The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Morning Lesson: June 15, 2025
Part 2: Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, item 18
Reader: (00:07) Now we shall explain the five phases in the screen by which the levels change during the coupling by striking performed with the upper light.
M. Laitman: Because the will to receive is, necessarily, built from five phases, because without having five phases, five discernments of the light, the will to receive doesn’t feel itself as receiving, as receiving pleasure, doesn’t feel as receiving pleasure from someone. It doesn’t have these two discernments, which come only in the fifth discernment, fifth phase, which is called phase four. And if there aren’t four phases of development from the root in the will to receive, it is not called, will to receive. This is why in every will to receive that we talk about, there must be five degrees of evolution, five degrees of coarseness, five discernments on the upper light. And then it's called, a desire, before that it's not called a desire.
Reader: (01:16) First, we must thoroughly understand that even though phase four was banned from being a vessel of reception for the ten Sefirot after the restriction,
M. Laitman: Meaning, phase four, the will to receive, as it receives according to its own taste, according to its own will, and that stopped with the restriction. As Baal HaSulm defines what is the restriction: One who detains his desire, although he wants it very much.
Reader: (01:46) And the reflected light that rises from the screen through the coupling by striking became the vessel of reception in its stead.
M. Laitman: Meaning, that same desire that exists in the vessel becomes, through the intention to bestow, into a vessel of reception, a different vessel of reception opposite from before. And this is what is worthy, fitting for use. Meaning you use the same desire as before, but with a screen and reflected light. These three components build a new vessel. And only in it after the complete first restriction, it is possible to receive the abundance. And never will there be a different requisite condition.
Reader: (02:35) It must still accompany the reflected light with its power of reception.
M. Laitman: The coarseness, the will to receive.
Reader: (02:43) Had it not been for that, the reflected light would have been unfit to be a vessel of reception.
M. Laitman: Because, in what is it possible to give if not in the pleasure that is felt in the will to receive? That same pleasure that the created being receives from the Creator, it basically gives as pleasure to the Creator because there is mutual love between them. This is called reflected light.
Reader: (03:12) You should also understand this from the allegory in Item 15. We demonstrated there that the power to reject and decline the meal became the vessel of reception instead of the hunger and appetite. This is because hunger and appetite, the usual vessels of reception, were banned from being vessels of reception in this case due to the shame and disgrace of receiving a gift from one’s friend. Only the powers of rejection and refusal have become vessels of reception in their stead, as through the rejection and refusal, reception has been inverted into bestowal,
M. Laitman: When he repels, rejects, his own will to receive – his own ego – he doesn't reject the host, he rejects the will to receive in order to receive. And when he can restrict it and reject it from using it in order to receive, then he gives what is revealed in that will to receive to the host. This is called in order to bestow.
Reader: (04:25) And through them he achieved vessels of reception suitable to receive one’s friend’s meal.
M. Laitman: In other words, basically, the host does not feel any effort here, a war or a struggle, or decisions purportedly that are done in the created being. All the work is within the created being, itself – himself. Not to reject the host, not to slight or disrespect the host, but it's all done within the lower one, with the pleasures, with the will to receive, with the decisions and his own intentions.
Reader: (05:11) Yet, it cannot be said that he no longer needs the usual vessels of reception, namely the hunger and the appetite,
M. Laitman: To that same pleasure that comes from the Creator, from the Host, because that's the only connection that there is between them for now. That, what the host wants to give as pleasure to the created being. In the meantime, that's the only connection, so the created being has to come to a state where he feels all the flavors and hunger for them, which a person doesn't have – to begin with – in this world, a desire for those pleasures that come from the host. This is called a person having to go through the system of the shells and be enslaved to them until 13 years, as he writes. 13 being just a name, until he acquires desires from them, big desires from them, to the pleasures that come from the Creator, not for worldly pleasures. And then, when he's incorporated in the shells, with the shells, he's got work to perform corrections on them, restrictions, and intentions to bestow.
Reader: (06:39) As it is clear that without appetite for eating, he will not be able to satisfy his friend’s wish and bring him contentment by eating at his place.
M. Laitman: In other words, desires in a person have to develop specifically for lights that come from the Creator. Meaning, a person has to be incorporated with all the shells.
Reader: (07:05) But the thing is that the hunger and appetite, which were banned in their usual form, have now been transformed by the forces of rejection and refusal into a new form—reception in order to bestow.
M. Laitman: Where, after he was incorporated with the king of Egypt, who brought him closer to repentance, et cetera. Then he can go out to freedom, meaning to work with all those vessels he took from Egypt in order to bestow.
Reader: (07:43) By this, the disgrace has been inverted into honor.
M. Laitman: When from slavery he goes out to freedom to be called, a son.
Reader: (07:53) It turns out that the usual vessels of reception are still as active as ever but have acquired a new form.
M. Laitman: Initially, he didn't have vessels at all for that upper light, that's why there's the system of the shells. When a person goes through the system of these shells, he becomes incorporated with desires in order to receive from the Creator. He must be incorporated with all those desires, and afterwards begin to work with them. And then it's considered that these desires acquired a new form, from in order to receive to in order to bestow. There is only the correction of the intention here but we're not talking about desires of this world, because in them, the giver is not felt. There is no relation between the giver and the receiver. We're talking about desires and pleasures that are revealed as the connection between the person and the Creator.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:01) So, a vessel is a desire to receive pleasure from the Creator because it comes from the Creator to be like Him?
