Morning Lesson February 20, 2024
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Rabash. Article No. 22, 1991. What Is “A Lily Among the Thorns,” in the Work?
1. R. (39:31) How should we respond to this article?
2. S. (40:04) Especially towards the end of the article, he says that a person who is already been rewarded with help from above should be thankful and should know the fact that he has a desire to bestow that controls him. It wasn't by his own force, the Creator gave it to him. Why does Rabash emphasize this point? Of course, one who received it knows if it wasn't by his own power he only received it because he reached the complete prayer and emphasized it a few times, he says you have to see Him and thank Him and praise Him. Why does he emphasize it?
R. Does someone want to say something about that?
3. S. (41:00) For what purpose does the Creator send the person disturbances in spirituality and in corporeality?
R. So that a person will have a reason to come closer to the Creator.
4. S. (41:17) What does it mean to go against the evil and overcome it forcefully and not argue with it?
R. Not to argue with the bad is considered a person receives all the good and all the bad that comes to him that come from the Creator, None Else Besides Him and therefore he blesses for all the discernments he receives and the main thing is that he builds for himself a system of how to receive bestowal from the Creator and how he responds to this.
5. S. (42:20) About half a shekel, sometimes we give more or less than half. How do we know how to give the exact measure, not more or not less?
R. This we need to study more and feel what it means and what it feels like, the half of shekel, but to the extent in which we want to give more than the half we won't be able to give.
6. S. (43:07) Where can we receive so much strength of power, humility so that we don't run away from the work?
R. It is written anything but leave. ‘Anything but leave’ is for each and everything that a person receives a feeling of lowliness, disappointment, he needs to answer this way and this just comes to strengthen me, I continue.
7. S. (43:49) To assume the burden of the kingdom of heaven does it mean that I have to dedicate my life to the Ten?
R. Not to the Ten, we need to devote our lives in order to connect between us and by this attain the Creator. This is the purpose of our development, in this we connect and help one another.
8. S. (44:25) What conditions should we meet in the spiritual work in order to become the slave of the Creator?
R. It would be most correct to incorporate in the society, in the Ten, and the environment and through it try to come closer to the Creator.
9. S. (44:58) My half a shekel is actually to bring the deficiency and then the Creator completes the ability to bestow? Let's say it's 2:40 the preparation for the morning lesson and a friend doesn’t enter the preparation not on time and I see this corruption, let's say the corruption is in me, I didn't prepare it in time. The question is if I do my half a shekel, I do the right correction, will the friend at 2:41 walk through the door?
R. I can't tell you but we need to prepare all the means this way.
S. Exactly, I heard in the article that the Creator brings me the ability to bestow so if I make the right deficiency, if I bring forth the right lack, a prayer, whatever is necessary and I try not to receive it in order to receive but rather I demand of the Creator. How is it related to the fact that the friend came in at 2:41 so he's not going to come in at 2:41? I made the right correction.
R. I don't know your calculations with the Creator and how you come to Him to ask and demand, but we need to do all the preparations, requests, prayers so that the friends will be in a time where he starts to appeal to the Creator.
S. Let's say I made the correction and he did come in, how do I not receive it in order to receive it? The fact that seemingly I asked and it happened. How do I work on not receiving it in order to receive? In advance I need to do it somehow?
R. If you prepare yourself correctly in order to bestow to the environment so that everyone will be on time and connect and begin to raise what's in their hearts to the Creator, then do that.
S. Actually this corruption came in order to correct a certain flaw so if I correct this flaw there is no room for the corruption right? It shouldn’t be there.
R. It'll be, it'll be something else. That we don't know, of course it's not the end of correction.
10. S. (48:03) He writes here, it turns out that half means the necessity for the thing, meaning to feel how necessary it is to obtain this desire, meaning to obtain suffering at not having the desire to bestow, meaning to know the loss at not having the desire to bestow. To the extent that he knows what he's losing to that extent that he can feel how happy he would be if he had the desire to bestow. How can we be in this thing?
R. In what precisely?
S. In depicting what pleasure we would have if we had the desire to bestow and through suffering, this would cause us suffering because we don't have it?
R. Well, we need to move to that line in which we want to bestow to the Creator and to come closer to Him and to truly be in that inclination, in that tendency with all our might and besides that we don't do a thing.
