Morning Lesson June 28, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Baal HaSulam. The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Abstract Names)
The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Abstract Names): (0:15) “Many believe that all the…” Twice
1. S. (04:20) Baal HaSulam in his explanation says that attainment is the highest possible degree, it's like something you can come and touch, it's still unclear.
R. Just like when you grab something by your hand and it fills your senses you're not asking more than that, children take it in their mouth because they don't yet have sufficient senses in their hands but in their mouth they do. So we have to fill our vessels, our senses and then by that we will be calm that we have attained, we understand, we feel that we're in contact connected to a certain object. So here he is talking about this word attainment, what does that mean?
S. I'll ask again in a different way. What does it mean that I have attained the first spiritual degree Nefesh of Nefesh of Nefesh of the world of Assyia?
R. It means that you have started to attain spiritual discernment and spiritual vessels that you are developing and they are still your initial spiritual senses, the more you develop them, these spiritual senses, you will discover more that's called the ladder of degrees of understanding, attainment, scrutiny.
S. Do I understand correctly that even that first spiritual degree will be 100% filled with all that the Creator builds in me as vessels?
R. At each and every degree you're on, as you attain this degree you reveal a complete form of the degree and that is sufficient for you and if the Creator wouldn't open additional parts of the vessel you wouldn't feel that you have anything else to attain. That's how it happens that if the deficiency of the vessel is not revealed which is a higher opening of this vessel then you wouldn't know you're missing anything, it's always this way. In the world as well you see it in people, each person reaches a state that he has enough either from the perspective of not wanting more or not wanting to invest more but either way he agrees to the situation and there he stops.
2. S. (7:58) No matter what we attain we will not know it by name or by appalations, so how do we need to learn this? We understand that the Kabbalists have attained this but how do we need to relate to the attainment that he expresses in words?
R. We have to learn from that and what they write they write in order to help us also rise. Why did the Creator give just a few people out of the entire humanity attainment? So that through that they can help others. That's what they are doing.
S. Simply, we don't attain that?
R. Of course we don't. By learning what they are writing we don't attain. All we do is awaken ourselves, we can awaken the upper roots but this is certainly not attainment but still there is a connection. It's like an older person taking a child by his hand showing him all kinds of places. Let's say he takes him to the zoo and then the small child is looking at the animals, starting to get to know the world more and more.
S. We somehow enter into adhesion with a Kabbalist?
R. Yes, yes. You want to rise also to these states he writes about. This is how it happens.
S. What does it mean that we adhere to the Kabbalist with his attainment? Let's say Rabash writes something, what does it mean that we connect with him? We're feeling a connection with him specifically?
R. No by learning from the words of Rabash or Baal HaSulam we certainly connect to these souls, meaning to their attainments, their spiritual vessels but we connect in a very small manner, Nefesh of Nefesh of Nefesh of Nefesh of Nefesh etc. but if we connect between ourselves when we want to, together, to reach spiritual attainment and together we're making an effort to connect between us and we connect as a ten, seemingly a ten, spiritual ten, to what they write and by these writing we want to receive more strength, more proximity to the Creator, more force of bestowal, more being close between us so that we can also reveal the Creator, that we can also reveal then this way. We use Rabash and Baal HaSulam so that they will bring us closer to the Creator and through them we receive the lights, yes.
3. S. (11:33) What's the meaning that spiritual attainment doesn't have time or space?
R. Because it's not limited to this world it belongs to the spiritual world and that's why it's not under the limitations of time or space that belong only to this world.
4. S. (12:04) What does it mean that a word, how does he say it here nicely? “A word is the actual real meaning of something”. What does it mean that a word actually realistically describes something?
R. Because if we attain a spiritual discernment we will see how much it's inexpressible in any other way as they do. Where does the Hebrew language come from? From twenty two vessels we have in the worlds Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya. To the extent that they rise to Atzilut they are filled with light, these vessels, these letters and this way we learn and each and every letter is a vessel, it's a sign by which in each and every letter we discover the attainment of that particular degree and as we go through the degrees we are seemingly writing over our desire, we're printing the shape of the letters and then all these letters are printed on our general heart and our heart becomes like the book of Torah.
S. Can you say that these words that we learn in the wisdom of Kabbalah are depictions of the spiritual world and one day when we attain we will know what the meaning of every letter is? Will we understand that?
R. Yes of course, of course, undoubtedly. It will be yours, it will be your language, it will be your expression. There is no other language in this world like Hebrew,there is none. Only Kabbalists when they started using it they discovered that this is how you have the point and a line and a circle and how these three spiritual attainments, how they have to connect in order to give us an expression, manifestation of the bestowal of the light within the vessel and then you get the letters and why are these letters this way? It's all explained, we don't have the time and we don't need to learn this, we will understand it as we advance.
5. S. (15:00) They said spirituality is unlimited by time space and we are having difficulty to describe what bestowal is to ourselves and to others, so how can you find a language that we can explain and will draw towards spirituality?
R. I think that only through the connection between we will start feeling and understanding what spiritual discernments are and then we won't have to explain it, it will be clear to us as we attain it from the connection between us.
6. S. (15:43) If one should be firm in the language of Kabbalah meaning its terminology there will be no shortcoming in naming attainments?