M. Laitman: Otherwise it's not a vessel, what is a vessel? We are in an imaginary world, it's not even considered that we are alive. The shells are not considered alive and they are, they correspond to, they stand opposite the holiness. It's not even considered that we are alive, we are below the line of holiness and impurity and the shell. Of course, this is why our state is not called spiritual; the shell is spirituality already. In order to receive, but spirituality. And for us, in order to receive, it's things that are trivial, insignificant; they're not regarded as spiritual pleasures. That's why we don't need to work on them, we always have to work above them. How, from within them, we rise to spiritual pleasures. As Baal HaSulam writes in Item 70 in The Letters – page 70 in The Letters: That, he must yearn for the Creator as one who loves with the greatest lust. And then he deserves to enter spirituality.
Reader: (10:26) You will also conclude, concerning our matter, that it is true that phase four has been banned from being a vessel for reception of the ten Sefirot because of its coarseness, meaning the disparity of form from the Giver, which separates from the Giver. Yet, through establishing the screen in phase four, which strikes the upper light and repels it, her previous, faulty form, has been transformed and acquired a new form, called reflected light, like the transformation of the form of reception into a form of bestowal.
M. Laitman: In other words, to begin with, a very grave decision was taken by the created being to make the restriction, and by this separate itself from the Creator. And as the ARI writes, this is the gravest of the grave. But afterwards, after the restriction, when he makes the corrections, the restriction helps him become influenced by the upper one. Then new vessels of reception are made, and reception becomes his bestowal, and by this, it creates a mutual connection between them. So, if there's only a restriction, of course, there's no good solution to this. But, on the contrary, a person disregards, has no respect for what the Creator gives him. Rabash often said, either you have fun in this world, or you have fun in the spiritual world, either way. Because a person who enjoys life in this world, just like that, thanks in his heart, thanks the Creator in his heart. We once went by a soccer field and he said, You should respect this place because people enjoy it here.
So, you should just imagine this, you should bless that place where people enjoy, why? Because subconsciously, they bless the Creator for the pleasure they receive there. But the restriction is a limitation where a person doesn't want to receive any pleasures. If it's for the purpose of correction that comes after that, then it's justified. And if it's not for the purpose of correction, then a person becomes self-righteous, and whether he wants to or not, in his heart he curses the Creator. Because in the end, he is made of the will to receive, and even if he limits himself, the will to receive receives no pleasure. And then a person within him, even though he doesn't feel it, curses; he doesn't thank the Creator, and he's called wicked, he condemns the source of his life. Therefore, that's why he says a new form was made here, where the restriction comes, the screen in phase four, and this is what reforms. So, the screen comes in this new form.
Reader: (14:02) The content of its initial form was not changed there. Now, too, it does not eat without appetite. Likewise, here, all the coarseness, which is the force of reception that was in phase four, has come inside the reflected light, hence, the reflected light became suitable for being a vessel of reception.
M. Laitman: In our world, you come to the mother, she gives you.When I come to my mother once a year and she does, she prepares for me the same food that 40, even 50 years ago I used to eat at home. And she sits by me and I eat, and I feel that my pleasure is her pleasure, right? That's the example that we can imagine in this world of the type of connection that should be with the Creator, between the Creator and the person. That, within the same desire where one feels and the other feels and both feel what the other feels. So, there's no difference, and this is called adhesion. So, in this way, there opens for us a possibility to come through our vessel – adhesion with the Creator, where our vessel becomes the means. So, the pleasure is a must, and someone who doesn't enjoy and he's happy when he enjoys as a result, he cannot delight the Creator.
Reader: (15:48) Therefore, we must always discern two forces in the screen:
The first is hardness, which is the force within it that rejects the upper light.
The second is coarseness, which is the measure of will to receive from phase four included in the screen. By the coupling by striking through the force of the hardness in it, its coarseness has turned into refinement, meaning the inversion of reception into bestowal.
M. Laitman: In other words, the same coarseness becomes sanctified because, specifically in this coarseness, the power of the love is sensed. The power of mutual connection that can be revealed only within the coarseness of the created being. So to begin with, this coarseness separates, so to speak, between them. And by changing the intention, it connects the two of them and both of them use the same coarseness – the Creator and the created being – and that coarseness is the place of meeting between them.
Reader: (17:03) These two forces in the screen operate in five phases: the four phases HB TM and their root, called Keter.
M. Laitman:. And it's all revealed within the vessel, within the coarseness, and outside of it there is nothing. What is revealed in the vessel is called the world, Malchut, is called the world, the states of Malchut are called worlds. And outside the vessel, we have no feeling, reception; rather, outside the vessel, we say that there is Himself, which is the root of everything that is done. What, who, we don't know, we don't attain, we don't feel, we assume that it exists. It's a concept that is imperceptible, unrevealed, unfelt, that we accept as the root of what is already within the vessel. Because the light that we reveal, we also reveal only within the vessel. And what is the vessel? A vessel of reception. When we acquire vessels of bestowal, this is called the screen, the reflected light, the light of Hassadim. They're not vessels, they are conditions for equivalence, for balance of the will to receive with the light by which the will to receive and light can connect together. And skip over the first restriction, the condition of the two forms of nature, giving and receiving. But it's not as if there are new vessels in the vessels of bestowal. It is a condition under which the created being enjoys, because by this he feels that he pleases the Creator. Therefore, acquiring vessels of bestowal is a correction of the vessel, acceptance of conditions in which afterwards we work with the coarseness with the will to receive. And it's not as if there is such a thing as vessels of bestowal, we say this but there is no such thing in nature. Vessels of bestowal. Screen, reflected light, right.