Morning Lesson June 3, 2021, Transcription
TES:
Baal HaSulam. "Study of the Ten Sefirot" (TES). Vol. 1. Part 1. Table of Answers for Topics. #55 ("From the beginning to the end of the wisdom.")
Item 55 “What terms are absent in the wisdom of Kabbalah?” From the beginning to the end of the wisdom there is not even a single word that relates to any tangible or imaginary term, such as space, time, motion and so on. Also, there is no absence in spirituality, and any change of form does not mean that the first form is absent. Instead, the first form remains in its place unchanged at all and the disparity of form that has now been acquired is added to the first form.
40. R. (02:21) Here there is always an additional form of connections between the desire to receive of the created being and the desire to bestow of the Creator. The desire to receive out the created being every time receives different forms in order to bestow by that, he builds more and more connections to the Creator and this is how they come to a connection and from there comes all of the wisdom of Kabbalah. How the created being is opposite to the Creator comes to equivalence of form with the Creator. Here we are incapable of seeing this and understanding this, but there is endless Partzufim, endless states that are built and created and all kinds of moments, and all kinds of state so ultimately all of them compliment the big circle that was analog, now is digital, discrete we call it. That is when we take small squares and we want to fill by the squares we want to fill the circle, but each one we won't be able to do this but by the Creator we reach an infinite fulfillment of the circle.
41. S. (04:12) To ask about those squares, we are tiny squares that gather all the friends. How do we become a circle?
R. That is called the Creator will finish my work, as much as I can bring myself to the circle, to an unlimited action of bestowal between the friends and humanity and the Creator so I do the maximum that I can and the Creator will finish my work. Meaning He will complement this shape of the square into a circle.
Item 56 “What is the ordinary language in the wisdom of Kabbalah?” This language is a “Language of Branches” that points to their Upper Roots. That is because “You haven’t even a single blade of grass below that has not a root above.” Therefore, the sages of the Kabbalah have put together a language that is equipped to imply through the branches and teach of the Upper Roots.
42. S. (06:30) What is the revelation of the sages if everything has a reason, why do they need a language?
R. Using the language of the branches in our world, to use the language of branches in our world to me and intend spiritual logic but to use words of our world. Then we have words, names, appellations that exist in our world but for spiritual forces we don't have these in our world but the connection of root and branch we can discover it. The Kabbalists that discover these connections for us and arrange the language of roots and branches gave us a connection between our lower world and the upper spiritual world and then we can by this connection awaken upper forces, roots, to force them to bestow upon the branches in our world, us.
Item 57 “What separates and discriminates in the wisdom of Kabbalah?” The disparity of form distinguishes and departs the spirituals from one another.
43. R. (08:32) Form meaning not the true desire because the spiritual is a desire to bestow, the Creator and the created being is opposite of Him, but that they can never be as close or similar, or touch each other, only opposite. However, they are being able to change themselves, that is what is happening now, here. The Creator may perceive from the created thing as a created being can bestow to the Creator and this is how it turns out that there is a desire and there is a shape, a form that the desire expresses above itself and by that they can equalize. Meaning to reach, coming closer or even being in adhesion, that difference of form that separates the spiritual can also bring them closer.
44. S. (09:39) I'm asking about item 56 that in this wisdom there is not even one word that is tangible or imaginary, we know that the wisdom of Kabbalah is filled with words like a screen going up, going down, a screen being broken, Toch, Sof, how should I relate to these terms?
R. You need to try to relate to them correctly and then you will see that there is nothing in this tangible world whether going up or down, gathering, expanding, compressing, building itself in such a way it doesn't matter what changes we have in spiritual terms. In our world we don't have not the term itself or all the changes that we are speaking about. It is not there because the desire to bestow is not in our world so the desire to bestow itself is the Creator and the desire to receive that gets a form of bestowing that is the spiritual created thing and both of them are not in our world.
S. You're saying we should feel these things, these internal terms but before reaching attainment how should we relate to it?
R. You need to try and reach a state that you build these terms in your imagination and you hope that you will reveal these terms in actuality, that your desire will really change by your tendency and then you will feel these terms in practice.
45. S. (11:44) I didn't understand the explanation between the desire and the form?
R. There is a desire, the desire does not change, it is given from nature and there is a form. The desire extends and expresses itself, maybe it is a will to receive but it expresses itself as the will to bestow. Maybe he's just restricting itself that doesn't have a desire, meaning the external form of the will to receive does not depend upon the desire like it depends upon its effort, what It wants to express from itself. Just like in our world like an actor, who acts some kind of role, some character but inside he could be something opposite.
