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

Daily Lesson (Morning) April 8, 2024

Part 2: Baal HaSulam. Exile and Redemption 

Reader: We are reading in the writings of Baal HaSulam, The Article, Exile and Redemption. 

Reading Article: (00:14) Writings of Baal HaSulam, Exile and Redemption. Harmony Between Religion and the Law of Development or Blind Fate. 

And among those nations you will have no repose, and there will be no resting place for your feet. And that which comes to your mind will not be at all, in that you say, we will be as the nations, as the families of the lands.

The Creator will evidently show us that Israel cannot exist in exile and will find no rest for us as the rest of the nations that mingled among the nations and found rest and assimilated in them until no trace was left of them. Not so is the house of Israel. This nation will find no rest among the nations until it realizes the verse, and from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him, for you will demand Him with all your heart and your soul.

This can be examined by studying Providence and the verse that states about us, the Torah is true, and all its words are true, and woe to us as long as we doubt its truthfulness, and we say about all the rebuke that is happening to us that it is chance and blind fate, God forbid. But this has but one cure, to bring the troubles back on us to such an extent that we will see that they are not coincidental, but steadfast Providence intended for us in the Holy Torah. We should clarify this matter by the law of development itself.

The nature of the steadfast guidance that we have attained through the Holy Torah, as in the path of Torah in Providence, a far more rapid development that the other nations have come to us, and because the members of the nation developed so, there was always the necessity to go forward and be extremely meticulous with all the Mitzvot of the Torah. Because they would not do so, but wished to include their narrow selfishness, meaning the lo Lishma, this developed the ruin of the first Temple, since they wished to extol wealth and power above justice, as do other nations. But because the Torah prohibits this, they denied the Torah and the prophecy and adopted the manners of the neighbors, so they could enjoy life as much as the selfishness demanded of them.

Because they did so, the power of the nation disintegrated. Some followed the selfish kings and officers, and some followed the prophets, and that separation continued until the ruin. In the second Temple, it was even more noticeable.

Since the beginning of the separation was publicly displayed there by unvirtuous disciples headed by Tzadok and Beitos, their mutiny against our sages revolved primarily around the obligation of Lishma. As our sages said, wise men, be careful with your words, because they did not want to retire from selfishness. They created communities of this deplorable kind and became a great sect called Tzodkim.

They were the rich and the officers pursuing selfish desires unlike the path of Torah. They fought against the Purushim, and they are the ones who brought the Roman kingdom's rule over Israel. They are the ones who would not make peace with the imperious, as our sages advised according to the Torah, until the house was ruined and the glory of Israel was exiled.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:12) A truly essential question here, does the ruin come from a result of those who don't follow the way of the Torah, or is it actually from the separation that happens in Israel from these two extremes? 

M. Laitman: I think it's because of the separation. 

Student: Let's say, those observers of the Torah that follow the prophets, what could they do so that there would not be separation? Because those people that didn't follow the Torah, what could they do to remain in connection with them upon that gap between them?

M. Laitman: I don't know what to say. That's how it's revealed.

Student: It's like it's a true curse for those who do need to be in connection, and that's their obligation and it's like reality does not enable them to do so. It's also like that in every generation I think it's painful. Even today the heart is painful from this matter. The problem is, it's the separation itself and not the way that they followed some bad way? 

M. Laitman: And who knows how much more we still have to go through. 

Student: What's the advice in every generation? There are those who fall and by nature it happens this way. What is the advice to complete this problem of separation, if there will always be such a problem?

M. Laitman: Only prayer. Prayer of the whole nation of Israel that will connect everyone.

Student: But you're saying a prayer of all the people of Israel. That's the question, is all of the people of Israel also to bring those people that are kind of like not going on the path and to bring them also to that prayer? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Or more correct to say, that we're all going to pray to the Creator that will connect all ends and bring them to connection.

Student: Meaning it will nevertheless be upon those people who are following the Torah to somehow subjugate themselves, and come closer to those parts of Him, that's their responsibility and that's the true effort? 

M. Laitman: Yes, that's what it seems to me. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:25) Why, and from where, in Israel is there a need for separation? When they're together, after a certain period of time, they have to separate, they have to build the two temples, and they can't be in one. What is in the quality of Israel that compels them to separate each time? 

