Morning Lesson April 3, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Baal HaSulam. The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose
Reading (00:12 – 03:07) “In this article i would like to resolve 3 issues…”
1. R. (03:10) So what is he trying to tell us? First of all three questions: what is the essence of religion as its purpose is intended for this world or does it open and exist in the next world and is it to benefit the Creator or the created beings. Because we seemingly know how to somehow answer the questions, we don't examine them and scrutinize them and therefore remain in the same lack of knowledge that exists in us from the very beginning. And we have no connection, therefore, with religion because religion simply lets a person understand why he exists, with what force does he exist, what is the main thing that he should have in this life, meaning in this world, what he should achieve as a result of this life. All those things he should get clear answers to so they will direct him to correct life; and as we see this does not happen at all. On the contrary, instead of starting these things we come into something called religions, faiths, religion, which completely blocks our approach to life and tell us “you need to do this and that, and everything will be okay, and you have nothing more to do in this life”, this is religion. And therefore this is why we all remain blocked and as we are born little animals, we also end our lives in this way, too.
2. S. (05:24) If we look in general at Baal HaSulam articles and also Rabash, somehow the main point that they revolve around is the scrutiny between religion and Kabbalah.
R. Not all the articles, don't exaggerate. They want to direct a person to position him in his life toward life’s purpose so a person will achieve life's purpose. For this, he needs to know that he does not have it and he needs to do something during his life to come to some correct conclusion. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us.
S. Yes, but this scrutiny is always, well not always, it's usually against religion, a religious perception. Why is it like that?
R. Because in the beginning there was the wisdom of Kabbalah and after that, religion came from that with all of its parts: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and others, and all kinds of denominations within them.
S. So scrutinizing the wisdom of Kabbalah is always against religion?
R. No, the wisdom of Kabbalah does not relate to them, it wants to relate to a person and to one’s obligation in the world. That he can and must attain the roots of his soul, connect to the created beings in order to reach the Creator, and adhere to Him, achieve His degree to see the world from one end to the other.
S. And this tendency to religion that is imprinted in a person, is there such a thing?
R. It's like a little child that wants to feel safe and connected to great forces in order to feel confidence, to feel safe so he wants to be assisted by them, it’s natural.
S. And we, on our path, should we check the scrutiny?
R. We are very assisted by having fear, lack of knowledge, and through our lack of knowledge and the anxieties and fears we have in life, precisely through them we come to the real fear and the real purpose. They all direct us forward and lack of knowledge, lack of understanding, lack of confidence, insecurity, in addition to envy, lust and honor and other forces, through them we achieve life's purpose. We scrutinize and reveal life's purpose and achieve it.
3. S. (08:52) Why do Kabbalists say that there is no difference between one who works for the creative beings or for the Creator, why is it the same?
R. Because if a person emerges, comes out of his ego and works with what is outside of him then outside of a person, his ego, there is only the Creator; except to a person, it appears as many people or even souls, afterwards and the Creator is, like, the inclusive, the things that includes them all. So in order to come to the concept of the Creator, the most correct and safest way, is to work with people. Afterwards go over these parts during the day and if there are questions, many questions, we will repeat them tomorrow as well during the lesson.
Reading (10:02 - 12:54) “To avoid tiring the readers with long discussions….”
4. S. (12:57) When there’s such a desire to harm in a directed manner, so you can’t cover with love?
R. Yes, later we have to reach love in order to complete all the hatred and correct what was there, before. That's called “love covers all crimes”. “Covering” isn’t only hiding, it’s to completely correct.
S. The question is in relation to our work: practically when we can build love or some kind of connection, so if there is a desire to harm, it's only possible from a neutral state. But if there’s the desire to harm, to destroy, how can you even work with it?
R. So we enter an environment that explains to us that our ego is a destructive force that doesn’t let us come to good, sublime achievements in our lives; and then we begin to acquire toward our ego some sort of negative approach, relation and we also begin to understand that we can’t handle our ego, it is so strong, so superior to us. social. Therefore we can correct it and deal with it only on condition that we connect among ourselves and in the connection among ourselves, we bring a higher force that will deal with our ego and if we can somehow annul ourselves, each one making concessions to the group, and we get the higher force that can treat each and every one with the common force between us to connect us and correct us and in this way, we achieve correction.
S. In the world, what takes place is a situation that also has to bring a state?
R. Of course, of course we will discover the reason for what happened in the world to the smallest detail and we will see the corrections.
S. For instance in my country I see that there is no possibility to build any understanding above this, or love of connection. It is a situation that there’s a desire to destroy you. Nothing about connection or incorporation, just have to stop insisting, they just want to destroy you. So, what processes of corruption have to take place so you can advance from this?