Item 58 “What is the origin of the “will to receive?” The will to bestow in the upper light necessitates the existence of the will to receive in the emanated being.
46. S. (13:37) About the form and the intention is there a difference between the two?
R. The intention comes from the created to the Creator it escorts the action of the created being, it’s like the letter we were speaking about. What is he doing this for? The action is an action. You can't stay according to an action what the essence of it was in quality. You don't know because you don't know what is happening. The fact is, let's say it is written that he who spares his whip hates his son. That if you don't punish your child because it's a piece of egoistic will to receive, so you hate him. He will not know how to behave correctly. You have to put pressure on him, you have to punish him so he knows what limits between good and bad are and where he has to be. That is how it is, we have to say these things in a practical way.
S. This means the shape or form is a tactical action and the intention is the potential until it is executed?
R. Yes.
Item 59 “What makes the light exit the emanator and become an emanated being?” This innovative part stopped being regarded as the Emanator and became an emanated being because of the form of the will to receive that was innovated with the upper light, since it wants to bestow.
47. R. Meaning the will to receive that is outside of the Emanator of the Creator because the Creator is the will to bestow, the will to receive that is outside of the Creator it sucks the light from the Creator and the light comes out of the Creator and enters the created being into the will to receive. Then the restriction and so on, the whole process, but this is actually what is happening.
48. S. (17:26) You teach us that the emanator also changes in order to get from the emanated and we understand that from that the emanated being changes in the advancement of the process of creation, but how is this that the Creator is changing?
R. The Creator is not something that lives and exists outside of us. The Creator is "come and see". That you have to come and then you see according to your qualities. It's not that he has some kind of form or some kind of quality that you can say that is him himself on his own. The Creator is a term that exists towards the created being and each one has an impression of that upper force called the Creator. It also changes in each and everyone. Yesterday there was one Creator, tomorrow it's a different Creator, the third Creator because you depict it in your vessels. That is how it works. We need to see these things in a more flexible way. That is the way Kabbalists depict it and that is how it is written in many books.
49. S. (19:22) The will to receive and the Creator are they the same or is the created being a new state of the will to receive?
R. The created being is the will to receive you should read the definitions. The created being is the will to receive that was created by the bestowing force called Creator, but not the Creator and not the created being are to begin with are not in reality but the bestowing force is in creation called the Creator, the receiving force that was created by the bestowing force is called the created being.
50. S. (20:32) It turns out that the will to receive should act in bestowal by that it resembles the giver. Is this all of our work?
R. It really is called a game and that we try to do towards the Creator what He did towards us. To make your desire as His desire, there are a lot of examples and excerpts and that is the way that they speak.
51. S. (21:19) Can we say there is an upper force that is that nature doesn't change and the Creator does change by the feeling of the created being?
R. Correct.
52. S. (22:14) According to the previous questions, in the Creator there is a negative and positive force, giving and receiving, in Atzmuto there is only good. That is what we always feel, because of that, that's all we can feel from Atzmuto but only from the Creator? What we build? Is that correct?
R. That is right. That is why the Creator is called, come and see, Bore, as much as you come with your vessels, you see this term the way it is being depicted to according to your qualities, this is why it is called Creator, one is good, one is bad, one is like this or that, it keeps changing. But the upper force, Atzmuto, has no connection to you.
53. S. (23:27) If each friend has its own perception of the Creator how do we reach the connection between us?
R. We are connecting between us, that is why we are attaining the Creator's attitude towards the 10 and in the 10's as they broaden and expand we attained the concept of the Creator more and more complete way, the way He is relating to us in all kinds of different ways and values on the ladder, until we reach a state that we discover him in a whole complete way towards all of creation and in this way that is how I feel it.
Item 60 “What is the first substance of every emanated being?” The new form that emerged from absence, meaning the “will receive” that is in every essence, is the “first substance” of every emanated being and every essence. Moreover, everything that exists in the emanated being or in the essence that is more than that substance, is regarded as light and abundance that extends from the upper light “existence from existence” and not at all as an emanated being and a created being. It is not surprising that a form becomes a substance, because it is so corporeal as well. Our conduct is to regard the first form of the essence as the first substance. That is because there is no attainment whatsoever in any matter in the entire reality, since our senses perceive only incidents in the matter, which are forms that incarnate and manifest in the first substance.
54. S. (27:46) What is an essence?
R. That is something we don't reveal only the external forms that are added to the essence, the essence itself we can't attain because we are created beings.
