The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning), April 11, 2024.
Part 2: Baal HaSulam. The Freedom
Reader: We're reading from the writings of Baal HaSulam, the article, The Freedom.
Reading: (00:11) “‘Harut [engraved] on the tablets’; do not pronounce it Harut, but rather Herut [freedom], to show that they were liberated from the angel of death.” These words need to be clarified, for how is the matter of acceptance of the Torah related to one’s liberation from death? Furthermore, once they have attained an eternal body that cannot die through the acceptance of the Torah, how did they lose it again? Can the eternal become absent?
Reading: (01:16) Next title, Freedom of Will: To understand the sublime concept, “freedom from the angel of death,” we must first understand the concept of freedom as it is normally understood by all of humanity. It is a general view that freedom is deemed a natural law, which applies to all of life. Thus, we see that animals that fall into captivity die when we rob them of their freedom. This is a true testimony that Providence does not accept the enslavement of any creature. It is with good reason that humanity has been struggling for the past several hundred years to obtain a certain measure of freedom of the individual. Yet, this concept, expressed in that word, “freedom,” remains unclear, and if we delve into the meaning of that word, there will be almost nothing left, for before you seek the freedom of the individual, you must assume that any individual, in and of himself, has that quality called “freedom,” meaning that one can act according to one’s choice of one’s own free will.
M. Laitman: Questions, none? We will clarify this later. Questions, none, okay. We'll scrutinize it later.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (03:29) In general, we should see freedom as a natural law, like animals that don't agree to be enslaved. A while ago, we learned that the slave, actually, surrenders to the state of enslavement, and said, I love my master?
M. Laitman: That's not a natural situation, not a natural state. It's not a natural state, it's because there is no choice. Let's say he wants to eat more but he has no way to get food. So he says, yeah, okay, I'm willing.
Student: We also see it when animals are enslaved, that's how you house train them. What does he mean, freedom, because we see the struggle for freedom. Maybe it's for control but it's not exactly what this law of freedom. A natural law of freedom, what does it mean?
M. Laitman: Read it however you want but this is what happens, this is what is happening. Let's continue.
Reading: (04:39) Next title, Pleasure and Pain: However, when we examine the acts of an individual, we will find them compulsory. He is compelled to do them and has no freedom of choice. In a sense, he is like a stew cooking on a stove; it has no choice but to cook, since Providence has harnessed life with two chains: pleasure and pain.
The living creatures have no freedom of choice—to choose pain or reject pleasure. And man’s advantage over animals is that man can aim at a remote goal, meaning agree to a certain amount of current pain, out of choice of future benefit or pleasure to be attained after some time. But in fact, there is no more than a seemingly commercial calculation here, where the future benefit or pleasure seems preferable and advantageous to the agony they are suffering from the pain they have agreed to assume presently. There is only a matter of deduction here—where they deduct the pain and suffering from the anticipated pleasure, and there remains some surplus.
Thus, only the pleasure is extended. And so it sometimes happens that we are tormented because the pleasure we received is not the surplus we had hoped for compared to the agony we suffered. Hence, we are in deficit, just as are merchants.
And when all is said and done, there is no difference here between man and animal. And if this is the case, there is no free choice whatsoever, but a pulling force drawing them toward any passing pleasure and rejecting them from painful circumstances. And Providence leads them to every place it chooses by means of these two forces without asking their opinion in the matter.
Moreover, even determining the type of pleasure and benefit are entirely out of one’s own free choice, but follows the will of others, as they want, and not he. For example: I sit, I dress, I speak, and I eat. I do all these not because I want to sit that way, or talk that way, or dress that way, or eat that way, but because others want me to sit, dress, talk, and eat that way. It all follows the desire and fancy of society, and not my own free will.
Furthermore, in most cases, I do all these against my will. For I would be more comfortable behaving simply, without any burden. But I am chained with iron shackles, in all my movements, to the fancies and manners of others, which make up the society.
So tell me, where is my freedom of will? On the other hand, if we assume that the will has no freedom, and we are all like machines operating and creating through external forces, which force them to act this way, it means that we are all incarcerated in the prison of Providence, which, using these two chains, pleasure and pain, pushes and pulls us to its will, to where it sees fit.
It turns out that there is no such thing as selfishness in the world, since no one here is free or stands in his own right. I am not the owner of the act and I am not the doer because I want to do. Rather, it is because I am worked upon against my will and without my awareness. Thus, reward and punishment become extinct.