M. Laitman: Because it's against the Creator. 

Student: Is there an end to this or is that the end of correction? 

M. Laitman: I guess that in the end of correction it will end, but not otherwise.

Question (PT 12): (10:27) Why doesn't the Creator show Israel what they need to do, so much so that there won't be confusion between these different factions?

M. Laitman: That they will ascend upward and ask the Creator.

Question (Latin 7): (10:40) The rich and the officers fought the Purushim, who are those Purushim? 

M. Laitman: Those who wanted the connection.

Question (Turkiye 8): (11:01) What should we pay attention to prevent such destruction in our world group?

M. Laitman: Do not forget it and keep returning to the sources. 

Reading: (11:02) The Difference Between a Secular Ideal and a Religious Ideal. 

A secular ideal stems from humaneness and hence cannot raise itself above humaneness.

Conversely, a religious ideal, which stems from the Creator, can raise itself above humanity. Humaneness is because the basis for a secular ideal is equalization and the price of glorifying men, and he acts in order to boast in the eyes of people. And although he is sometimes disgraced in the eyes of his contemporaries, he still relies on other generations, and it is still a precious thing for him, like a gem that fuels its owner, although no one knows of it or cherishes it.

A religious ideal, however, is based on glory in the eyes of the Creator. Hence, he who follows a religious ideal can raise himself above humanity. So it is among the nations of our exile, as long as we followed the path of Torah, we were safe.

For it is known to all the nations that we are a highly developed nation, and they wanted our cooperation. They exploited us, each according to their own selfish desires, but we still had great power among the nations, so after all the exploitation, there still remained a handsome portion left for us, greater than for the civilians of the land. But because people rebelled against the Torah in their aspiration to execute their selfish ploys, they lost life's purpose, meaning the work of the Creator, and replaced the sublime goal for selfish goals of life's pleasures.

Thus, anyone who attained fortune raised his goal with glory and beauty, in consequence, where the religious man scattered his monetary surplus on charity, good deeds, building seminaries and other such collective needs, the selfish ones scattered their surplus on the joys of life, food and drink, clothing and jewels, and equalized themselves with the prominent in that nation. By these words, I only mean to show that the Torah and the natural law of development go hand in hand in wondrous unity, even with blind fate. Thus, the bad incidences in the exile, which we have much to tell of from the days of our exile, were all because we embezzled the Torah.

Had we kept the commandments of the Torah, no harm would have come to us.  

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:58) Those who follow Tzadok and Beitos, it seems like their hatred towards those who go on the way of Lo Lishma is immense. I'm sorry, on the way of Lishma, yes. It's truly illogical. What is in them, essentially, why is it like that? 

M. Laitman: Because they are supposedly receiving the next world, reward and punishment, all these things in an opposite way, extremely opposite. And that's why it can't be that there will be any agreement between them, and a nice relation. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:55) I'm asking a little on the background of what's happening today in the country. When we talk to people and people understand that we have to connect, it's really very clear today to almost everyone. I don't know, you don't find someone that you're going to say, that's going to tell you connection is bad, we don't need to do that.

That's on one hand. On the other hand, a second after they do that, they go out and tip the ball over and basically nothing to do with connection. First of all I ask, why is it like that? Why a person, maybe in his mind, understand that connection is good and I'm not talking about spirituality, just come out even? And on the other hand a second later, he goes and is willing to destroy and ruin and burn the one that thinks opposite of him?

M. Laitman: Because they're not going above reason, they don't know what it is and they're not following that. And according to corporeality, he's right in this, and he's right in that. He's right in this, and he's right in that, and there's no common ground.

Student: It's pretty clear that they're not going above reason, but where is the exit point from that point of not knowing to go above reason? They never will know how to go above reason actually?

M. Laitman: Right, they also project that upon us, the lack of cooperation and when they look at us, they also see that we are in a separation. So they also don't have anyone to come close to. That's a problem.

Student: Is there any action other than great suffering that will come to people that will convince them to overcome this? 