R. The more one advances in connection with his environment he'll attain more and more not only names but he will discover sentences he discovers books because we have to learn what this concept of a book and author and story has inside. It is revealed like the book of heaven for you so to speak, how these lines, dots, circles, how they're connecting together and giving a picture of this whole wisdom, the Wisdom of Kabbalah but in the emotion, in the feeling, not on paper. The way it depicts the Creator’s relation to the created beings, that's basically what this whole Wisdom is about. In general what we have in this world, what is this world? It's a manifestation of the Creator's relation to the created being.
7. S. (17:30) He starts with this excerpt that many assume that all the words that come from the wisdom of Kabbalah are actually abstract names. What are actually abstract names?
R. Abstract meaning to have no connection to us.
S. Is that something that we don't scrutinize and actually have no attainment?
R. Yes because it's as if these kinds have no connection to us. That's why it's called abstract.
8. S. (18:09) How could it be that when we study the Wisdom of Kabbalah, these words that we learn about in the wisdom of Kabbalah are seemingly logical to us even seemingly connected to us and there is a certain meaning in this world. What does that mean about the will to receive that it is built this way?
R. How the lights pass through the vessels and organize these vessels and these vessels connect between themselves and the sum total of all the connection between the vessels is passing to us, revealing to us this Wisdom, revealing the light to us. The light itself is something we cannot feel or understand but rather adhesion to the light can be through the vessels what we make of ourselves, the shape of the vessels, that's called write on the tablet of your heart and then the lights that expand in these vessels that's how we, through the response of these vessels, discover the lights, that's it. In the vessels we have a connection with the lights; meaning, a connection with the Creator, with the source of the light.
S. Is the will to receive built like…? It sounds like the will to receive is a certain mold of the spiritual world by some means, again I don't know how to express it
R. The will to receive is like a dummy from which the Creator, when he acted upon it, He organized a special pattern, a special shape where we can also connect to that shape, through that shape, to be connected to Him, to the Creator. So the Creator on the one hand, on his behalf, He created the will to receive, giving it his special shape and we can connect to that desire, to that shape, the shape of the desire, the shape of bestowal and so to be connected to the Creator. Meaning the will to receive that the Creator created is basically that means, how should I call it? That material through which we connect to the Creator.
S. Why is there great proximity to the language of Kabbalah and altogether the Hebrew language? I have a great rejection to the Hebrew language.
R. I don't know what you have but you have to get to know the Essence of the language and the essence of the letters which are all a result of the development of the lights in the vessels and everything relates to the world of Atzilut. It's not that you have some imagination between this language or similarity between this language and other languages. Later we will talk about how Hebrew was given, enabling the rest of the languages to establish. These are not simple things and they lead to confusion, later we'll talk about it.
9. S. (21:57) I'm trying to understand what message Baal HaSulam is trying to give us. He doesn't just write here, just like that. He says that many assume that all the names and appalachians that come from the wisdom of Kabbalah are abstract names since they engage in godliness and spirituality, and he says, but this is not the truth, meaning it's all a lie. What is he trying to say in this?
R. What do these many think?
S. He says they are all engaged in the names and stories and matters and…
R. Because we have all kinds of names and we read about them in the wisdom of Kabbalah and we have no idea what that is. So he says, where does he take it from? They take it somewhere in heaven, below their hairs.
S. Most engage under their hairs. A lot of books, a lot of false things forgeries. You get real crazy from all the nonsense that is written. So how do you relate? How do you know where the truth is and where is the lie?
R. You don't know and you won't until you start discovering, or you'll go with some wrong wisdom.
S. And when will everything invert?
R. It’s all in the hands of Heaven.
10. S. (23:26) This attainment comes only from the study and from the fact that we know the writings?
R. Attainment comes out of the study in a group when you want by this study to be more connected so that in the connection between you you'll discover the Creator.
11. S. (24:05) We learn a lot of the text and we try to understand them including the preface, TES. Can a person even examine his attainment whether it's true attainment or if I am imagining all kinds of things here?
R. If you're reading text as we are now learning and you understand that you can attain it in your connection with the society then you're on the right course, this is your examination.
12. S. (24:57) Is attainment relative? In the corporeal world it's clear that attainment is relative, in the spiritual world are there different levels of attainment?
R. Of course. First of all there's 125°, five worlds, five Partzufim, five Sefirot, etc. so you have 125 degrees that's from the structural side of the work, then you have from the perspective of the structure, of the general soul that has divided into six hundred thousand souls, that's how we call it. Each and every degree has a path of its own to rise in order to be corrected, in order to be in a adhesion with the Creator and as it connects to everyone and as its gathering with everyone and the more its opening its path to the Creator, to fulfill everyone, it all comes from the perspective of the structure of the worlds and the attainment of the souls and we have many things here and that doesn't matter, you don't need to be afraid of all these things. There's one thing, love covers all crimes and that's it. If you want to reach connection until you get to a love between everyone and it's enough for you to express it in the ten or in our international group, that's it, you're done, By that you can be certain that you are advancing properly and covering your entire vessel.
S. In the corporeal world there is forgetfulness, in the spiritual world when you attain something is there also forgetfulness?
R. No, there is none, there is no forgetfulness. Also in corporeality there is no forgetfulness there's only with respect to the person.
13. S. (27:26) Is there a relationship between the letters and Reshimot and how the letters connect and Reshimot or there is no relationship whatsoever?
R. The letters and Reshimot? Everything is incorporated and you can write everything with these letters. Yes. We will learn how to do that. When a Kabbalist reads these letters he knows exactly what is going on there. Kabbalists also write special texts like the prayer book, the prayers themselves, they express these things in the form of single letters. You can see it even in my books, I gave some examples about that.