And it is quite odd not only for the religious, who believe in His Providence and can rely on Him and trust that He aims only for the best in this conduct. It is even stranger for those who believe in nature, since according to the above-said, we are all incarcerated by the chains of blind nature, with no awareness or accountability. And we, the chosen species, with reason and knowledge, have become a toy in the hands of the blind nature, which leads us astray, and who knows where?
M. Laitman: Yes, I think it's clear, even too clear. Does someone not agree? No, no questions, so let's go. No, wait, wait, we have.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:55) That's on one hand, but I see that every person is different and that, supposedly, makes them free by getting a different desire from the Creator. A person feels or ascribes himself to something to what his desire determines because he is separated from the others in his desire.
M. Laitman: Yes, his freedom is in that he is not the same as others.
Student: Is that not the freedom that the Creator created in a person?
M. Laitman: This is how we behave, and this is called our ego.
Student: But in that, each one feels that he's free?
M. Laitman: I'm not like you.
Student: In that, a regular person, I feel free in that because I'm different than the others.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: That quality in reality, where each one feels that he's different from the others. Is that just imaginary freedom, it's not what we're supposed to reach?
M. Laitman: Of course it's imaginary, because we are, nevertheless, enslaved to the general ego, to what society thinks, to what it demands. And in my will to receive, I have a passion for this, to be great in their eyes. And this totally buries me so, there is no freedom, here.
Student: Maybe it's too early to ask, but still, can a man at some point decide what his desire will be? Can he ask to have a different desire?
M. Laitman: Never.
Student: It's not in his hands.
M. Laitman: He is always within the society which determines everything. He is also born in the society and developed in the society. I see no way to escape it.
Student: To escape from the natural desire the Creator awakens in me. I can't ask to have a different desire than what I have.
M. Laitman: No.
Student: In that, there's no freedom, we can't jump?
M. Laitman: We see with everyone, that, even a person who runs away, who goes to live in the woods or something. It is what he prefers out of the choice of desires that he has in front of him.
Student: A person also has to agree in his faith, in his destiny. In what he has and the desire he was given, that's what he has, and he has to work with it and advance a different type of freedom.
M. Laitman: What does he have, from where does he have such a desire? He is born in the desire, in the society. He grew and developed in the society, he is among the still vegetative animate and speaking. And this is what conquers him, he can never be free.
Student: For right now, there's no freedom at all.
M. Laitman: Right, right. Okay. Next, who? Yes. Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:00) Every time I read Baal HaSulam, it seems to me like everything he wrote, he wrote only for us. No one in the world is interested about it, no one wants to hear it or read it. He writes here, and we, the highest, the choice among the created beings. I think this is, by that he means B'nei Baruch, this is how I feel it, of intellect and knowledge, become a play toy, a toy in the hands of blind nature, who leads us astray and who knows where. Who knows where? Do you know, who knows where he wants to lead us?
M. Laitman: I don't know but we accept His control as the only upper control that is in control of us in an essential way, in a necessary way. Let's go.
Reader: (18:18) Can I ask?
M. Laitman: Well, quick.
Reader: He writes here that a person can appreciate the pleasure or the destined benefit, and accordingly he decides to act as if there’s a surplus. What makes a person make mistakes so that in the end he is deficient?
M. Laitman: Because he doesn't know the future.
Student: It depends on a person's psychology?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Those whose psychology is wrong?
M. Laitman: Everybody is mistaken because we can't take the future into account, correctly. It's not in our hands, it's not in my desires. So what can I do?
Student: It's better not to do anything, it's better not to advance.
M. Laitman: So how will I take the next action? How will I take the next step?
Student: This is really the question.
M. Laitman: There's no question, I have no way to weigh this correctly.
Student: I'm just being forced, I'm being forced to do everything I do?
M. Laitman: Yes, if not for our desire to receive to try and gain something from every action, we couldn't decide anything.
Student: In the end, a person measures himself moving only according to suffering?
M. Laitman: Only according to what his will to receive is demanding of him, that's it. Do this or don't do that, that's what he's saying. That, all in all, we choose the path that seems better than the path that seems worse, that's it. Next.
