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

Daily Morning Lesson: August 15, 2025 

Part 1: Recorded lesson – Nov 3, 2021

Baal HaSulam. Shamati 45. Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work

Reader: Shalom, friends, we're reading from Shamati Articles, Article 45, Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work. You can find it in the writings of Baal HaSulam, in the Shamati Articles, Shamati 45, Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work. We'll read the article, then we'll connect to a lesson that Rav gave from November 2021. Shamati 45, Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work.

Reading: (00:44) Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work

I heard on Elul 1, September 5, 1948

There are two discernments in the Torah, and there are two discernments in the work. The first is the discernment of fear, and the second is the discernment of love. Torah is called a state of wholeness, meaning we do not speak of the state one’s work is in, but we speak with respect to the Torah itself.

The first is called “love,” meaning that one has a desire and craving to know the ways of the Creator and His hidden treasures, and for that he makes every effort and exertion to obtain his wish. He regards everything in the Torah that he extracts from what he has learned as having been granted a priceless thing. According to the appreciation from the importance of the Torah, so one gradually grows until he is slowly shown the secrets of the Torah, according to his labor.

The second discernment is fear, meaning that he wants to be a servant of the Creator. Since “He who does not know the commandment of the upper one, how will he serve Him?” he fears and dreads not knowing how to serve the Creator.

When he learns in this way, every time he finds a flavor in the Torah and can use it, he is elated and excited according to the appreciation of the importance from having been granted something in the Torah. And if one persists in this way, one is gradually shown the secrets of the Torah.

Here there is a difference between external teachings and the wisdom of the Torah: In external teachings, the elation lessens the intellect since emotion is opposite from the intellect. Thus, the elation diminishes the understanding of the intellect.

Conversely, in the wisdom of the Torah, the elation is an essence, like the intellect. The reason for this is that the Torah is life, as it is written, “Wisdom preserves he who has it,” as wisdom and life are the same thing.

Hence, as the wisdom appears in the mind, so the wisdom appears in the emotion, since the light of life fills all the organs. (It seems to me that this is why one should see that one is always elated over the wisdom of the Torah, since in the elation there is a big difference between an exterior teaching and the wisdom of the Torah.)

It is likewise in the work, considered the left line, because it is discerned as reception. The matter of reception means that one wants to receive because he feels a lack, and a lack is regarded as three discernments: 1) the want of the individual, 2) the want of the public, 3) the want of the Shechina [Divinity].

Any want is regarded as wanting to satisfy the deficiency; hence, it is considered reception and left line. Torah, however, means that one works not because he feels a lack that must be corrected, but that he wants to bestow contentment upon his Maker (through prayer, praise, and gratitude. When one engages in a way that one feels oneself in wholeness and does not see any shortcoming in the world, this is called “Torah.” However, if one engages while feeling some shortcoming, this is called “work”).

Also, we should make two discernments during the work: 1) due to love of the Creator, when he wants to adhere to the Creator and feels that this is the place where he can bring out the measure of love he feels and love the Creator, 2) because of fear, when he has fear of the Creator.

Reader: We'll move on to the lesson.

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Question (Kyiv 1): (06:19) You said that in spirituality, love doesn't follow the desire, but to the contrary, it works through opposition, resistance. And you gave the example with the guy and the girl, that he actually enjoys having his deficiency. So, what is spiritual love? How is it different from simple, plain love? 

M. Laitman: Spiritual love is when a person is filled by the yearning for the Creator; this yearning becomes a vessel. Look what is happening to you sometimes – I don't know, each one according to his state – I get up in the morning. I don't have a desire – I have nothing, I'm tired, I want to go back to bed. Maybe, on the other hand, I get up in the morning and I have a deficiency. And I want to get to the friends as quickly as possible, to the lesson. To see more, to hear more, to begin to feel something – it fulfills me. So, in spirituality, the yearning, the deficiency, it's not emptiness. I'm filled with this longing, with this inclination towards the yearning; that becomes my fulfillment, I don't want anything else. I don't want to receive anything from the Creator except for getting this yearning towards Him.

