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 2: The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction.
Reader: Hello, we are learning selected excerpts from the sources on the topic of Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction, continuing from Excerpt 39. You can find the study material in the Arvut system. The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction, selected excerpts from the sources, Excerpt number 39.
Reading Excerpt 39: (00:27) “For a sin we sinned against You with the evil inclination” (from the Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement] prayer).
We should ask because all the transgressions come from the evil inclination. We should interpret that the sin is in saying that there is an evil inclination instead of “There is none else besides Him.” If a person is unworthy, he is cast out from above. This comes by clothing in the will to receive, called the “evil inclination.”
This is the meaning of “For the inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth,” meaning that the Creator created him this way, since the will to receive is the actual Kli [vessel], except it must be correct. By this we can interpret what is written, “He was saddened in his heart.” Man feels that following the inclination gives him sadness, and this is called “the sorrow of the Shechina [Divinity].”
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:11) It's unclear, the fact that he's following the inclination, that's the sorrow of the Shechina, when a person discovers that the evil inclination defeats him every time? I thought the sorrow of the Shechina is something much greater that he becomes incorporated in?
M. Laitman: One, because when a person says that the evil inclination won't let him do good things and he does deeds under the control of the evil inclination, so that's not good. Because by this he says that the evil inclination is controlling him, how can that be? Meaning he must still stand against it, to just close himself from the evil inclination.
Student: So why is it called the sorrow of the Shechina, of divinity?
M. Laitman: Because the Shechina is the place of the connection of all the souls, and a person that follows his evil inclination, he's not connected.
Student: So that's already a much higher discernment than just saying, okay, so the evil inclination controls me?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: He already attributed it to the general public, and the harm he does by that.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:28) How can a person control this serpent, the inclination?
M. Laitman: Only by connection, only by the support of the friends. That each one, it doesn’t matter to him what he feels, but it's important, the relation to the Creator.
Reading Excerpt 40: (05:00) “When Israel are in exile, the Shechina [Divinity] is with them.” This means that if one falls into a descent, spirituality is also descended in him. But according to the rule, “a Mitzva [commandment] induces a Mitzva,” why does he come into a descent? Answer: He is given a descent from above so as to feel that he is in exile and ask for mercy, to be delivered from exile. This is called “redemption,” and there cannot be redemption if there is no exile there, first.
What is exile? It is that he is under the rule of self-love and cannot work for the sake of the Creator. When is self-love considered exile? It is only when he wants to emerge from this control because he suffers from not being able to do anything for the sake of the Creator.
M. Laitman: Yes, okay? Yes, they agree with you.
Reading Excerpt 41: (06:40) When a person feels that he is in exile, meaning feels the taste of exile in the work and wants to escape from the exile, the meaning will be that a person must believe that wherever they are exiled, the Shechina is with them. That is, the Shechina let him feel the taste of exile. “With them” means that the Shechina is attached to them and they are not separated from the Shechina, that they should say that it is a descent. On the contrary, now the Shechina is giving him a push so he will climb the degrees of Kedusha [holiness/sanctity], and dresses herself in a garment of descent.
When a person knows and believes that this is so, it will encourage him so he does not escape the campaign or say that the work of bestowal is not for him because he always sees that he is in states of ascents and descents, and he sees no end to these states and falls into despair.
But if he walks in the path of faith and believes in the words of our sage, then he must say the opposite.
M. Laitman: Okay? These are things that are accepted on our heart.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:03) In every excerpt we read from Rabash, we see how he directs us to working with the friends, opposite from the friends, or responding to the friends or the teacher, the Creator, or reality.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Is it correct to say that in terms of the development of the wisdom of Kabbalah, the teaching of Rabash includes everything for us, includes everything within it, meaning it doesn't lack anything? If we saw in the previous letters as Baal HaSulam explains how it's correct to depict the upper worlds, and the processes happening in them, it's as if it summarizes all the previous generations and the scrutinies that the Kabbalists did, and Baal HaSulam wraps it all up, packages it, and says, I'm giving you the accurate work of the ARI.