Reading: (20:04) Headline: The Law of Causality. It is worthwhile taking some time to grasp such an important thing, meaning how we exist in the world as beings with a “self,” where each of us regards himself as a unique entity, acting on its own, independent of external, alien, and unknown forces, and in what this being—the self—becomes revealed to us. It is true that there is a general connection among all the elements of reality before us, which abides by the law of causality, by way of cause and effect, moving forward. And as the whole, so is each item for itself, meaning that each and every creature in the world from the four types—still, vegetative, animate, and speaking—abides by the law of causality by way of cause and effect.
Moreover, each particular form of a particular conduct, which a creature follows while in this world, is pushed by ancient causes, compelling it to accept that change in that conduct and not another whatsoever. This is apparent to all who examine the ways of nature from a pure scientific point of view and without a mixture of bias. Indeed, we must analyze this matter to allow ourselves to examine it from all sides.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:53) Will I always want what the people outside want?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: I know it's only at the beginning of the article, but he kind of closes it, you'll always want what they want outside. It's not your own will.
M. Laitman: The fact that the external world is working on me, that's correct. But except for that, there's part of the people that get an additional desire. To come out of the control of the world, and to be above it. That's called, to come closer to the Creator, yes.
Student: Let's simplify it for a minute: Greed is the most powerful desire. After greed, there's women and other lusts in the world. Then, so what do you do? He says, I speak, I eat, I don't choose to sit this way, eat this way, speak this way. So I have no control over what is happening.
M. Laitman: No, you don't, that's why, what's he say here, how's the article called, The Freedom. So what is the freedom, that's what we want to know.
Student: So how do you have freedom from these desires?
M. Laitman: I don't know, let's read. It's good that you have the question and you see that it's an essential question in life.
Student: It almost throws me into what you said, that this world is built on six desires.
M. Laitman: It doesn't matter how much, the fact is that we, right now, are lost in our desires. And everything you're asking, and everything you want to ask. Against, or pro and con, you don't come out of that cell, that cell you're in.
Student: That cell you're in, is there a way out of it?
M. Laitman: There is.
Student: Will I stop wanting what I wanted before?
M. Laitman: No, but I can be above it.
Student: It'll still exist in me, I'll still want these things?
M. Laitman: No, I can rise above it in a way that it won't work on me.
Student: It doesn't govern me? It'll still be in me.
M. Laitman: Okay, maybe it'll remain, specifically, so that every time I can see that I rise above it, on such desires.
Student: Each time it awakens in me?
M. Laitman: Say, every time.
Student: You'll be able to, you'll get used to overcoming, you'll be able to overcome each time?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: With the group, without friends, with friends?
M. Laitman: No, it doesn't matter how, eventually, I rise above all of humanity, and reach the Creator, and become free. And I feel and understand, and I am like Him. You understand how, what an opportunity we have to grow?
Student: It's totally opposite, you don't enjoy these things. It doesn't control you, you don't enjoy them.
M. Laitman: I guess there are other types of pleasure.
Student: It's like your importance changes, or what?
M. Laitman: Yes, you're right, the importance changes, the desire changes. You have good questions.
Reading: (27:18) Four Factors: Bear in mind that every emergence occurring in the beings of the world must be perceived not as extending existence from absence, but as existence from existence, through an actual entity that has shed its previous form and has robed its current one.
Therefore, we must understand that in every emergence in the world there are four factors where from the four of them together arises that emergence. They are called by the names:
The source.
The unchanging conduct of cause and effect related to the source’s own attribute.
Its internal conducts of cause and effect which change by contact with alien forces.
The conducts of cause and effect of alien things which affect it from the outside.
I will clarify them one at a time.
M. Laitman: I have nothing to add here. Just if you don't understand what he wrote. But I think it's written very clear.
Reading: (29:12) The First Reason: the Source, the First Matter
A) The “source” is the first matter, related to that being. For “there is nothing new under the sun,” and anything that happens in our world is not existence from absence, but existence from existence. It is an entity that has stripped off its former shape and taken on another form, different from the first. And that entity, which shed its previous form, is defined as “the source.” In it lies the potential destined to be revealed and determined at the end of the formation of that emergence. Therefore, it is clearly considered its primary cause.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Reading: (30:35) What does it mean that a form stripped off its previous form?
M. Laitman: That it had a certain form, and it lets go of that form, and develops into the next form.
Student: What motivates it to leave its former form?
M. Laitman: I guess the forces at work on it and work from the outside.
Student: Here he's talking about the source. The source strips off its form in relation to what?