Student: I don't want to fill it up? 

M. Laitman: That's fulfillment, for me that's considered fulfillment; later, when in corporeality we want to begin to fill ourselves up where you have yearning. And you were like a kid there, a 12, 13-year-old kid, you would long for a girl. Let's say, you would continue to meet with her and then you would enter a life together. Then where is that yearning, where is that longing, where is that deficiency? Where are those nights that you would think about her and I would fill you up – look at your face, even, that's how you look like, you have that feeling. How different that feeling is from what you're having today, why? Because you killed it by seeking corporeal fulfillment in place of the deficiency. Our ego continues to work because it wants to fill itself, it wants to attain and the attainment destroys the yearning. And there's no yearning, there's no vessel, there's no hunger, there's no lack, what to do? That's why in spirituality, I come to a state where I have a restriction, a screen, a reflected light. And I'm building my Partzuf above my will to receive. And only there am I giving, not receiving, giving, and my pleasure, my entire pleasure is from giving. And inside this giving, I discover all the abundance, the wealth, that exists, or the happiness that exists in creation. That's the foundation of the wisdom of Kabbalah, that's why it's called the wisdom of Kabbalah – to receive. It's not so simple, it's not just to receive. It's how to receive in order to remain full, infinitely full in time, in space, in everything.

Student: I simply didn't understand: You moved from the place where you have a deficiency that is not filled, that I understand. How did you move on to the next stage, where you already have a screen and you want to fill yourself up?

M. Laitman: That happens by the reforming light, by the Creator's power that works in you. If, in place of the girl in the window that you play something for her on a mandolin, you have the Creator that you want to bestow to, not to receive from. You don't want this girl to jump into your arms from the window, from the balcony. Rather, you want to express your love for the Creator; then, you need the reforming light and then you build it above your desire, yes. Why do we have such a strong impression from first love? It's very similar there, similar to spiritual attraction. When you don't want her corporeally, with hormones and everything that happens later, and everything gets spoiled. Rather, you want everything in the form of, I to My beloved, and My beloved to Me. You just want the feelings, but then you turn it into a corporeal action, a hormonal act, and by that you ruin everything. But we have no choice in our world – in spirituality, it's different.

Student: And in spirituality I’ll be able to keep myself?

M. Laitman: In spirituality after the restriction, the screen, the reflected light, you come to a Zivug, a coupling. But the coupling and striking against the egoistic desire, and you build a condition for connection above the egoistic desire. That's why it exists eternally and whole, that's the difference between spirituality and corporeality. That's why spirituality is eternal, and corporeality is as we see it. Think about it – especially men. 

Question (PT 19): (14:12) In the article we read, it says that, in this there is a difference between the external teachings and the wisdom of the Torah. In the external teaching, the emotion, the elation, diminishes the mind. But the friend says it says, it’s not the wise who learns. So, what do we need the intellect for?

M. Laitman: We need the intellect but the intellect that's connected to spiritual work. It's a correct question; the friend is right. Our intellect that belongs to corporeal work is useless for spirituality, but we need the intellect that comes to us from above. It happens to you, I think – and more than once – that you open up our material, an article, and you understand nothing of what's written there. You barely put words together, you can't even finish a sentence because the intellect is not organized according to the order of the words in that sentence, what's happening here? Meaning, we need to arrange, to calibrate our intellect, our minds, according to the flow that we have in spirituality. That's the same as what we read about the Baal Shem Tov, that had such states where he couldn't even remember words, letters, do you understand how confused he was? Well, I'm talking about Hebrew letters because they come to us from Adam HaRishon. They are all the results of the lights and vessels that we have in spirituality. Graphically, in our world, that's how we arrange the order between lights and vessels. And that's why he lost that quality, the shape of the letters –  what do they look like, those signs? He's disconnected from spirituality to such an extent that he's disconnected from identifying the letters of the alphabet. So, that's what's happening 

Question (Holland 1): (17:17) You mentioned earlier fear, the vessel of revelation. What is the difference between corporeal fear and spiritual fear? And I'm asking because corporeal fear seems to me like the most egoistic expression of the will to receive because I'm afraid that I lose something. So how to reconcile these two different fears? 