S. It seems as though he's giving a very clear technique here. He says this is the essence, the heart of man's work, to constantly depict how good bestowal is and to truly create suffering only out of that, that I don't have the bestowal.
R. Yes.
S. How do we do it? How can we be in that all the time?
R. Try to constantly be in this as much as you can and as much as you're not capable raise in a prayer.
S. In order to constantly be in this we need some preparation so that we will only have this.
R. Think about that also before you come to the article and to the connection with the friends and the prayer, prepare yourself in advance.
S. I don't think it's only about me. He seems to present to us the stage in which we should be in all the time, we, all of us all the time. Alone obviously it is impossible so what should we do so that this will be the thing, he says this is the heart of the work.
R. Which?
S. Again, to depict the will to bestow and to the extent that he knows what he is losing to that extent he can feel how happy he would be if he had the desire to bestow.
R. Yes.
S. What is depicted to us all the time automatically is other pleasures. We need to depict this not something else. It’s very, this sentence is very focused, it doesn't let you run away anywhere.
R. Yes, think about it all the time.
11. S. (51:35) What are the thorns, those questions that prick man's heart?
R. This is actually the Creator's work upon a person. When a person feels how in his heart there are still are thoughts and desires that are incorrect but rather they’re still drawing him to all kinds of signs.
S. When a person feels a prick in his heart, what does the Creator want from him in that moment?
R. Usually the Creator wants a person to examine himself, check himself, and see in what he doesn't agree with the Creator.
S. The questions that sting the person's heart, is it a necessary part of the work?
R. Yes.
S. Is it considered the path of suffering?
R. No, no.
S. Why not?
R. He is guided this way towards the goal.
S. Do we get a new power from above without receiving these pricks?
R. No, how will a person go through the whole path?
S. On the path of Torah there are pricks or are there no pricks?
R. There are , there are these pricks, it's like King David wrote, a lily amongst the thorns.
S. How do we go through the path without suffering, without these pricks?
R. No, a person knows in advance that he's going to be pricked and he pays attention to his sensitivity to it to the extent in which he feels these pricks and he is cautious, not cautious from the pricks but on the contrary, from the fact that he shouldn't pay attention to them or to miss them.
S. Can we feel the prick without the associated pain, meaning to be sensitive to it and just go through it?
R. No, no but it depends on how much I appreciate this prick, who it comes from, and why it comes, and what I need to do after I feel it, to the extent in which it guides me correctly on my way.
S. What is the right way to relate to the prick?
R. To bless it, to be cautious but if you receive it, bless, correct oneself and continue to the next prick, meaning not to aim towards the pricks but what will be, will be.
S. How do we not get too excited from these pricks that come? How do we see it just as the way of the work? I simply exist like this among the thorns?
R. No, that's not the attitude we should have. We need to see these pricks as guidance on our way, guidances on our path. How could it be? Both minus and a plus both I need to receive, I need to see them through me this direction.
12. S. (55:58) A lily is a person, right?
R. Yes.
S. In the first paragraph here in the middle it's written, when a person wants to be rewarded with the kingdom of heaven which is called faith, he must go through a process of many ‘blunt his teeth’, what is many blunt his teeth?
R. Blunt its teeth means many disturbances, disturbances just like these thorns that come to us around the lily.
13. S. (56:44) The process of receiving the burden of the kingdom of heaven is something that is done on a daily basis, a few times a day, all the time?
R. It doesn't depend on the person, it's according to the degree that he is on according to his perception, his environment.
S. Why of his environment? It seems like something that a person needs to press himself on this or can the environment help himself with this?
R. Certainly we're talking about the preparation of the person towards the work of the Creator and how much the Creator can work on him.
S. How can the environment pressure him so that he will take upon himself the burden of the kingdom of heaven?
R. Show him examples of the correct behavior and opposite that show him what can happen if his behavior would be incorrect.
S. He writes that the pricks come specifically during the ascent, just when a person feels that bestowal is something good then it like in order to rise another degree or, you said that he should bless for this prick so, what is the next step?
R. The next step when he receives a prick he should check what for, what did he receive it for and correct himself, all the time to correct and correct and correct through these small pricks, these and those.