M. Laitman: To its first form.
Student: In other words, there's a force that pulls the source?
M. Laitman: Yes, takes it from the previous control, from the previous form, to the next form.
Student: The previous form still remains?
M. Laitman: No, it doesn't remain, it becomes the next form. What, that's not clear?
Student: Clear.
M. Laitman: There's no questions, here, it's clear. And the second reason.
Reading: (31:53) The Second Reason: Cause and Effect that Stem from Itself
B) This is a conduct of cause and effect related to the source’s own attribute, and which is unchanging. Take, for example, a stalk of wheat that has rotted in the ground and arrived at a state of sowing many stalks of wheat. Thus, that rotten state is deemed the “source,” meaning that the essence of the wheat has stripped off its former shape, the shape of wheat, and has taken on a new quality, that of rotten wheat, which is the seed called “the source,” which has no shape at all. Now, after rotting in the ground, it has become suitable for robing another form, the form of many stalks of wheat, intended to emerge from that source, which is the seed.
It is known to all that this source is destined to become neither grain nor oats, but only equalize with its former shape, which has left it, being the single stalk of wheat. Although it changes to a certain degree in quality and quantity, for in the former shape it was a single stalk, and now there are ten stalks, and in taste and appearance, too, the essence of the shape of the wheat remains unchanged.
Thus, there is a conduct of cause and effect here, ascribed to the source's own attribute, which never changes. Thus, grain will never emerge from wheat, as we have said, and this is called “the second reason.”
M. Laitman: That's clear to everybody, right? We also see it in life. Yes, the third reason.
Reading: (34:57) The Third Reason: Internal Cause and Effect
C) This is the conduct of the internal cause and effect of the source, which changes upon encountering the alien forces in its environment. Thus, we find that from one stalk of wheat, which rots in the ground, many stalks emerge, sometimes larger and better wheat than prior to sowing.
Therefore, there must be additional factors involved here, collaborating and connecting with the force concealed in the environment, meaning the “source.” And because of this, the additions in quality and quantity, which were absent in the previous form of wheat, have now appeared. Those are the minerals and the materials in the ground, the rain, and the sun. All these operate on it by administering from their forces and joining the force within the source itself. And through the conduct of cause and effect, they have produced the multiplicity in quantity and quality in that emergence.
We must understand that this third factor joins the internality of the source, since the force hidden in the source controls them. In the end, all these changes belong to the wheat and to no other plant. Hence, we define them as internal factors. However, they differ from the second factor, which is utterly unchanging, whereas the third factor changes in both quality and quantity.
M. Laitman: What?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:57) The example with the wheat is clear and we know it, but what is the example with man?
M. Laitman: I don't know.
Student: What is the source of man?
M. Laitman: I don't know, I just want to understand one thing, what he writes. Is he's speaking about a general law? Yes. Is it on all the still vegetative animate that go through development, yes. That's it. What's in man as opposed to seeds or rocks, it doesn't matter, what's in him more? If you start talking about the upper force, that's something else, but the biological body, the chemistry, still, vegetative, animate and speaking, their development is equal development. Each one, obviously, according to their nature but the development is equal. What he wants to say is that these four reasons are in each and every one, that's it. Number four
Reading: (39:36) The Fourth Reason: Cause and Effect through Alien Things
D) This is a conduct of cause and effect of alien things that act upon it from the outside. In other words, they have no direct relation to the wheat, like minerals, rain, or sun, but are alien to it, such as nearby things or external events, such as hail, wind, etc.
And you find that four factors combine to the wheat throughout its growth. Each particular state that the wheat is subject to during that time becomes conditioned on the four of them, and the quality and quantity of each state is determined by them.
As we have portrayed in the wheat, so is the rule in every emergence in the world, even in thoughts and ideas. If, for example, we picture some conceptual state in a certain individual, such as a state of a person being religious or non-religious, or an extreme orthodox or not so extreme, or midway, we will understand that that state was established in that person by the four above factors.
M. Laitman: Meaning, even in a person that is developed above all this, and even on his highest degree, which already belongs to religion or a cause that is completely not clear to us. But he says that they have those same four factors, and they also work on a person according to that same law. So we won't keep going right now because it can complicate it, it can make it complicated. Questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (42:47) Real freedom, is it freedom from the desires or freedom in intentions? Because we say that we don't change desires, we change the intention
M. Laitman: That we'll see, that we're going to learn.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:12) Baal HaSSulam is describing an order of cause and consequence. Everything seems to be predetermined and pre-planned. The example of wheat, can you say it about anything? Everything develops in this way?