R. By killing your enemy, you don’t correct them. The right correction is when you turn him from an enemy to one who loves you, to one who loves you. Only in this way do we achieve corrections. Therefore, according to the Torah, killing someone, you should really have a solid foundation. The war that you were talking about now, that it is happening in your country, right now, we can’t talk about it because it is all still very, very alive and burning. But let's hope that soon it will be over and we will be able to relate to it with a more balanced mind and heart.
S. I'm just interested, in general, there is hatred that is a force that wants to destroy and should this be corrected somehow?
R. Yes, it is written about it that precisely instead of the hate, love will come and cover it and will correct and compliment it. But the correction is not in killing your enemy but in correcting him and he becomes your friends, the one who loves you.
S. How do you correct him?
R. No, it is written about it “he who wants to kill, you kill him first”. If you are certain that he's coming to kill you then you have to get up in advance, get up first, and kill him. It is the same laws of correction, everything we need to do is according to the Torah is only corrections and the correction for one who wants to kill another is to be killed if there is no other choice. Besides, here we have to learn through what is happening, where it is coming from, why the Creator set it up this way, what He wants from us, from all of us who are dependent on each other with all the different forms of perception, character, everything. Why did He organize, arrange such connections between us and we really don't know what to do with our nature. Gradually as we begin to move forward toward the Corrections, we will see along the way how the connection between us is necessary, and precisely between us amongst such different people. Keep your questions, we will answer them gradually, bit by bit.
5. S. (20:00) Continuing the last question, yesterday I watched your show and you were saying how there are nations that don't understand or only understand force. You were asked about that they are jumping on Israeli soldiers and beating them up, and you said that if someone lifts a stick, you have to lift a stick back, and a gun and so on. But there’s a spiritual realm about this, that we have to understand it’s only us who are uncorrected and if we were correct so they would come to us with flowers and not with weapons. How should we work here? Because in the morning you have to take a stick and in the afternoon you have to meet for the lesson and how to go through the corrections here? It is not only towards the Arab Nations that only understand the forces, it’s all nations.
R. Yes, this is about each and every nation, it depends on the height or type of forces but each and every nation is egoistic and maybe a bit corrected in something. The problem is that the nations can't take this into consideration as much as they are different, they are different from one another and that's why there's such a resistance and collision between all of them. They start wars and there are problems one against the others, they don't understand, they still can not understand each other, even nations that seemed close to us like the Russian and Ukrainians but they are very different, there is a huge distance between them. In history and their culture and the structure of their soul. It is not one nation and it's not one nation that is close to one another, they’re really far from each other.
That's why if they could relate to one another gently, slowly to get to know each other not by force, not by obligating each other, then they will succeed. You cannot agree that there's a force between nations and with force they want to make something better or change or correct, it is completely the wrong approach. That's why I hope that first, as a result of this war they will understand that there is no place for war but to talk, to understand, to learn, that, yes. Not to think that they are one nation or that there is any closeness between them, they are not close to each other, completely not. The fact that they are speaking in similar languages, that doesn't mean anything, it is completely a different perception, different brain, a different heart to each one of them.
Let's hope that they will accept it and they will start from afar to check their closeness, first to reach the roots on each and every one and to study. The problem is they went through history that is very unpleasant from the Soviet regime and they just wanted to erase everything that belongs to every nation, that everyone is one nation, that they are equal and not different and it is the same until this time. None of those nations, they don’t know themselves and not even the other. So, we’ll need to work on it and explain to everyone because without every nation, from all nations of the world, until they do not find their true root, corporeal and spiritual, we won't be able to connect between us.
S. The problem or the little nuances, it is not clear that it takes place maybe, well not with weapons but even between our friends. It is clear that on the street there it’s one thing and here for us we are studying with the enemy at the same Rav and then in our meetings, how to work with it?
R. Love will cover all the crimes, this is our uppermost law. Inside Bnei Baruch, it cannot be otherwise, that’s it. Love will cover all kinds, period.
6. S. (26:45) Screenwriters when they bring the movie to a happy ending, they also have to start from horrible scrutinies between them. Can we get along without all the scripts, all the states that we are going through to bring a happy ending on our own? Otherwise they will not come.
R. We don't need to build bad things, bad relationships. We should try to rise above our nature and above our nature build a connection and a connection that is as internal as possible to the point of love, this is our work. We do not need anything terrible to discover, wWe need to reveal only good things but when you want to rebuild those good things you naturally reveal all the bad things that are hidden there. And this is how we have to be corrected and advance.