M. Laitman: Just understand what faith above reason is that we have to get to. All of us, all of us. 

Student: That's interesting what you're saying, so that means that we have to explain outwards to the world what faith above reason is? 

M. Laitman: Yes, what it means to attain the Creator. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:31) Yesterday we tried to do that mission that you gave us, to come to some decision in the Ten. We are Ten friends in our Ten, and we almost had Ten different opinions, we couldn't come to like one opinion. I'm not talking about the people of Israel, I'm just talking about the Ten that we're not managing to come to some one specific thing, to kind of annul before such a thing. How do we continue from here? 

M. Laitman: First of all, we think, we don't hurry, and do internal work on it. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:22) Baal HaSulam writes that we're a most developed nation. On the other hand, in practice we see that we're a nation that's constantly fighting with each other, constantly in war with our neighbors. How does that settle in there? How, why can't a developed country, a nation, be?

M. Laitman: Specifically because of that they don't succeed, because he is greater than his friend, his inclination is greater, and we can't, we cannot.

Student: So what from here?

M. Laitman: From here, let's hope that we'll go through a change. You see in the last hundred years still, change comes. There are a lot of people who are studying Kabbalah, who are learning how to reach it and that are willing to go above all their habits. Let's hope that we'll be rewarded in seeing it. 

Student: Is that a change, that in about a few hundred years, there will be more that are studying Kabbalah? 

M. Laitman: Not only that is the change, it's an essential change in man's attitude towards himself, nature, the Creator.

Student: What's the Creator's plan for this nation for another hundred years, or a few more years? 

M. Laitman: To bring everyone to the revelation of the truth. 

Student: What's the purpose of the wars now? Why are we in this endless, this non-stop? 

M. Laitman: That too, it seems pretty far but it's also for that. We're not going to get to anything.

 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:25) Why is coming closer to the Creator, repulses a person? It's like the remedy itself is what rejects him?

M. Laitman: I don't understand.

Student: It kind of seems like the whole difference is between those who want to come closer to the Creator and those who’s life, and just living in humanity is the main thing. It's clear that coming closer to the Creator is the medicine, is the remedy for the disconnection. So why?

M. Laitman: That's not right. They don't understand how it's supposed to happen. 

Student: It's kind of like the root of a person nearing to the Creator has to be inside of him? 

M. Laitman: No, we'll talk about it.

Reading: (23:30) Congruity and Unity Between Torah and Blind Fate and the Development of Human Calculation. 

Hence, I hereby propose to the House of Israel to say to our troubles, and at the very least make a human calculation regarding those adventures that they have inflicted on us, time and time again, and here in our country as well.

We wish to start our own policy, as we have no hope of clutching at the ground as a nation, as long as we do not accept our Holy Torah without any allowances, to the last condition of the work Lishma, and not for one's own sake, without any residue of selfishness, as I have proven in the article Matan Torah. If we do not establish ourselves accordingly, then there are classes among us, and we will undoubtedly be pushed once to the right and once to the left, like all the nations, and much more so, since the nature of the developed is that they cannot be restrained, for any important notion that comes from an opinionated person will not bow its head before anything and knows no compromise. This is why our Sages said Israel is the fiercest among the nations, as one whose mind is broader is most obstinate.

This is a psychological law, and if you do not understand me, go and study this lesson among the contemporary members of the nation. While we have only begun to build, time has already disclosed our fierceness and assertiveness of the mind, and that which one builds, the other ruins. This is known to all, but there is only one innovation in my words.

They believe that in the end, the other side will understand the danger and will bow his head and accept their view. But I know that even if we tie them up together, one will not surrender to the other, even a little. And no danger will interrupt anyone from carrying out his ambition.

In a word, as long as we do not raise our goal above the corporeal life, we will have no corporeal resurrection, for the spiritual and the corporeal in us cannot dwell together. We are the children of the idea, and even if we are immersed in forty-nine gates of materialism, we will still not give up the idea, hence it is the holy purpose for His sake that we need.

Re-reading: (27:26) Hence, I hereby propose to the House of Israel to say to our troubles, enough, and at the very least make a human calculation regarding those adventures that they have inflicted on us time and time again, and here in our country as well.