M. Laitman: It has to be, but is there anything additional? According to what he writes, no.
Student: For example, wars, wars in the world, is that also developed? Can you see their cause and effect process by which they happen?
M. Laitman: Wars? Yes.
Student: For example, if there is a threat now, Iran and other countries are threatening Israel. Is it something that can be changed? Do we have the strength to change it? Or is it a mandatory process?
M. Laitman: Of course, it comes from the law of development, and, of course, that we can affect it, we can influence it. If we want to connect between us and to reach that same force that, then works on all of creation, in a way that we connect between us above our ego that separates between us. Then, obviously, we can influence the whole process the world is going through.
Student: Should we aim for something specific, a specific action? Or connection, in general, and whatever happens in the world?
M. Laitman: When we want to connect between us in order to reach an action, a general action of connection. Of all the people that can reach in order to bestow, that they will get an impulse for it and implement it.
Student: More concretely: Do you feel a threat, a real threat, on Israel?
M. Laitman: Why are you asking, why is that important?
Student: Because it bothers people.
M. Laitman: It bothers us, good.
Student: The question is can we change this? Or is it a process that has to come, how should we relate to it? Should we be disturbed by it, not be disturbed?
M. Laitman: You want to erase the law of nature. That, people are burdened by this, and it could be that it brings them to some new state, a new decision, right?
Student: I want to understand not to erase the law of nature. How to work with the law of nature, correctly? Because if it has to come, let it come. But how do we work with it, correctly, maybe we can prevent it.
M. Laitman: All laws of nature come in order to bring us closer to one another.
Student: How should I relate to a threat that comes to a person?
M. Laitman: That is one of the negative types of pressure, that through positive pressure, you can neutralize it, annul it, yes.
Student: Why neutralize it if it's a natural law that comes to eventually bring us closer?
M. Laitman: That is exactly called, to bring it closer and use it, yes. All the laws work like that.
Student: How can a threat bring us to freedom?
M. Laitman: Don't jump from a threat to freedom, even though it's not so distant from one another. We need to reach a state that we use all these forces, especially that come down on us with a great threat. That we can use them, also for connection in a good way to reveal the Creator, to come closer to Him, that's the invitation. The fact that you call it a threat, I call it an awakening and an opportunity.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (49:00) To continue, the story of Purim and the story of the Exodus from Egypt are very similar to what is happening today. What can we learn from this? Not just sit and wait for the blows to land on us.
M. Laitman: Try to go out to the whole nation, obviously first to your own group. And then around that, in broader and broader circles, to awaken them to connection. More than that, you don't need, that's what we need.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (49:55) I'm noticing that there are external states that a person responds to at one time with anxiety. The next day he might say, well, what's the big deal? For example, there's a certain threat, so he's afraid for his life, for his family. Another day he might say, okay, so we'll die, no big deal. The feeling of anxiety from a state doesn't always depend on the situation. But something else plays a part in a person's heart.
M. Laitman: The environment, as much as the environment gets this anxiety, and according to it, starts formulating a general response to that anxiety.
Student: If I find in me that at one time it's like this, another time it's like that. Does it mean that I am influenced by different environments?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (51:06) It turns out that we are at such a level of development that we have to say everything depends on us. However it happens, it depends on us. If there is a war, if we are killed, it depends on us. On what, on my ten, on what exactly?
M. Laitman: On the intensity of the connection, on what type it should be, I don't know. You already have to feel the inner forces in nature.
Student: How is the intensity of connection, how do we obtain it in order to change the situation so it doesn't happen?
M. Laitman: Please, connect, come closer, hug, take more and more steps ahead. Ahead means to be even more connected. Our good future depends only on that.
Student: What can we do, today, to make it really happen? What is our goal? Let's for example in each Ten?
M. Laitman: Do everything in order to drive away the angel of death, our ego.
Student: What should we ask of the Creator?
M. Laitman: Help. But we need to be in prayer, a strong, broad, deep, whole demand. That, He will hear.
Student: He will connect us in the Ten and connect between the Ten, connect all of Israel?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, yes. Okay? So let's think about it until tomorrow, and let's hope we succeed. You see, we're reading an article that really belongs to our days. All the best to you all.
Reader: (54:26) We’ll end with a song.