55. S. (28:16) Sometimes we are required to give a clear example of what is the Creator so we say the Creator is the force of bestowal and love which is the desire to do good to the creatures and sometimes we stay here it is the revelation that the desire to receive feels and He also may feel the Creator in a negative way so what is the right way to define?
R. To define the term Creator correctly? What is accepted in the vessels of the created being in each and every state which is above his ego.
S. This is necessarily the good that does good or it can be felt differently?
R. No, he feels the term Creator is a force that manages him and helps him to advance towards a purpose, towards the goal. According to that he justifies him because he sees the goal, he agrees with him beyond and above his reason and then in his reason obviously he doesn't accept him or want to accept him, meaning the created being has a problem. I don't think it's a problem, to the contrary, the created being finds it difficult for him to reveal the Creator until he equalizes with Him and qualities. That the created being in those qualities can rise above his reason and the Creator is the way He is and they discover one another.
S. But with respect to the definition the Creator is only the force of bestowal this is how we reveal Him?
R. Yes, He has no other form.
S. Bestowal is only a good feeling in the will to receive and only way this way I define the Creator and I feel bestowal is a good thing?
R. It is a good thing toward the created being in his corrected vessels and in the uncorrected vessels it is bad, a bad relation, that's why there's good and bad, day and night it all depends on the vessels of the created being.
S. Both are called Creator, these two feelings?
R. The good feeling and the bad feeling comes from the term Creator because by that the created being grows and reaches the path of educating that the Creator is giving him to a stage where he understands and feels the Creator also on behalf of the light and behalf of the darkness. That's why it is written that he creates, makes the light and creates the darkness.
S. How do we discover if we have no perception about the essence, how do we know he's really the good that does good, that his intention was only to do good?
R. Also the good that does good even in an absolute form, not his essence yet, Atzmuto is above what is revealed towards the lower ones, we speak about Atzmuto that it is the root above the upper one.
S. And we say the Creator is a good that does good and it's only the feeling of the created being in the corrected vessel.
R. Yes this is what I have to accept and reveal it because I am saying the good that does good the flavor and my taste, the ability to enjoy Him.
56. S. (32:33) Can we say that the will to receive is the internality of the will to bestow?
R. No, it is two desires that exist in creation, the will to bestow is the first, the will to receive is the second. When we speak of the initial emanator we are not speaking about a desire, it is not in him and we can't say it about any desire in any quality.
57. S. (33:16) Why do we need a body, why does the will to receive need this body?
R. We need such a presentation of the desire to receive like our body in order for us to be able to approach actions of receiving and bestowing, intentions of receiving and bestowing in a way that is independent upon anything. This is why we need to start our development from the state that is outside of the spiritual intention in order to bestow. We are working with the will to receive itself. That is how it happens.
58. S. (34:20) We learned that Kabbalah is an exact science and if anyone named something this means that he attained it, for instance the Atzmuto it is clear it's not attained, that you can't attain it. Here at a certain point someone attained it if he named it.
R. It could be not entirely but describing something to it from creation. The essence we are speaking about, the quality that is in a created being and exists in reality, that we are speaking about the most inter quality of that phenomenon, that is called an essence.
S. At what point can a person attain that?
R. The essence I don't know when we attain that, we gradually into each and every spiritual action and every state we have changed somewhat like a minute part of the essence but we can't stay about it that it is really the essence because bestowal did not go through the four phases of understanding the essence, when we reach the Keter of the essence through the 4 phases then we really attain.
59. S. (36:15) In the desire to receive and our world the root is in the ground, I see and I control, but in spirituality the excerpt says the root is above, meaning if I want this spiritual world, I need to raise my head and to expect the fruits to come from above.
R. We will have to speak about it. It is not simple, I'm not today, you are saying nice things but we need to scrutinize it.
60. S. (37:06) In speaking in the language of roots and branches, why does Baal HaSulam describe the example of a blade of grass growing wouldn't it be more basic to say even a grain of sand or a particle of dust is commanded to maintain its form?
R. First of all I can't say exactly why because that is his business, he could have taken something else as an example maybe but he didn't. Stop easily we have to go according to his direction and because there is something about it, the still, vegetative, animal and speaking this is exactly what we have against the spiritual world, those four phases are a complete copy in our world from spirituality. Still, vegetative, animal and speaking come against the 4 phases except for the roots 1 2 3 4 and in this way, we can't explain anything in any way else, everything that is happening in our world. I think we will end here I'm happy to see you as much as it is difficult for you today that the participating in the lesson and we need to learn from that that the burdening of the heart happens to all of us as part of the signs of a big group that is formulating and connecting and this is also good.