But Rabash takes it further, and he says, I'm giving you all of man's work, that if we do this work, then as a result of our emotional development, we'll enter the next floor, and there we'll discover what Baal HaSulam and his friends, the Kabbalists, discussed. Like this, like that. Is it correct to relate it this way? In Rabash we have everything, nothing is lacking there? If we live in the teaching of Rabash, nothing is missing in it?
M. Laitman: I would say yes, but I can't. I can't say that, because still, I've tried a few times before Rabash, and he said that is incorrect, I am me and Baal HaSulam is Baal HaSulam. That still he saw Baal HaSulam's degree, and he knew his place, himself, and that’s why he didn't agree with it, no. I told him, what does it matter what I read, this or that? He said, no, Baal HaSulam is Baal HaSulam.
I can't explain it more than this, but really about the actual deeds, the corporeal deeds, Rabash was very exalted. I don't know how to say it, that you can't compare the two. Each one worked from the root of his soul, each one has his own niche, his own place. Even though it seems to us that Baal HaSulam supposedly encompasses all of creation, and there is nothing concealed from him, Rabash is more practical, closer to us, but no, it's not worth… that each one has his place. They're very different, even though it seems to us that it's a father and a son, and how can it be, but that's how it is. Clear?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:41) It says in the excerpt that where they are exiled, the Shechina is with them and Rabash explains it with respect to a person, he feels the sorrow of the Shechina and the Shechina is with him. Is there a difference between a person feeling it, or if the Ten feels it, like in plural and in many?
M. Laitman: Of course there's a difference.
Student: Should we yearn, strive to come to a state, where we feel it as a Ten?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:37) The excerpt says that a person is in a state of ascents and descents and then he comes into despair. Why is there despair if he has ascents as well, so what is the despair?
M. Laitman: It's not from the states, but because the states are changing, and he can't grasp a certain degree and exist on it and ascend to the next one, but he’s constantly in ascents and descents.
Student: If he goes through descents only and he doesn't really feel the ascents?
M. Laitman: How can there be only descents without ascents? There is no such thing, he just doesn't pay attention.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:36) He writes that because they are in exile, the Shechina is with them. What is that state?
M. Laitman: That when can they recognize the exile? That they come out of a degree they had, but the Shechina remains with them, that's called exile. If they wouldn't feel the Shechina, so they don't feel they're in exile.
Student: In other words, the fact that I know that the will to receive controls me, I identify it all the time. If I criticize myself, I see that I am... In any request I have, there's a spark, like a speck of the will to receive there. Is this called exile?
M. Laitman: Well, relatively it could be, I don't know. Who are you with in such a state?
Student: With my Ten.
M. Laitman: When you're in a certain state, can you say that you're with exalted discernments or in the will to receive?
Student: Out of the high discernments I get the will to receive.
M. Laitman: That’s called that you're in exile.
Student: Where do I find the Shechina there?
M. Laitman: When you're in the exile, you're searching and you find the Shechina, because you feel that you're disconnected from her, distant from her, you fell from her.
Student: So it's actually an opportunity to come closer to the Creator?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:58) Teacher, when you... if we come into redemption one day, you'll have no doubt that you're in there, you'll discover your life, your place, and why you will live and the reason. You'll have no doubt that you're in it?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: Is it something we need to rush, or there's nothing you can do with it, because it only comes from above?
M. Laitman: We need to speed up our development until we reach a place called redemption. Meaning we'll toss off ourselves, all the evil inclination. Instead of that, we'll feel an ability to connect to one another, all of us together, and in all of us together, we'll discover the Creator.
Student: Do you really believe it can happen?
M. Laitman: It can happen, yes. That's what Kabbalists say, and I can't say that I don't believe it. It already exists in reality, we just don't feel it, we’re not in it yet.