We wish to start our own policy, as we have no hope of clutching at the ground as a nation as long as we do not accept our holy Torah without any allowances, to the last condition of the work Lishma, and not for one's own sake, with any residue of selfishness, as I have proven in the article Matan Torah. If we do not establish ourselves accordingly, then there are classes among us, and we will undoubtedly be pushed once to the right and once to the left, like all the nations, and much more so, since the nature of the developed is that they cannot be restrained, for any important nation that comes from an opinionated person will not bow its head before anything and knows no compromise. This is why our sages said, Israel is the fiercest among the nations, as the one whose mind is broader is the most obstinate.

This is a psychological law, and if you do not understand me, go and study this lesson among the contemporary members of the nation, while we have only begun to build, time has already disclosed our fierceness and assertiveness of the mind, and what one builds, the other ruins. This is known to all, but there is only one innovation in my words. They believe that in the end, the other side will understand the danger and will bow his head and accept their view, but I know that even if we tie them up together, one will not surrender to the other even a little, and no danger will interrupt anyone from carrying out his ambition.

In a word, as long as we do not raise our goal above the corporeal life, we will have no corporeal resurrection, for the spiritual and the corporeal in us cannot dwell together. We are the children of God.

And even if we are immersed in 49 gates of materialism, we will still not give up the idea. Hence, it is the holy purpose of For His Sake that we need.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:39) Is there a place for us to perform internal work towards all the different streams of the nations, all the opinions that we are supposedly accepting. Every opinion that, okay, you're right in something and you are right in something, and include all those opinions and work with them? 

M. Laitman: I don't feel myself with the power to stand up and talk to everyone with the hope, with the even smallest hope, that they could accept me and come closer to one another. They need to do it above reason. Because each of them has their opinion. and rise above that. 

Student: I'm not saying to turn to them. We're taking all their opinions, and we try to process it. Because it's the Creator awakening a desire in all kinds of directions from all the streams in the nation. In some way, they have a just complaint in something. But they're all mistaken because they're not going above reason. So maybe we can take all those opinions of all the streams and start praying for it? 

M. Laitman: To incorporate with all the factions, with all the opinions?

Student: Not to take it upon ourselves, but as if pray for it. That it will be in us and be clarified where all those complaints are coming from. That I'm right, I'm right, I'm right, that's my path. And by that, connect, that we will connect the nation inside us? 

M. Laitman: No. It doesn't happen. That's not the way because you need to incorporate with thousands of opinions, in which each time they're also changing. What benefit would there be in that? 

Student: Not all, let's say take a certain part that there's a dispute in the nation and we will take, I don't know, those five, six opinions and say, why is everyone right, and to pray for it? That the upper reason will be revealed, because I feel that I'm close towards the nation. I don't agree with anyone?

M. Laitman: Correct. 

Student: So what can I do? 

M. Laitman: To just explain what your opinion is and here's the question, whether anyone will understand and agree. 

Student: How can we go down to them and accept them with love, everyone and aim them to the Creator?

M. Laitman: I have no idea. I stood beside Rabash. And for the time being we're continuing ourselves just as we have from the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. 

Question Petah Tikva Center: (35:41) We learn for years that everything in nature and the negative parts are always help against. We're destined to help everything move towards the correction. Now we're in the Israeli society and there's a phenomenon that is destroying society from within, and it cannot be corrected, unless a miracle comes. It seems that the society is going to be destroyed and we will only learn after the destruction. That's usual and it's frustrating because we can't do anything against this, and it's something very violent?

M. Laitman: What are you recommending to do?

Student: I don't know, I really don't know, that's why I'm asking you. I feel that there's nothing that can stop this thing?

M. Laitman: I learned from Rabash that besides dissemination, silent dissemination, in most of the people, we can't do anything. 

Student: It sounds like taking the herd into the slaughter, sorry for saying that, we're never despaired and we always go ahead, but it's, what do we do? 

M. Laitman: Sir, I don't know what to do besides to do the correction within us.

Student: I searched for the forces inside me, and I can't find them, can we find them inside? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Can we incorporate?  

