Morning Lesson October 01, 2021, Transcription
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam – Shamati. 191 The Time of Descent
1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, you are right about what you said, that we are beginning from the short articles. It is not about short or long but rather, that we nevertheless want to receive, fulfill ourselves, as much as possible with the words of Baal HaSulam. Therefore, ‘’Shamati’’ (I Heard), what Rabash passed on to us, what he heard from Baal HaSulam, this is the primary thing in our work. The quicker we’re able to absorb it, the deeper we can absorb into our hearts, certainly we will advance accordingly. We need to try to study it technically, meaning what precisely does he write, what he wishes to pass onto us in a didactic educational manner, but also emotionally so that we will be impressed by it, inspired by it, so that we will expand our heart. Let’s try to read it this way, but as much as possible to get in with our emotions because according to the expansion of the heart, as much as we are able to be inspired by what he writes, accordingly we’ll be also able to understand it. Because spiritual understanding is a result of spiritual feeling. First, we feel and later on, when we start to get deeper into that feeling and to understand what it is that we are feeling, from that comes the understanding.
Shamati 191. (02:41)
2. R. (03:16) This means that the time of descent is not just anything that a person feels which is incorrect or not good, in such a feeling that he is seemingly distancing but rather, the fact that he had before some adhesion, some devotion to do something for the Creator, to adhere to Him as much as possible. Then, he moves away from it, he doesn’t want it, what he gets from above, such a feeling that he is disconnected. Then, he calls it a descent. That is, a descent means disconnection from devotion to the Creator, from how he was drawn to the Creator before.
Reader continues (04:16) But ordinary people have no connection to serving the Creator....
3. R. (04:38) That is, either one is devoted to the Creator's desire, that he wants to bestow to Him and receive from Him the force of bestowal, or he is in the flow of the world going along to the goals that the world presents to him.
Reader continues (04:29) However, we must understand why they have come to....
4. R. (05:26) That is, if the Creator is good and does good, should I even pay attention to my feeling, to the states that I am going through, or should I just say a priory about all of the states, it does not matter what I have, I am under the control of the Creator who is good and doing good.
Reader continues (05:48) We should say that it comes to announce His greatness....
5. R. (07:44) We should appreciate, value, the ascents. That is coming closer to the Creator. How is it possible to do that, only through the descents. That is why we have no choice. We don’t like the time of descent, the time of distancing with all the accompanying phenomena. But otherwise, we will not be able to appreciate the proximity and the adhesion. Therefore, the time of descent is a good time, it is a time of building the vessel. Later on, with these empty vessels, we can approach the time of nearing, the time of ascent. Then, we will be able to relate to that state, that high state in the right way. Well, two states we have, no more, nearing and distancing. We need to be in control of these two states, this is what the Creator wants and not that it first comes to us from above. But rather, as we learn from The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, and all the actions of the vessel it undergoes, that it has a restriction and a screen, that the will to receive positions itself above itself and it starts to relate with all of its qualities to the Creator, specifically in the style of nearing according to equivalence of form, the equivalence of qualities. Then, it reaches a state where it becomes similar to the Creator, in adhesion with Him as one. This is how we should see the situation. Therefore, the time of descent and the time of ascent, those are the times that we should try to establish ourselves correctly in them so that we are in control of them, and we monitor them. In such a way, we advance.
6. S. (10:20) He writes at the end of the article that when we reconnect, we should always remember the time of descent. How to do that?