14. S. (59:04) We once had an example that a person that is riding on his donkey, he kind of gives him with his little spurs, he gives him like that with his foot so it will move him forward. He also writes that these stabs, these thorns, are kind of like part of his soul that the Creator gives him in order to correct, so it really feels that this is the main part of our work to identify the pricks that come from Him and to do the work all the way to identifying that the Creator is the good operator, he's operating in a good way, and the question is how do we protect one other because it sounds like it's very personal work in a person and how can I, if I see a friend that is having difficult to receive these pricks as something that advances him and he sees that he has a difficulty, how to help him?
R. By example, by example, so that he will see how you are connecting and going forward specifically through the pricks.
S. How does a friend who feels at the moment the prick is something unpleasant to the will to receive?
R. It’s always like that.
S. How does he see? I’m talking about him, himself. Let’s right now I’m getting pricked this way, how to see the examples in the friends, how can I open myself to that? That also requires work.
R. We can't quite see the pricks of the friends, no.
S. Simply give the right example that the right attitude towards these stabs, towards this whole process?
R. Yes.
15. S. (01:00:55) It is written in an emphasized manner in the article, therefore in every state there is no time where the bad has more power than the good in him. What does that mean?
R. That actually, usually they are equal, the bad and the good in a person in order to give him balance in every situation.
S. Is this correct about people who are students or is this correct with all of reality?
R. No, we're not talking about the whole of reality.
S. Are we always in that state of being half and half?
R. No, but a person should depict to himself that he's in the state of half and half.
S. Why do we feel the bad in a more powerful way usually?
R. Because we are still egoist so this is what we feel.
S. It is written that the rich does not give more than half a shekel. Does it mean that he can't give more than or he should be cautious of not to give?
R. No, it is a law. That no one gives more or less than half a shekel.
S. The rich and the poor are equal?
R. It turns out that they are.
16. S. (01:02:35) I will continue the friend's question, in every state the bad has no more power than the good in him, meaning when a state of bad comes to a person he needs to know that in that bad there is good?
R. No, this is not how I understand it but opposite this bad there is good, the good force.
S. When a person feels the bad, where is the force of good?
R. I don't know but this is what is written.
S. He has to give him the power to overcome the evil, to know that it comes to advance him. Inside the bad where do you find this knowledge, how do you use the knowledge that against it there is a force that is measured?
R. This depends on the person's work. It is not in the same place that you will find the bad and the good together.
S. It should also be said the other way that in a good state he’s got upliftment, he needs to know that also in that good there's bad he has to be cautious of meaning that if it goes together?
R. This is how you are interpreting it but I don't.
S. I have an additional question, there are many times in the article that he talks about in the end after the person sees his state he needs to come to a request for help from the Creator, and many times he says this. This is the final product that he needs to ask for help even though he's not capable. What inside of this help needs to be the request? What kind of help is a person asking for, help for what?
R. That what I want to do I don't have the strength for it.
S. Yes, but the kind of help that I want to receive when I see that I don't have the power, Let's say I want to bestow and I'm not capable so I'm asking for help, then what?
R. That I will have the strength.
S. If I look at all the details before I ask for help, I see everything came to me from the Creator. Also the evil inclination, also the deficiency everything, there's nothing he writes that nothing comes from that person, I received everything from the Creator?
R. So far.
S. Now I need to see that I need to do some kind of effort that I feel that I need. I'm asking for help from the Creator for that too?
R. Yes.
S. He gave me all this information and now I also have to ask for help from Him?
R. Yes.
S. What it means, I give you the good, I give you the bad and you choose life. Does a person have to make some kind of a choice at the end?
R. In all the cases, the events, yes.
17. S. (01:05:38) He writes that a person needs to attain a deficiency for the Creator to help him so that he will have the desire to bestow. This is the main work to attain this desire and then there is advice on how to attain the desire to bestow. He writes that half is called necessity for the thing. We need to feel how necessary it is to attain this desire that it is to attain suffering from not having the desire to bestow, meaning to know what the loss is of this desire to bestow is and to that extent he can feel how happy he would be if he had the desire to bestow. I want to ask how in general how do we attain first of all a necessity for bestowal?
R. When we think about it. We think about it as much as possible in all kinds of different states about bestowal and bit by bit we start to feel that this thing becomes more important, more required and becomes a reason to turn to the Creator.
S. Can you maybe describe to me why I would be happy if I had the desire to bestow? Why would it cause me to be happy if I had the need to bestow?
R. Because by that I would be carrying out an act of correction. I would be bestowing to the Creator, I would identify with Him.