M. Laitman: With those in the society you can incorporate, and then this force, this general force that you'll discover, can be a center for connection and correction.

Student: You're saying that if we make an essential correction here, we'll be able to fix this state? 

M. Laitman: It could be. 

Student: That we have the forces to do it? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:44) How in this state do we use the term, give gratitude?

M. Laitman: I don't know what that is. 

Student: There's a state the friend described, that we can't find the forces inside how to make the correction. There's despair, and there's a term in our sources of thanking and leaving the mercy that you admit that you can't, and you let go of the struggle and then you get mercy from above?

M. Laitman: I don't know. I didn't receive that Torah from Rabash. 

Student: It's not in the Kabbalah? 

M. Laitman: No, we're not allowed to leave or even distance ourselves from the way of the Creator. 

Student: Well, that's not the meaning. Maybe it means that you're throwing yourself to the Creator and you discover that you really can't, only if you turn to Him?

M. Laitman: Well, that's all nice, a nice reading. But in life, I don't know. 

Student: How do you do it inside, inside?

M. Laitman: Okay. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:22) Also, from life experience and from the Ten, working in the Ten, I see that all the opinions are of the will to receive. They formulate from people coming close to one another and they formulate an opinion against the other. While they are in the feeling of the others, so the opinion develops that I have to be unique as opposed to the other. No matter what my opinion is, I have to be different. Naturally there is such a division in nature, and each one finds his place. That's why all the different opinions in the will to receive seem like one opinion. Each one wants to draw something for himself, and the only difference that really exists is whether you use the Torah or not. So what is the reason of the Torah that connects everybody?

M. Laitman: Connection above everything.

Student: What's above everything? What is that everything? 

M. Laitman: Above all the rest of the opinions, the opinion of connection is the highest and most successful. 

Student: A person that feels he has an opinion after he built it as a result of years that he was working before other people that he can't stand, so what does he have to do with that now, with that opinion? In order to follow the reason of the Torah, what should he do? 

M. Laitman: He needs to go with the reason of Torah.

Student: But it's not the opinion, it's the hatred towards the other, the need to be unique?

M. Laitman: That's the same thing.

Student: That's the matter here, that in order for each one to stay unique, does he need to erase himself to feel that he doesn't want to be unique anymore, that he doesn't want to be different than the other? 

M. Laitman: The Torah doesn't demand that.

Student: So what does it demand from all these unique people? 

M. Laitman: Only connection.

Student: But how will they do it? Because they feel that they need to relinquish themselves in order to connect to the other? 

M. Laitman: Yes, that's where they have to go above reason and towards connection. They need the force of the Creator. 

Student: And that they don't know what to do. The force of the Creator will let them to not use their uniqueness when they connect to the others? 

M. Laitman: It could be that, yes.

Student: Because otherwise they won't agree. The will to receive won't agree to surrender. 

M. Laitman: You're not allowed to address the mind of the others.

Student: So, what? 

M. Laitman: Because each person in his mind thinks that he's a genius. But there's no one smarter than him.

Student: I feel it's because they can't relinquish their uniqueness?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How can people, unique desires, without relinquishing themselves, their uniqueness, enter connection?

M. Laitman: Only under us, they say, the wings of the Shechina.

Student: I think we have to scrutinize how we let the nation feel such a thing?

M. Laitman: To feel, I don't know, I don't know. We're learning for many years until eventually we start to understand what the sages demand, what the Kabbalists demand of us. How can you come to people and say that to them? They will just be a huge problem, all of them. So to advertise amongst them this possibility, that they can save themselves through connection.

Student: Like Baal HaSulam writes, they won't agree to this. If all trouble comes to them, they won't agree to connect with one another?

M. Laitman: Also correct. 

Student: Because the uniqueness I feel on every person, can annul towards someone else's uniqueness?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: I'm asking, I think we have to understand what connection is without annulling uniqueness. How we can attain that and disseminate that connection above uniqueness to everyone. Because then they will agree to accept it. As long as we say that we need to annul man, they won't agree to it. And they can't, like Baal HaSulam writes. We have to see how without annulling an individual, he enters a connection that he will incorporate and add into it. That's how we have to learn how such a society is built. 