Student: Then you'll know your exact spot in the system, where you exist?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:34) What is in reality is clear. The whole chain of people, of lineage, of people who attain spiritual degrees, and thanks to whom, we too can approach the system. I mean what they discovered from Abraham through David in this whole system, but after this revelation there's always a time of ruin and exile, and now we're still in exile.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: We hardly talk about redemption. What redemption should we come to? I mean the connection between the souls, the degree of the third temple, although it's written about it in Kabbalist books. It's written in the Zohar, it's written in the Prophets. We don't study it, why?
M. Laitman: What do you mean? We sometimes read these excerpts, those excerpts, that's it. What should we study then?
Student: I'll be direct. I really want us to work, when we work in a Ten, to feel the need for redemption.
M. Laitman: Okay, good. What, I don't agree with it? Obviously, yes. It doesn't matter what we're reading, the question is where is your heart? That you want to connect together and be in the place of redemption. The light, Creator, adhesion are all those things what you feel that you're lacking.
Student: I'll put it this way. We don't do speeches here, but we have an inner cry. We don't agree with what is happening in the world, what is happening in Israel, it's even more so.
M. Laitman: Ask everybody, they’ll tell you the same.
Reading Excerpt 42: (21:52) What is the meaning of the prayer, that we should pray for the exile of the Shechina [Divinity]?
The Sitra Achra [other side], which is the quality of knowing and receiving, controls the Shechina, which is regarded as bestowal and faith. The Creator created the world in order to do good to His creations, and the lower ones can receive the benefit only in vessels of bestowal, which are regarded as eternal Kelim [vessels]. The upper light, which is eternal, cannot clothe in transient Kelim.
The lower ones, which are placed under the rule of the Sitra Achra, want specifically reception and knowledge, causing separation to the upper unification. This is regarded as having a foreskin on Malchut, and this foreskin separates ZA from Malchut, regarded as the unification between the Creator and His Shechina.
It follows that there is the sorrow of the Shechina because she is unable to unite with the Creator because of this foreskin, for the lower ones are gripping her and are not leaving her so she can part from Malchut. Hence, we must pray to the Creator to send illumination from above so the lower ones will want to cancel the foreskin and remove it from the quality of Malchut. This applies to the individual and to the collective.
M. Laitman: Clear? What's written, simply, clear? Okay, any questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:35) What are transient Kelim?
M. Laitman: I guess they get canceled afterwards.
Student: Is it a person's personal Kli?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:50) Can there be an intention to feel the sorrow of the Shechina, or is this a mistake?
M. Laitman: It can be, yes.
Reader: Excerpt number 43. Rabash writes:
Reading Excerpt 43: (25:26) The sorrow of the Shechina means that the Creator regrets being unable to reveal the delight and pleasure because the creatures cannot give the place that is suitable to receive, for if He gives them the delight and pleasure, it will all go to the Sitra Achra [other side]. Therefore, it follows that He cannot impart the delight as He wishes.
By this we will understand that a person should be sorry for the sorrow of the Shechina. We asked, Why does the Creator not raise her from the dust, but must instead ask the lower ones to aim that their actions—meaning what they do—will be only with the intention to “raise the Shechina from the dust”?
The answer is that all that the Creator gives is delight and pleasure, for His purpose of to do good to His creations. But to raise the Shechina from the dust, meaning for the Creator to be able to give the abundance without the abundance going to the Sitra Achra, this can be only when the lower ones do not want to receive for their own benefit, but only in order to bestow.
M. Laitman: Again.
Re-Reading: (27:27) The sorrow of the Shechina means that the Creator regrets being unable to reveal the delight and pleasure because the creatures cannot give the place that is suitable to receive, for if He gives them the delight and pleasure, it will all go to the Sitra Achra [other side]. Therefore, it follows that He cannot impart the delight as He wishes.