S. Why would that make me a happy man?
R. This is how it is, this is what is written. I cannot explain to you why you would be happy, there is no answer for that, it should be an emotional answer within the person.
S. He writes that we need to depict this to imagine this?
R. That is right.
S. Can we talk about this in the Ten to depict what would happen if we would feel the Creator between us, to draw such pictures in our mind? Is that correct?
R. Talk about it, you can try it. Usually we don't do that but rather each one should think about it and depict it to himself.
S. That is why I'm asking, I find that all the pricks and suffering and what I understand is that I actually need to feel bad for not wanting to bestow. This is where the pain and the stabs and the suffering should stem from. Is that correct?
R. Yes.
S. I want to depict how wonderful it would be if I were bestowing, meaning that picture is dissipated and I'm trying to scrutinize with you how to depict it, how to imagine it so that I can somehow, I don't know, make the wheels spin in that direction?
R. I don't understand you. You want to bestow to the Creator?
S. I can't always understand what that is even to bestow to the Creator. I can imagine all kinds of imaginations in my thoughts from my will to receive but what it really is and to feel pain from not having it, it's like a picture that is disappearing?
R. You have to extract it from the work with the friends. It is written from the love of the people to the love of the Creator.
S. So how in the work with friends should I extract that?
R. Try to love them, Try to love them, I have nothing else to say. Do you remember Aviu in England? When I asked this old man, I asked him can I be…
S. Rav asked how a person comes to spirituality and the Sufi man said ‘you have to love me’.
R. Yes.
S. There was someone there who was really attached to the floor, on the floor.
R. Yes, it is not simple.
18. S. (01:10:55) A friend touch on the point of we need to always come to ask help from the Creator, and he writes here, if a person himself could come to attain vessels of bestowal a person would be sufficed with little and would feel himself as whole and would remain in his smallness because he would not have a need to progress forward. Can you explain, I thought that we are educating children to be as independent as possible and as little as possible to depend on their parents, and that helps them grow and develop. Why is it that here we are constantly coming to these points where we need to appeal to the Creator that that is what will actually grow us? Specifically, that dependency is what develops a person and raises him.
R. That is very important, look what is happening with teenagers when you want them to be independent. They go wild and in all kinds of different directions.
S. There needs to be a combination, to give room for independence and…?
R. This is exactly what the article says. You get the opportunities to ascribe yourself to the revelation of the Creator and to that extent you get this quality that you want to adhere to Him, you discover this quality within yourself. This is how you advance.
S. Is there a way to ask? After all, we need to come to the request, we need to come to resemble the Creator, the quality of bestowal. Is there a manner of asking, what is that form of asking that is the one that will turn the person to be similar to the one who he's asking from?
R. A blessing.
S. The person will feel a blessing?
R. When a person blesses the Creator for all kinds of forms in which the Creator relates to him.
S. He turns to the Creator, when he turns to the Creator with this request.
R. Yes.
S. What is the essence of the appeal to the Creator? He needs to feel a blessing in that? Do I even have a right to turn to the Creator? What is this blessing?
R. It's not a merit, we are not talking about that. Of course we have the right.
S. What is this blessing?
R. A blessing is that I bless the Creator for accompanying me with the friends towards the purpose of creation.
S. When I turn to the Creator, when I appeal to the Creator, is every request one that advances a person or is there a form of a request that maybe will not advance a person?
R. No, If it's a request that a person truly brings out of his heart, then it does advance him.
19. S. (01:14:44) What’s the difference about this article about the others is that he does not always say, look at the greatness, bestowal, the goal and from that you will get a deficiency. Here he says no, look at your losses, look at the suffering of what you have if you won’t get bestowal and from that you will get the deficiency, the desire to bestow. It's as if a different place to focus on. That is what I want to ask, what is the loss that we do not have the desire to bestow? What is that loss we have to concentrate on?
R. A loss from not having a desire to bestow, that we do not attain this desire, that we cannot be similar to the Creator, approach Him, adhere to Him, that this world seems to us like a dumpster. There is nothing to compare it to. It's a stinking place, the lowest place that there is.
S. Can we really connect all of our suffering or negative states in my life to the fact that I do not have the desire to bestow, is that correct?
R. Yes, certainly yes.
20. S. (01:16:24) How do we work correctly with the thorns that are being revealed?
R. We have to try in all of our experience, with all the forces that we muster from and among the friends, we have to try to move in between the thorns.