M. Laitman: Because we start from corporeal degrees and later acquire spiritual degrees, we need to nevertheless go through corporeal discernments and then go into spiritual discernments, there's no other way. Hence, corporeal fear we have in psychology, psychiatry, medicine, many methods, and disciplines – we have a lot written about the corporeal fear; there are about 700 different types of fear. Those are natural fears of the will to receive, not necessarily the corporeal body, the body itself is not afraid. It's afraid of damages, of harm, but those damages are already spiritual; so, these are corporeal fears. Spiritual fears begin from the connection with the Creator, meaning as much as I can be close to or, God forbid, distant from the Creator. How much I can bestow to Him, and maybe, God forbid, I care about myself, how much I'm bestowing to myself, and so on and so forth. Here we discern the direction and the magnitude, and that's why all of our corrections are about how to correct these deficiencies. And the deficiencies for the Creator, we don't know how to aim them. And that's why the Creator shattered the vessel of Adam HaRishon, who was seemingly searching for how to aim it correctly. To go back to the right connection with himself, how this vessel of the will to receive that was in the spiritual desire is brought down to a corporeal state. And how from the corporeal state he can come back to the spiritual state. So, you need to build inside this desire a certain template, a model of sorts where you can figure out what is corporeality, and what is spirituality, so you'll have something to start from. So, in that place he's in, the corporeal place, material place, to have an example for it: This is spirituality, and this is corporeality. And that's why the Creator breaks the vessel of Adam HaRishon and He gives him an opportunity to correct himself. So, if they connect against a desire, then it's called spirituality; if you go with the desire, it's corporeality. You can't connect between them; you have to turn to the Creator. Oh, so we have contact between the created beings by the Creator, who has to be there as the connector, the adapter, and this is why  the mind and heart is two lines.

Question (Women PT 38): (21:54) What is the difference between the revelation of the secrets of the Torah, and between love and fear? 

M. Laitman:  In spirituality, there's a great difference between spirituality and corporeality. In corporeality, fear extinguishes the love and love extinguishes the fear. And in spirituality, they go hand in hand and support one another, and grow one another. The more I love, the more I'm afraid to spoil it, I look after my love. And that's why in spirituality, love only grows, and the fear grows; accordingly, and in corporeality, it can't be, it depends on the vessels in which we reveal the matter of connection. Either in order to receive, or in order to bestow, if it's in order to bestow, then both fear and love, they go hand in hand. 

Question (Women PT 6): (23:40) How does the discernment of the Torah and the discernment of the work, how should they fit together in our work? 

M. Laitman: They also complement one another, Torah, and work. Because according to my work, what I invest, the reforming light comes, and it completes my vessel. And in this vessel, I receive the internality of the Torah. Ah, women ask cunning questions. You see that, men? Look what they're asking!

Question (Women Latin 20): (24:39) What is the fear that we should feel toward the Creator?

M. Laitman: It’s can I bestow contentment to Him, that's the fear – that is the question that should always be before me. Whatever state I'm in, I should constantly ask about and care about whether or not I bestow to Him contentment, I bestow, and can bestow. 

Question (Women UK): (25:23) Why is it that the deficiency towards the Shechina is considered reception and left-line?

M. Laitman:  We are working with vessels of reception and that's why it's called, a left; versus the vessels of bestowal we work with are called right. But both the left and the right, we are working in the vessels of our will to receive. That's why we may get into some confusion, here, we need to come to, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your desires, all your soul. Meaning, both in the good desire and the bad desire – the desire to bestow and the desire to receive. We should arrange ourselves in such a way that we'll be able to bestow to Him as an expression of the complete love.

Question (Women Moscow 4): (26:31) Should we discern inside of us these three kinds of deficiency?

M. Laitman:  One grows on top of the other and because our path is built out of degrees, each degree have an Ibur and Mochin. That's why this way we climb, and we're incorporated. One degree incorporates in the next, and that's how I grow up. But these discernments, the deficiency of the individual, of the collective, and of the Shechina, they always intermingle together, eventually.