M. Laitman: We will continue about that during the days of Pesach ahead of us. Let's hope that it will be for the good. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (46:29) Maybe to continue, he says that the religious ideal is glorified in the eyes of the Creator. That it's a higher purpose that we need to give man. He writes that it's impossible, the secular ideal, that there's always comparisons and you can't win, that if you give a person a higher purpose, you'll always be drawn to it. So the question is, how do we explain to a person that there is a much higher purpose and what impulse will he have to attain it? 

M. Laitman: That's what we're talking about. 

Student: It seems that we do have to turn to the egoistic desire. Come and see, there's something higher you can attain more than comparing yourself to someone else. So how do you explain it? 

M. Laitman: We need to find words, but it could be that we can explain to some people, to everyone, in such a broad way, I don't know.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (48:18) Baal HaSulam wrote this in 1933, this text, which also shakes you up because you read it now and it's as if you wrote it before Israel was independent. In the end of the article, he writes in one sentence, if we don't have a spiritual resurrection, there won't be a corporeal resurrection. And that goes with what you said before, this whole nation has to go above reason. The thing is, if a person has a point in the heart, then it's clear. He hears that life's purpose is above this life. If there is no point in the heart awakening, then how can a person hear? Because it seems that he's writing this article for the whole nation. How can the nation hear without a point in the heart that awakens? Or by us telling it, it awakens?

M. Laitman: Out of the general force of connection. 

Student: What does that mean? 

M. Laitman: That everyone understands that they have to be connected otherwise, they simply disappear from the spiritual and corporeal area. And this is what gives them the possibility to hear what the Torah speaks of. 

Student: You mean the danger, the threat?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So we can see what happened half a year ago. For a moment, it did make a nation scared and adhere for even a moment, whether a month or two, and then we go back to our nature. 

Student: So if it's just a threat, so there has to be a catastrophe here. Scary. What has to take place here?

M. Laitman: We are under all the conditions for that to happen. 

Student: That there will be such a threat? 

M. Laitman: Yes.       

Student: That's clear. If you look a bit at what's happening in the nation, in the world, how all the forces are formulating, so God forbid, that's clear. 

M. Laitman: Yes, altogether, the earth is small and weak.

Student: Is there still some kind of gap that we can maybe lower the threat? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. I have to say that.  

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (51:23) I feel encouraged with all the catastrophes. I feel that it's the Creator just preparing a huge correction. No person would ever wake up if the Creator wouldn't be doing what he's doing in this whole period and it looks like he's going to keep going. Also I want to say that today the social media are so developed that people aren't dependent on any infrastructures. They create their own content and it's much more free and that's something huge, what I recognize. People don't even use content through news media. They make the media and they also consume it. And also there's a technological development that through AI that people can create very important clips. 

M. Laitman: What do you think about this? 

Student: This is what I want to say. Until now we used to just publish connection in general. Well, the question is, well, shouldn't we advertise Baal HaSulam and Rabash? Because everything is ready for it. There's technology, there's the web, 

M. Laitman: So what if the technology is ready? 

Student: So what do you need more than that? The Creator is preparing suffering. Everybody's ears are open. There's social media, there's technology, there's everything. What else do we need? 

M. Laitman: Desire. 

Student: Desire? There is a desire. Why not, they want to run from problems? Above reason?

M. Laitman: No, no, no. People don't have the desire to make efforts in the direction that we're talking. 

Student: But they don't know how. They want to, but they don't know how. The above reason that you're saying to me, if there wasn't this term above reason for a long time ago, I would argue with all my friends, I don't know what I'd do. If there wasn't above reason, that's what you taught us, this thing, and we were able to ascend just a bit. There's no way to teach people above reason. I remember that here, we hardly talked about it. Why are you saying above reason? After a few years we only started talking about that. We've developed. It seems maybe that it's something that has to go out. And we have to explain it and teach it, and through Baal HaSulam and Rabash. 

M. Laitman: Okay. We'll talk after Pesach.

M. Laitman: Okay. That's it. No, no, no.  What are you now waking up? We now have finished the lesson. 

Reader: So, two announcements. We will end with a song.

Song: (55:52)