By this we will understand that a person should be sorry for the sorrow of the Shechina. We asked, Why does the Creator not raise her from the dust, but must instead ask the lower ones to aim that their actions—meaning what they do—will be only with the intention to “raise the Shechina from the dust”?
The answer is that all that the Creator gives is delight and pleasure, for His purpose of to do good to His creations. But to raise the Shechina from the dust, meaning for the Creator to be able to give the abundance without the abundance going to the Sitra Achra, this can be only when the lower ones do not want to receive for their own benefit, but only in order to bestow.
M. Laitman: Questions? Yes?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:28) The taste of dust is when a person wants to bestow, but doesn't feel pleasure in it?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And when they write that the Shechina is in the dust, so this is this state?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: That he tries to bestow?
M. Laitman: He doesn't want to bestow.
Student: He doesn't want to bestow?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: He starts from trying to bestow, and discovers he doesn't have a desire for it? Or where does it start from?
M. Laitman: It begins with a person not wanting to bestow.
Student: He recognizes on himself, that he doesn't want to?
M. Laitman: Yes. And then a little bit of upper light comes, that seemingly wants to clothe in him, and he rejects it. Then he feels a taste of dust in that the light presses him.
Student: And in order to advance, what does he need to do?
M. Laitman: The best is to suffer blows. Yes. Because then, through the blows, a person who is made entirely of will to receive, easily runs away from the will to receive, which shows him the bad. And that's it. This is how he gradually comes to the good. He cries and asks and checks and comes to the good. That's the learning. But besides that, he can learn it from the friends, from the texts. The greatest in this is Rabash. What he wrote is equal to everything.
Student: And the purpose of the taste of dust?
M. Laitman: The advantage of the light from within the darkness. We discover the light only according to the darkness, which we attained first. Therefore, good things, we taste only on condition, that before that, we felt bad tastes.
Student: And when we want to connect, let's assume we feel that taste of dust, let's say one time after the next, and that new desire that grows it.
M. Laitman: If we want to unite, and we feel that we don't want to unite, but we were just told to. We try to be closer to each other, and at the same time feel the inner repulsion from each other. We ask the Creator to help us cancel the inner repulsion, so we can really unite between us. Then when we unite with the repulsion, the mutual, internal repulsion, each one toward his friends, then we come to the real connection; the correct one.
Student: When we aim in our deeds upon the rejection, that's called a deed of bestowal? That he feels the rejection, but he aims against that rejection?
M. Laitman: What’s the intention here, and what's the action? That's the question.
Student: So, the right action is for the benefit of the friends?
M. Laitman: Yes, so.
Student: And the intention is to bestow to the Creator, that he wants to do good to the created beings, to the friends.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Is that right to think that way, to aim yourself?
M. Laitman: It's as if I want to bestow upon the Creator for the friends.
Student: Because in a private Kli, we said you can't receive light.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And the Creator can only be revealed in a vessel of bestowal.
M. Laitman: So, I don't have a choice. I need the vessels of bestowal.
Student: Yes.
M. Laitman: Well...
Student: So, if there is enough importance, even when he feels the taste of dust, it's on the path, it should supposedly be very joyful. The Creator is showing him desires that he must correct.
M. Laitman: Do you think you can bestow by force?
Student: You can pray by force.
M. Laitman: Okay, we'll get to it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:23) A person feels his world of feelings, and his own attitude towards reality.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: When can he say, what he feels now is the sorrow of divinity, and not something private of his own?
M. Laitman: I don't know what to tell you. To give such an example. If a person incorporates in the group, and discovers they are all connected among them. They all sympathize with the Creator, who fills them. They identify with the Creator, while he himself feels nothing of it, not a corporeal benefit, not spiritual benefit, nothing. So, maybe this?
Student: But that's also his own private feeling, when he feels that they're all connected, and he isn't.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: You can ask a different friend, and he'll say, no, we're not connected, yet. What is this general feeling that you can say, that's the attitude towards divinity, the Shechina?