R. It is not enough to remember. We should use the time of descent, the state of descent, we need to use it. How can we rise, how can we elevate this descent that we’ve fallen into. Every descent is new, it is deeper, it’s even more characteristic to the will to receive, and we need to add this to the time of ascent, as it says ‘’darkness shall shine as light,’’ specifically through the combination between the darkness and the light, just like we add fuel to the fire, a campfire. By this, we can have a greater and greater fire, light, to bring the Creator closer, to discover Him, not that He is coming closer but rather, because we are bringing the vessels from the time of descent to the time of ascent. In this way, we are rewarded with greater ascents, with a greater revelation of the Creator. Therefore, there is no light except that which comes out of darkness through the combination, by adding the darkness of the disconnection, lack of understanding, of feeling, weakness, indifference, everything that we have during the descent. When we add this later to the time of ascent, and we want to rise upon that, this is what it means to add. Then, we truly gain a new ascent.
7. S. (12:39) Baal HaSulam and Rabash write about a spiritual descent when a person loses all taste in the connection with the Creator. I never felt like this, maybe I can imagine it in my mind, but how to think about myself according to this article, on one hand? On the other hand, what should I take from here to realize it, implement it our ten as if we didn’t have that connection?
R. I understand you, but we have no choice. Until we will organize the right vessel, we won’t be able to feel the Creator, to feel Him as close, feel Him in adhesion with us. We need to bring Him accordingly corrected qualities. It cannot be that we will feel the Creator in corrupted vessels, but only to the extent that our vessel will be corrected to some extent. Then, we will discover Him in the form of surrounding and then, in the form of internal. It all depends on the connection between us. Therefore, it’s impossible, you can’t say that we have nothing to do. We need to increase the connection between us, make it great as possible, break all the internal partitions between us. This is the inner work. Accordingly, we will be able to discover that the Creator exists there, He is the one who builds this partition from His posterior, and we break these posteriors. That is, we skip over them and we want to reach the Panim (interior/face). This is how we will discover Him. But to say that we can discover the Creator without correction of the posterior, that is impossible. We have to rise above the desires and forces that are separating between us, and we cannot do it on our own, so we should pray. Here specifically, when I feel, hear what I’m saying, we need to rise above all the differences. So seemingly, I feel from the people who are listening to me right now that they are seemingly ready to go forward and do something. Don't do anything, just turn to the Creator. It’s also what it’s about, turn to Him that He will break the partitions, that He will correct the connection between us, from lack of connection, from hatred to love. Our problem is that seemingly we need to do something. Besides prayer, we have nothing else to do. What do we learn also in these lessons? That everything is obtained only through the power of prayer.
8. S. (16:20) This amazing state when the Creator takes away not only the greatness but also the memory. This greatness, what do you advise us to do? How to prepare for a person who recently joined us and these states really dropped the ground from underneath him?
R. Just to be connected to people who have some experience on the path, there is nothing more, to connect to the group. We have nothing else that we need to do because ‘’there is none as wise as the experienced one.’’ There is experience in those people who have been studying for ten or fifteen years. This is how it is, just like we teach our children gradually, each and every day you have to take care of the child, more and more until he grows. When he grows, then you see already that whatever you have inserted into him this is your future. It is the same with us. We need each and every day to raise the Adam in us, to see it's a new reality and it was born within us, this is our common baby of the group, let’s say, or of the ten. Then, out of that, we take care of it more and more, and more, and this requires tending. Yes, even in our world in order for this little animal that was born for something to come out of it, it takes dozens of years. If you want to raise from it someone who’s great, a scientist, a great expert, it takes a few dozens of years, thirty or forty years at least, even more. Therefore, here, there is nothing that you can do about it. This is how it happens in our world, all the more so in spirituality.
9. S. (19:12) What is this humility or humbleness the Creator wishes to reveal in our descents?
R. Humbleness is that we do not want anything besides bestowing to the Creator through the group.
10. S. (19:51) It says here, during the descent he feels that it is impossible that they will have a connection or belonging to the Creator by way of Dvekut (adhesion). How can one think about an ascent during a descent? How can this state change?
R. How does the state change, we don’t know, it is through the influence of the light. But we feel these two states, one time I was excited and it appeared to me that I was coming closer. According to the feeling, this is how a person checks himself. But when I feel that I have lost everything and I feel myself like an animal, like an ordinary person and maybe even worse, this is the time of descent. Descent and ascent means to what extent do I appreciate the Creator, value the Creator in my eyes, in my feeling.