Student: How should we yearn to the Creator, not out of lack but out of fear and love? 

M. Laitman: Fear and love are also a deficiency, but a deficiency that gives me adhesion in the Creator rather than pushing me away. There's nothing greater, more exalted, and how should I put it, more whole than the deficiency. You just understand: If I lack the Creator, adhesion with Him, if I yearn to embrace with Him, what can be better than that? What can be better if I have a set table before me and I have enough appetite to receive everything on the table. And there's a host who is expecting me to receive everything from him with love, you understand? Meaning, the deficiency is a correct thing, what is the one thing the Creator created? The deficiency. After He is present, what did He do? A deficiency, that's what He created. So, we need to only learn how to work with the deficiency. The work with the deficiency is called the wisdom of Kabbalah, how to correctly receive, how to build the deficiency correctly, and He will be filled. This is our work. 

Question (W PT 38): (29:18) How does a person guarantee that he will not lose the fear along the way? How do we keep the complete fear? 

M. Laitman: This is the study with the group. We have to constantly scrutinize between us, between the friends in the group: What else can we add to our deficiency, today compared to our deficiency yesterday? And in this way, we will advance, constantly search, constantly search, and also to talk amongst ourselves. Especially PT38 is a very sharp group, there are such women there I'm afraid of! 

Question (W Moscow 20): (30:22) What does it mean that the light of life fills all of the organs? 

M. Laitman: We also have it in the song, that it fills all the organs. The light of life is what comes to us from the Creator, it's the feeling of the Creator. This is what we call, life, because the one who is alive is the upper light that wants to bestow, to give, that fills us, that brings us life. That's what we get, that's what we receive and we feel, and that's why it's called, the light of life. According to what we feel life? According to how much we went through the connection between us. Meaning in spite of our ego, the connection between us expresses how much we're capable of rising above our egos. I am willing to embrace all of my friends, although I reject them, I repel them. And the more advanced, I don’t just repel them I want to kill them and burn them, and it doesn't matter what. We overcome it, not externally, internally – we ask the Creator to give us the possibility for connecting above the hate and the rejection and the corruption and criticism. And we connect and embrace, we raise ourselves to the Creator, and from Him, we get fulfilled in the connection between us. That's what's happening, try to make it tangible. We'll see that these things are so real, we have to do it, you'll discover how you don't want it, you are completely blocked off, you have no mind for it, no heart. You find yourselves thrown into corporeal things, and later you once again rise. As it's written, a thousand times, the righteous shall fall and rise again. And in this way, more and more and more, everything and anything but leave; don't leave the connection, even when it looks like the worst possible connection. And it may appear as non-existent, but I remain, I step outside, I'm not going to take a step to the side of the Ten. Even when I feel myself the worst, and I'm disturbing, I should stay. And you'll see that tomorrow will be another day, and tomorrow could be a moment from now.

Question (Women France 1): (33:46) Can we say that the group is in the intellect, and the Torah is work in the heart, and the connection of the two of them together gives the middle line? 

M. Laitman: I wouldn't say it's correct but they should work in this way and discover for themselves what's correct. Spiritual work is not in the intellect, the hearts, that created the man's all the hearts, that's what's written and that's what we need. Our intellect is good only in order to aim the heart, direct it only for that. And we need to connect the hearts, so if you try, especially women, try to somehow bring the hearts closer. And the heart of a woman is closed in such a way. That's why our work; our main work is through the man to draw the light that will influence the woman. Just like in corporeality, the man brings the sperm to the woman, and she begins to develop and then give birth to the new generation. Similarly, we, the men, have to bring the light to the women, both to the inner woman in us – since in each of us there's a masculine and feminine part – and also to the external women, the external part in Bnei Baruch. Women have to be organized to some extent, that they are ready to connect between them and receive our influence. And together, we'll come to a state where we'll be as one man and one vessel, one body, one desire, this will come. I see, according to the advancement of women, that we have a very powerful woman part.