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

Daily Lesson (Morning) August 10, 2024.

Part 3: Rabash. Record 261. Hear, My Son, Your Father’s Morals - 1. 

Reader: We are reading the article by the Rabash. Hear, My Son, Your Father’s Morals, one. Article number 261. You can find it on the websites.

Reading: (00:25) 261. Hear, My Son, Your Father's Morals – 1

“Hear, my son, your father's morals and do not forsake your mother's teaching.”

Musar [morals] comes from the verse, “Should one afflict [Yiser] his son,” meaning Yesurim [suffering/afflictions]. There is potential suffering and there is actual suffering. When one is made to understand that it is forbidden to do something, and should he disobey the order, he will be punished, such as by being flogged for the transgression.

If a person does not know what is the punishment, meaning he does not feel the taste of the suffering before he actually receives them, he breaks the order and is punished. The punishment is so he will know that in the future, he will avoid breaking the law. In other words, the law is given for man’s benefit, in particular and in general, but the person cannot keep the law because he derives pleasure breaking it.

For example, there is a law that prohibits stealing, but he loves money and there is a place where he can steal money. Since he has a craving for money, although he knows that he will suffer for the transgression, he cannot assess the level of suffering from the punishment. As a result, he assumes that the pleasure from the money is far greater than the afflictions he will suffer as a punishment.

Thus, when he is punished, meaning sentenced to be jailed for some time, he sees that the afflictions are greater than the pleasure he received from stealing. For this reason, he decides that in the future, he will keep the law.

But once he is punished and sits in jail, he is told, “Know that if you steal again you will be sentenced to a much longer jail-time than the first,” since he forgets the measure of suffering he had received. Hence, when he gets a chance to steal once more, he will certainly miscalculate the levels of the suffering and pleasure.

For this reason, when he is told that he will suffer greater torments, it is possible that he will think that it is not worthwhile to steal, meaning that the suffering is greater than the pleasure.

Hence, when teaching morals, we see the importance of Torah and Mitzvot [commandments], meaning which level of pleasure one can have, as well as which punishment he might suffer.

In other words, the erudite make a person feel the flavor of the reward of observing the law, meaning the benefit that keeping the law brings to a person, and the punishments he will suffer for breaking the law.

By feeling this, to the extent that one feels it, he can observe the law. That is, they allow him to assume the true measure of pleasure and affliction, as our sages said, “Calculate performing a commandment against its reward, and the reward for a transgression against not doing it” (Avot, Chapter 2). At that time, a person can advance in the ways of the Creator more each time.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:22) How do we build spiritual morals in our work? We don't have a judge. Let's say, I find a lot more pleasure in sleeping and not coming to the lesson? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, I'm stealing from myself, I'm stealing from the friends but I don't feel I'm going to get punished. That's an external example, how do we build those morals, if at all, in society? 

M. Laitman: If we felt the punishment, we would never, perhaps, commit transgressions. 

Student: Here, he also gives the example of the thief, that even the thief knows that there's a punishment. 

M. Laitman: But the punishment is not revealed. Who knows, maybe the police are all asleep, they’re not in their posts, so he steals.

Student: So that's the question. How can we as a Ten, as a society, put together this spiritual moral that will help us not steal? 

M. Laitman: If we were ourselves instead of the Creator, who seemingly sees everything, then you can't steal because you're always bare naked in front of Him. But if we don't feel this way, then why is it considered that I'm committing a transgression? Maybe there are no transgressions?

Student: I'll go even more deeper: In a person's inner work, he knows that he has the privilege to pray, to ask to one for something greater than him, for the friends, for the Ten. But still, the thought about himself for his own benefit, the pleasure in it, is completely blurring out. It's like he has to steal, even though he knows he's stealing. He doesn't have such a fear of the punishment, you understand what I'm trying to say? So, how do we, such a big society, create an opportunity for each one of us to have this spiritual moral that will help him not to steal? Or at least a moment before he steals, to ask for help?

M. Laitman: You need to depict, to picture, to every single one the punishment. What will this be? 

Student: How do you do such a thing? 

M. Laitman: So no one will want to steal, then the whole world will be righteous but what righteous? What kind of righteous, not of their own accord, of their own volition, but for fear of punishment. What have you achieved? 

Student: You have to start from something. Let's say, I'm going with what you're saying, so how can a person have the forces to stop stealing? 

M. Laitman: The point is not, not to steal, the point is not to want to steal. 

Student: Not to want to steal, okay? 

M. Laitman: No, no, no, no, these are two different things. What do you do? 

Student: I think, maybe I'm making a mistake, but there's people that internally, there's something that doesn't want to steal. They understand they don't want to steal but it's weak compared to the pleasure that the will to receive is opening for us. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, I'm speaking about this balance, how can we help, how can society help a person decide not to steal, to stop stealing? 