S. What can help me come out of it, come out of the state when a person is all the way down there?
R. During the descent I have no connection with spirituality. I only have a connection with corporeality. Through that, through my corporeal connection, I need to cause my ascent to spirituality. That is, I get into the group even more, I start to work with them on the connection between us even more than before and to perform all kinds of actions that I am capable of that are seemingly not related to spirituality, but rather to serve them, to help them, to do something. By that, I can quickly and each time, I can enter actions that are more spiritual or close to spirituality until, through that, I draw the reforming light. This is how I rise. Each time we need to see this in these descents and ascents, like climbing a mountain. That all in all, we are rising to such a state where for us the ascents and the descents will start to take on a new characteristic, that I start to love these states, and I value the descents no less than the ascents, and I see the necessity in them. I remember Rabash and how much he was truly incapable of doing anything during the descents. He had such states in him, also, well not many. This is how it was and how he would overcome them.
S. A person feels two or three weeks in a descent, it’s very tough to come out of it?
R. Two or three weeks, that’s a lot of time, no, no. That’s a sign that a person did not resist it, he wasn’t doing anything but rather just sitting idle, waiting for it to pass.
S. What do you have to do to come out of it?
R. To come out of it. To enter physical work, first of all. If a person is doing some work and gets more into the work, that’s one thing. Secondly, to enter the ten. I would leave myself some kinds of works in translation, in all kinds of things that relate to the wisdom of Kabbalah, that in such a way, this monotonous work that I was doing doesn't require so much the heart and mind. This is how I was able to come out.
S. Your friends need to help, to feel you, help come out of these states?
R. Well, usually, we feel that a friend has a low spirit, he’s not quite awakened or uplifted. But we need to truly not so much pay attention to it, but rather lend a shoulder if you want it, but not more than that.
11. S. (25:10) How can we identify a descent as a ten?
R. When you feel that you lack the appreciation of the Creator, that you are not yearning for Him together, that you do not value Him together, and here there is a question. Do I value more or less, does this depend on how much you together value Him, less or more. When you start to tie the magnitude of the appreciation of the Creator according to the intensity of the connection in the ten, in the group, that as much as you try to be together, the Creator is felt in you as more important, greater, determining more, closer to you. Try to feel Him in this way, then you will reach already a state called ‘breathing,’ that more or less in the connection between you, in as much as you are tied together, so you actually value Him more, so that the appreciation of the Creator depends on the appreciation of the environment. As he writes to us in the ‘Arvut’ article, this is how we should establish that state, that it’s not the feeling itself that is just hanging in the air, but we establish this feeling out of the vessel from the degree of connection between us.
12. S. (27:44) Why the Creator wants us to know and feel that this is between us and Him? He's not looking for honor, or anything like that?
R. He wants to develop us, this is what it's all about. How much He wants us, as it says, we need to reach His level, as it says ‘’return all the way to the Lord your God’’ - all the way to the Creator, because the Creator is the degree of the upper force. The low one, from His side, and the one that is closest to us, this is what we have to reach, that’s it, this is where we have to rise. From our side, we have to rise to that degree through the connection between us until we reach discovering the Creator in all of His degrees.
S. That’s what gives us the strength to rise, when we feel the gap between us and Him, it develops us?
R. The power to rise, we get from above as surrounding and internal lights. We get them from above.
13. S. (29:11) My descents always bring down the entire ten, or they are only personal descents?
R. There are individual descents, there are descents of the ten, and descents or ascents of the whole world. It’s like waves in the ocean, you have small ones and great ones.
Let's move on to the second part of the lesson. You should read this article again, a few times, and talk about it. Divide it, study it, and start to relate to it as to something that we need to put together, to study, to work with.
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