S. I wanted to continue the Ukrainian question, maybe not even to continue but to try to understand the purpose of these questions, we have a special state. 19 years I lived in Ukraine and 15 years in Russia, I saw the conflict, I see the conflict on both sides. Everyone stopped talking to me, family, friends, they’re sure that I'm the one harming them or going to war against them. Vlad says this is the enemy, what do we do with them? He attacked and I don't see it that way, that there's a war between two systems, against fascism and against nationality. Nobody has a problem with Vlad, he's a great friend and I was personally in contact with him. So I have to try to understand that when we fight against each other, it’s two systems or two countries. How should we relate to this on our own?
R. I will say much more than that, in this war it is not countries that are fighting and not systems but the perception of the Ukrainian people as opposed to the perception of the Russian people, and that is the problem. That the Ukrainian people, according to how they present themselves, we see it, does not wage wars, does not go out to war. It is seemingly more developed than the Russian people, the Russian nation. Also historically, it works this way, the Ukrainian people are more ancient than the Russian people but they are not one nation. This is the first thing we need to understand, there is not one nation here but two nations that although they were somehow connected and close, they were neighbors, it’s better to define it as “neighbors”, they’re not one nation, though. So demanding from one nation to another nation is impossible.
Anyone who, like you, lived in both Ukraine and Russia, if he looks at it objectively, you will see that they are totally not the same nation. These are two nations, two approaches, we see how they organize their houses, their surroundings around the house, their cultural life, their social life, it is completely different psychology, different perception of life in everyone. So, you cannot mix the nations, the fact that they have all kind of manners of closeness, especially when it comes from the government because pressed them and mixed them forcefully, and in Russia, you know how it’s done, they just erase the borders or redraw the borders and then people do not know where they belong, to whom they belong and they are confused and afterwards, it takes decades, if not centuries to correct these things. But we have, first of all, to drop the assumption that we have one nation and it is not that one is good and one is bad. They are two and they are different, and it is not good for one to come and decide something and determine something for the other. This is unacceptable in any way.
7. S. (32:46) So a parallel question to this: I once heard you say that the next state is like a state of Nazism which is seemingly the next progressivable state but when I see what is happening that they are killing people, they're torturing them.
R. Who are you talking about, where?
S. That was long ago, you see the next structure, the next regime would be nationalistic, where every government will become like Nazis.
R. If we don't correct our will to receive, our ego, then of course we will come to a state where our ego ends up in all kinds of extremes, extreme state, and then of course there will be also be Nazis, yes, nationalist.
S. The nationalistic idea is were the government closes within itself, and then how does this connect to the fact that everyone needs to connect?
R. Correct, this is why the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that unless we correct our egos, we will become, all the nations might become Nazis, Fascist, yes. There will be internal fusion, internal cohesion within the countries, this comes from the word ”fascia”, which is connection but it’s against others. But this is on the condition that we do not correct ourselves, as the ego grows, that’s how it grows, there's a manner of advancement according to our ego and there’s a manner of advancement where we correct our ego and then we rise above it.
S. Thank you
8. R. (35:18) Whatever the case may be, it is unacceptable that one country or Army invades its neighbor and does there, whatever it thinks it should. In no place in the world is this acceptable.
9. S. (35:48) If the Creator gives a person life, what life does a person have to take this life from another person? He’s going against the Creator.
R. Correct.
S. So if according to the Christian religion, if a Christian does this is he an anti-Christian?
R. Yes.
10. S. (36:27) Baal HaSulam’s explanation about the Creator being the absolute good is nice and beautiful but if I look at reality I see a completely different reality. I see a reality of suffering, even beyond that. How do you deal with this conflict?
R. But understanding what needs to be as opposed to what is, and we try to correct, from bad to good.
S. Is this not the responsibility of the Creator? There's None Else Besides Him, He does this.
R. No. The Creator created the evil inclination and gave it to us to turn it into good. He participates in this with his force but according to our request.
S. Isn’t that removing some of the responsibility from the Creator? We cannot come with complaints to Him?
R. The Creator works according to what you demand. That's it. He doesn't do anything against your will. He gave you a world. If you want to make it good, if not suffer. Because this suffering should eventually bring you to the good world.
11.S. (37:55) Five minutes ago I wrote down love covers all crimes. In Bnei Baruch it cannot be any other way. So what are we talking about now all together? About what nationality are we talking?
R. We are talking about the present state and the state that will be at the end of correction. The present state is that the whole world is totally divided into countless pieces that are egotistically colliding with one another. And the future of the world is for us to spread to everyone the method of correction and everyone will correct themselves and achieve equivalence of form between them and with the Creator. These are two different things, what we have now and what we will have at the end of correction.
Reading (39:05) “Furthermore….”
12. R. (39:35) Because if the Creator is an absolute, then his relationship onward to the people should be only this way.
Reading (39:47) “ Furthermore….” continues..