M. Laitman: It’s in a person's vessels. This is how he sees everyone. They’re all connected, and they're all receiving the filling from the Creator in order to bestow upon Him, above it. They receive the filling only in order to bestow.
Student: So when he says that he feels the divinity in the dust?
M. Laitman: It's the opposite. When no one wants to unite with the other, and they're not concerned with the Shechina being filled with light, and that it will correct everyone, and that all the Malchuiot, which is the Shechina, all the Malchuiot, they're not concerned with being in bestowal.
Student: And then he must ask for help from the Creator.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So who raises the Shechina from the dust? Man or the Creator?
M. Laitman: Those same people who feel the sorrow of the Shechina, and understand what they can do for her.
Student: To do is to ask to raise?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: For the sake of the friends, actually.
M. Laitman: Yes. To raise the Shechina from the dust.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:40) Rav, you said in the past that suffering shines the way for you.
M. Laitman: Well, there are such stages, too.
Student: So suffering is made to take care of your pride, to aim you to prayer, or to push you towards a connection in the Ten?
M. Laitman: There is suffering, when a person feels it because he is suffering. And there is suffering, because a person feels, he is directed not to bring contentment to the Creator, but to himself. So here is where we need to see.
Student: How do I scrutinize correctly?
M. Laitman: You have to rise above your will to receive, the personal one, and then you will see the general will to receive. Is it important to you or not? And then you'll decide.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:20) If I'm in a state of joy, enjoying myself, delight and pleasure, is the Shechina in sorrow or not?
M. Laitman: How do you identify it?
Student: I'm in a good state. I'm enjoying myself. I'm having a good time with the friends and at a meal. We’re sitting. We’re workshopping. We’re all praising ourselves. So is the Shechina in sorrow or in joy?
M. Laitman: I guess in joy.
Student: So there's no sorrow. We have talks every day. We praise ourselves, how great we are, how privileged we are, how special we are, great is the Creator. We're so great. We're the greatest in the generation. Now we're going to have a meal now and sit and talk about how great we are. So there's no sorrow of the Shechina in this place. So we'll never feel that there shouldn't be the sorrow of the Shechina, only joy and pleasure. So why shouldn't we come to the sorrow of the Shechina? We shouldn't get to it. If we continue this way, just praising ourselves every day, it's as if it's a…
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So we'll never reach the sorrow of divinity.
M. Laitman: I guess, we still have to discover that the Shechina is in the dust.
Student: But if we're just praising ourselves all the time, why should we reach that state? Every Zoom, every meal, sit with us, you'll see how good we feel, how great we are, how we were rewarded, how special we are, we're the best, we're the greatest of the generation. There's no sorrow, nothing.
M. Laitman: Okay. Okay. Enough. We understand you already.
Student: So we'll never reach the sorrow of divinity?
M. Laitman: Those who don't get there, don't get there.
Student: How in this way will we reach the sorrow of divinity?
M. Laitman: By understanding that we're not on the path. We are not feeling our vessels of reception.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:07) I think that our friend is a bit confused. We're not sitting in the workshop and praising ourselves. We’re praising our friends. How great they are, and raising the friends and not ourselves. Meaning, if the workshop is how to see the greatness in the friends, it's not in myself. It’s in my friends. That's how you have to look at it.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So if the friends aggravate him on raising their friends, we should recommend that, and he'll really see how great the friends are, not himself.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: That's it. Another question about the excerpts we're reading. Rabash speaks in plural, that the lower ones, he doesn't say as if it's private work.
M. Laitman: Well, so.
Student: So, how should we look at coming out of the exile? As private work or general work?
M. Laitman: General work. We pray for everyone.
Student: For everyone.
M. Laitman: So, what's next?
Reader: We have….
M. Laitman: It's five already.
Reader: Yes.
M. Laitman: So what is it?
Reader: (44:41) We have a short article by the Rabash, Here, My Son, Your Father’s Morals. So, the next part of the lesson.