can do as much as you can to fill yourself with the necessary things for correction, and then whatever happens, happens. But you only yearn for one thing. 

Student: That's through the request of the prayer to the Creator that this…?

M. Laitman: Your deeds and prayer to the Creator.

Question (Salt Lake City): (47:39) We would like to announce that we have such a people doing Ramchal for already a few months. We are all invited. People from Siberia, China, and Turkey, another place started it, and we have 10 minutes a day each to connect with the sources and come to the Ramchal daily prayer. Thank you. 

M. Laitman: Good, may you succeed, we're thinking of you.

Question (Haifa 1): (48:28) The friend said that we read the covenant of the students of Ramchal for us to be impressed. So, my impression, with my great humbleness, is that on the level of the individual, they purposefully wrote, so that the individual wouldn’t be able to corrupt, meaning the study. That, in my opinion, is in order to avoid criticism. We have criticism towards those who don't come, and we're very engaged in the criticism and that was in order to have them be free to study. That the purpose of their study is the correction of the Holy Shechina. It's a motive that has repeated itself many times, and it's clear that the conditions were harsh, but on the other hand, they avoided there to be critique, and not to be engaged in that, and then they will be able to be as one man in one heart.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Reading: (50:05) Excerpt  ‎6. From the written agreement of the Kabbalists of Beit-El, the group of ‎RASHASH [Rabbi Shalom Sharabi], Jerusalem, 1757.‎

When the Lord desired the repentance of those who repent, a spirit cloaked us, the young ‎flock who are signed below, to be as one man, friends, and all for the sake of unifying the ‎Creator, to bring contentment to our Maker. Over this matter, a covenant has been signed ‎between us according to those conditions, valid and true.‎

The first is that all of us who are signed below, twelve people, as the number of the tribes of ‎the Lord, will all be loving one another with great love, love of the soul and love of the body, ‎and all in order to bring contentment to our Maker in adhesion in one spirit, but in division ‎only concerning corporeal matters.‎

However, the soul of each of us will be tied to a soul; all twelve of us will be as one glorious ‎soul, and each one will think of his friend truly as though he were an organ of himself, with ‎his very heart and soul, in a way that if, God forbid, there will be some sorrow for any of us, ‎we must all assist, either together or each one personally, in any way we can. The crux of the ‎matter is for each one to admonish his friend if he God forbid hears some sin about him.‎

As a whole, we, the below signed, have pledged to tie our heart in a tight knot, and we take it ‎on ourselves from now on that over days and years in the next world, each of us will trouble ‎himself, even while in the next world, to save to correct, and to elevate the soul of each one ‎from our society in anything he can, and every kind of labor that one can do for his friend, ‎meaning to save each one in the next world, and each will indeed save his friend in a way that ‎even if, God forbid, it will be agreed from above that one of the below signed will take the ‎good from another friend, as in, one who is rewarded takes the part of, etc.‎

From now on, for the benefit we have each received from his friend to share his plight, ‎whatever it is, we have made a complete pledge in every expression or manner that is helpful ‎in judgments of people or judgments of heaven, to forgive him that benefit, to that friend who ‎was sentenced to take his benefit, and which he did not enjoy, and each man will have his ‎holy things, as the ARI interpreted: The ashamed, we share with them. In that manner, we ‎have made a pledge in the above manner.‎

In general, now we have convened and connected and tied and united as one man, friends in ‎every single way, to assist and to help, to strengthen and to encourage each other to repent in ‎repentance and to admonish and share his trouble whether in this world or in the next world ‎about the aforesaid ways, and more than them.‎

We have also committed that any regulation and stipulation that the majority of our society ‎will agree to do, that all of us are as one, and each one alone will behave and do that matter ‎except if he has a compulsion that is clear to the majority of our society.‎

‎[3] We have also been appeased to and agreed and committed not to praise each one his ‎friend, even if he is greater than him in wisdom and in prayer for all to see, and not to fully ‎rise before each other, but only as an adornment, and not to treat with respect in a way that ‎we behave as though brothers, as there is no advantage between one and the other. One who ‎has eyes of flesh, a heart that knows his value and the value of his friend, and on the surface, ‎he has no envy.‎

‎[4] We have also committed not to reveal this matter that we have joined together and united ‎to anyone in the world.‎

‎[5] We have also committed not to be meticulous toward each other whatsoever, both ‎regarding admonition, or on other matters. And should one sin against another, he will ‎immediately forgive him with his heart and soul.‎

We have committed to all that with the obligation of the body and the thigh, and with ‎fulfilling the body and the thigh, only with words of the heart [in what is suitable to acquire ‎with]. As our sages said, we all immediately agree to all the aforesaid with complete consent, ‎by the power of all the agreements that have been done since the days of Moses. May the ‎pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us and may He establish the work of our hands and may the work of our hands establish Him. Help us, the God of our salvation, to increase ‎the glory of Your name. As a sign of truth, signed here in the holy city of Jerusalem, may it be ‎built soon in our days, Amen, in the order, “I give him My covenant of peace.” It is written ‎that the Lord will bless His people with peace, and it is all valid and clear, and the matter is ‎true and right, and existent.‎

Of all the agreements that have been done since the days of Moses, may the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us, and may He establish the work of our hands, and may the work of our hands establish Him. Help us, God of our salvation, to increase the glory of Your Name. And as a sign of truth, signed here in the holy city of Jerusalem, may it be built soon in our days.

Amen in the order. I give Him my covenant of peace. It is written that the Lord blesses people with peace, and it is all valid and clear, and the matter is true and right and existent.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (59:17) I'm asking about the way to express things in writing, and the signing, the act of signing. In the introduction to the study of TES item 155, he says that because he yearns, not because he understands, but because he longs, the surrounding lights that surround his soul illuminate him. In the preparation to the convention, you're telling us that the moment it was advertised, and you can register for the convention, we need to register to the convention. We’re included immediately in the action of whoever works in the convention and the convention itself, from the moment that you sign and pay. So, my question is, how do I invert this act of my signature and my expression of this bill of connection to an act like in item 155, or in signing up to the convention and incorporating in this common action of the group, and not for it to be a sin upon me? 

M. Laitman: Ask the friends. Ask the friends. You have people that know about it and take care of it. And that's how you'll get an answer. 

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