13. R. (41:06) Yes, in other words He is preparing us to see the world as the world is seen.
Reading (41:21) “His guidance is purposeful guidance”
14. S. (44:29) I heard friends both from Russia and Ukraine. I feel that we all have some national identities, we all have some religious identities which are part of our ego. We feel that we belong to a nation we are proud of our country. We saw examples of this in the Turkish Kli. I remember when you did explanations about the Armenian-Turkish conflict. A lot of friends left the group. We had crisis and people started to say Rav doesn't like Turks, Rav is supporting Armenians and we had a huge mess. It was really hard work to go above those national identities. As a student how can we succeed in this?
R. It is not simple. If you want to rise higher then you have to join the Jews, the people of Israel who throughout their history how they suffered and everyone hates them, everyone beats them up. In the end with Nazi Germany they wanted to exterminate them all together. And even today in every country where they live they are treated not like everyone else. It is felt in every single Jew in the world. It’s a matter of thousands of years of oppression from the very first days when the Israelie Nation began in ancient Babylon, when they were expelled from Babylon. They came here to the land of Canaan which we now call the land of Israel. Otherwise, you will not feel it, what it means. History is a representation of corporeal man’s relation to the innermost spiritual point. He disrespects it, he has contempt for it, he repels it and this is how it is among the nations too. The more this point is precious and wise and connected to the upper force it is still slighted and disrespected and degraded.
You can’t help it, this is history. From this you will also be able to learn what is happening. Of course I don't treat any nation from any of the nations of the world with preference compared to another nation. I look at everyone, at all the nations of the world as ones that need correction. First and foremost there should be correction to those who call themselves Israel, they come first and it is really their fault that the world is still not corrected. This is why they suffered more than everyone throughout history. But the Armenians, the Turks, Azerbaijan, that there was preference to one over the other, no. I can only say where people go more against nature’s laws, in my eyes, this is a big problem. It’s just that I don’t think that you can correct the world by force. In the end we’re already living in a world that’s heading toward correction. So it is certain to fail, and we can see that today it really is close to failure.
S. The antisemitism I remember in my childhood. For 6 years I grew up in a Sufi Community. I learned Arabic, I studied and I was a child and I saw that deep antisemitism but it had some sort of spiritual root. People were using prophecies that at the end of times all nations will march to Jews and they will hide under rocks, and rocks will talk. Come Muslim, there’s a Jew under me, come and kill him and people were believing, and they were Sufis, spiritual people that I grew up around, and it is really hard to understand. How can we start a dialogue between religions, between cultures. There's no dialogue between them?
R. No, it is still premature. Besides, it is not exactlySufis if they talk about hatred. Real Sufis talk only about love as far as I know them and as far as I've met them. The last few times that I met was in UK with a Sufi and another time was in the Netherlands, and I was very impressed with them. Also in the United States I was very impressed with them. They were real Sufis meaning they have no interest in hating or any antisemitic tendencies or any antagonism toward anyone, not at all. Real Sufis work by love covers all crimes, it’s the same as the wisdom of Kabbalah.
S. In Spain, Sephardic Jews and Muslims they were in a really good connection and during medieval times Kabbalists and Sufis, they had such a connection that even now we see their methods are similar. Should we do a special dissemination action to show similarities between Sufism and Kabbalah and how they’re directed to the same goal, love covers all crimes?
R. I am not sure that we can succeed and I recommend that you do not do anything or say that you are studying Kabbalah. You think that Sufis are about such love that are above all the differences because there was a reason why you were taught that you also have to hate the Jews and at the end of days even the rocks will say there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him. It’s not exactly Sufism. Real Sufism is love that covers all the crimes.
15. S. (53:38) According to what Baal HaSulam writes here about the fruit that develops and grows, you said that if you want to rise above the differences you have to become a Jew, Israel. So, is this what everyone is expected to be?
R. Internally yes. Internally everyone must come to the state where love covers all the crimes and there will be no differences between people and even though I still write and Kabbalists write too that everyone can remain in his religion, in his faith whatever he wants, but the law or love must be above everything and cover everyone. That's it. Therefore, that's why I'm so against wars because by this we only destroy ourselves and now we will see it in practice.
16. S. (55:00) Now we are sitting in the bomb shelters and we feel ourselves only safe in the connection in the lessons and with the world Kli because of all that hatred that exists. Why does it turn out that after such questions there is a feeling of separation, not only externally but also what’s happening internally. What is that all for? In relating to this prayer that we..?
R. We have to pray to the Creator to give us the strength to be connected on top of all the crimes. Even though we don’t understand each other. Even though we cannot get along between us. We want to nevertheless be above all the misunderstandings and be connected in the one Creator. He who makes peace in His heaven makes peace upon us. Why? Because we are always in arguments, in all kinds of opposite operations. So we want the Creator to make peace upon us and bring down upon us what is called a canopy of peace and with this we conclude the lesson.