M. Laitman: So you have morals that tell you, like ethics, that tell you about what suffering you'll go through if you do it, what problems you will have. This is how moralistic people tell everyone, those who study them, but you can't say that a person is righteous because he's just afraid of suffering, of punishments, on the one hand. But how can you do anything if a person is born a sinner? So there are questions here. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:55) I want to continue the friend because, actually, in this article it tells us how morals work, how it trains the animal in a person.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: That's clear how it works but where and how does that jump happen? So that by training the animal in us, the man starts growing, Adam? That it's not about stealing or not stealing, but it's?

M. Laitman: Only through the society, only through the society in which each and every one is wicked but when they connect between them, they decide to reach the level of being righteous.

Student: But what's the difference between a society that works in morals or a society that already helps someone jump to a higher degree? Like spiritual raising and not in morals? 

M. Laitman: That he demands an illumination from above that will keep him, just like the Creator arranged the will to receive within him. Put the will to receive within him, the evil inclination, so now he wants a force to come from above that will keep him above the transgression. Otherwise, how is it possible? 

Student: So, only the society can change the values in a person? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:55) It's written from Lo Lishma, we come to Lishma, meaning reward and punishment. Let’s say, on the first stage, it is something good, if I understand correctly.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: We have to increase it in society. Do we have to show that if we work correctly, we get a reward and we can bestow? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Same thing if we're working incorrectly and for our own benefit, so it lowers us and harms us? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, how does a society that is working correctly with reward and punishment, how do they grow in the states that come, how can they produce people that come to Lishma? It's the opposite.

M. Laitman: It can't do, there's no way it can do it. It has no way to do it. 

Student: So, how from such a society, you can advance? 

M. Laitman: Until you change the society. 

Student: Internally? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:16) I don't understand how you can feel a reward of keeping a law. What reward is there in keeping a law? 

M. Laitman: I'm keeping the law, I'm righteous. For me obeying the law, keeping the law is the greatest thing. 

Student: But it's weak, it's very weak, it's passive. 

M. Laitman: That depends with what will to receive a person exists. 

Student: For a bigger will to receive, to keep the law, that's a greater pleasure? 

M. Laitman: Could be, yes. 

Student: If it's keeping the law against, let's say, stealing from the evil inclination. Could it be that that works more, better, for a person?

M. Laitman: Could be, could be, check it. This needs to be clarified within the society. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:35) I understand that the study opens pleasure from bestowal and then he stays away from pleasures of reception. This is their difference between the vessels that belong to the Rosh, while studying morals. Are there differences between the vessels of the Rosh, to vessels that belong to the Guf? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: What is the difference? 

M. Laitman: A difference? 

Student: I'm asking because it says that by studying Kabbalah, redemption will come. 

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: So, I don't see how people will have patience to study Rabash and Baal HaSulam like us, where will this moral come from? 

M. Laitman: This is from, from life. 

Student: It says that by studying Kabbalah the redemption will come. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So what is studying the Kabbalah by vessels that belong to the Guf? 

M. Laitman: We'll see, you will see how simple it is.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (18:16) The reader said that we're going to read from Rabash, and I really like the Rabash articles, I feel it's good to prepare for the lesson with it. But it feels that it's a note he wrote for himself. The articles have a beginning, a middle, and end, we go through a process. And today we also read from Baal HaSulam, how he took a book and started organizing it, that’s it… And there this is the article number one after a few pages, it's number two, it's like he didn't bring this excerpt for a final product called an article. And it could be that we’re, according to this article, he's describing work of external people that are afraid of morals. And he writes that a person feels that he has suffering. My question is about Rabash’s articles, is it really an article? Can you say that it's like an article that he wrote and gave?

M. Laitman: What's written here?

Student: Yes, number three.

M. Laitman: In volumes three, in English it's volumes six and seven, it is just pieces of paper, things he might have wanted to write about later.

Student: It could be that it's something he's going to use for something later on.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:18) Is it even possible that a person will have morals without feeling the others?

M. Laitman: Someone with morals? Yes, it can be.

Student: So, by the environment pressing on him and forcing him.

M. Laitman: Perhaps, it can also be from within himself.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:05) The Creator created this reality, restricted Himself specifically to give us a place to reveal His love, that we can adhere to Him. Should we invert it and see how we can steal from the will to receive? Should we focus on the love of the Creator and the purpose of creation to adhere to Him? Can that lead us correctly to spiritual morals, like the friends were saying?

M. Laitman: Why not, we'll only be learning from the actions of the Creator. So it will influence us through the surrounding lights and all kinds of things, of course. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:12) Can we say that keeping the law and taste of Torah and Mitzvot, it’s calculations of the Rosh?

M. Laitman: That's not important. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:32) In the end of the article, he gives us advice that if you calculate the Mitzva against the loss. So, how do you do that?

M. Laitman: I don't know but we do it, somehow. You don't have to do it like an accountant, plus, minus, and these calculations. But in general, in a person's heart, the conclusion adds up.

Student: So, is it a good exercise to imagine for myself, maybe if I say, I can do a good action, maybe call a friend? And I'm saying, wait, I feel like something else to do, I'll get to it later. So to stop and calculate.

M. Laitman: Yes. Okay, guys. What do we have for today?

Reader: (23:30) Announcement.

Song: (29:42)