S. At least me, today what I do is, when the questions awaken I try to ignore them and go above them but I feel that I'm losing something in the work because I cannot ask for the forces, for the prayer that should awaken, something disappears because I'm supposedly going above reason but maybe I'm not doing something right?
R. Perhaps you are simply suppressing all the questions and without resolving them, of course, you are not reaching the goal.
S. That is why I'm asking how to work with all these questions correctly and not hear I'm going above reason and my ego takes over and steals the work because it’s not really above reason, right?
R. Yes, you are only saying that.
S. I don’t want to be just lip service but to really get into those questions and work in them and not fall into the state where it just tosses you away from the work. The evil inclination takes over you with all of these questions.
R. Yes.
S. How to work correctly with these questions?
R. There is only one problem, with these questions you have to work, but by turning them to the Creator, to the Creator.
S. Sorry for saying this but it sounds like something is very empty. How do I direct it to the Creator?
R. Turn to Him and you will discover that you have someone to turn to, yes, but not to me. My job is not to give you answers.
S. That is clear. Thank you.
21. S. (01:18:56) To take questions and direct them to the Creator. Where in this process is the Ten?
R. In between. Both in taking the questions from them, together with them, through the work with them and by turning to the Creator you are turning to the Creator by sort of leaning on the Ten.
S. I want to see how my questions are connected to work in the Ten, to the scrutiny in the Ten?
R. Yes, of course, where else can you scrutinize anything to advance to the purpose of creation?
S. It's like something that we really need to develop in our work because we're not so busy scrutinizing these questions, raising these questions?
R. It's not quite so related to the scrutiny, to scrutinizes together. It's not like you have to sit and constantly discuss and argue and decide together. No, that is too much.
S. In the Ten most of our meetings between every lesson we are usually busy reading, reading the article the next day, and then this process you’re saying about scrutinizing the questions. It's as if everyone does that inside when we read the articles.
R. Yes. I think this is the person's private work usually; but you need to talk about it as well.
S. There’s a mutual field where we're supposed to search for each other?
R. Yes.
22. S. (01:21:08) I wanted to scrutinize what is the level we are talking about? I know two kinds of stings or stabs. Sometimes the Creator shows me my qualities and it stabs me and sometimes He shows me my intention, without not my qualities and then I see that I'm for myself and not for the Creator, not for the friends, so in what level are we talking about here in the article?
R. You choose it.
S. I choose how to understand the article?
R. Not only to understand but what to do with it, where to advance?
S. The choice is in choosing my intention? I have to see that sometimes my intention is half to bestow, half to receive and here now we are at the point of choice, and we make the choice or we ask the Creator to determine for us?
R. Both.
23. S. (01:22:33) He writes that the Creator needs the flesh and blood to sing praise to the Creator. What does that mean?
R. That we bless the Creator, that we bless the Creator for giving us such work by which we can come to be independent and similar to Him and to truly rise to the highest levels. It is something that we only talk about but we do not understand any of it. How happy we should really be with what we have.
S. He writes that through that we will be rewarded with the voice of the Creator.
R. Yes.
S. He does not say to feel or to see, he says the voice. What does that mean?
R. I do not know how to explain it, really.
24. S. (01:23:48) To continue the friend's question from our Ten, so the lily between the thorns, that he says that the chosen one from all the lilies so I have to thank the Creator for when I feel that I'm in an ascent that He gives me these questions to scrutinize, so I have to give gratitude that I have contact with Him right?
R. Yes.
S. That's our true work every day?
R. Yes, specifically through the thorns you begin to understand that you belong to it.
25. S. (01:24:37) Continuing the questions about 'hit him in the teeth', he says that it means that there is nothing to argue with him, just to go by force and overcome him, that when he brings the questions you don't even answer him or think of excuses but man needs to know that he should not waste his time for trying to find answers to his question, but right away to use force, an overcoming force. Actually, to hit him in the teeth, I try to think of an action that we can do, is that everything inside me, questions, doubts, whatever, but still come and sit in the lesson, without changing any external action, at least that. Can I say that this means ‘hit him in the teeth'?
R. No. It’s inner work. What are you telling me, that you come here and sit, how does that belong to it?
S. Like ‘anything but leave’ for instance?
R. No, no, no, ‘anything but leave’ is you could be sitting here and yet be in leave. It depends on where your thoughts are.
S. What does it mean to use force, what does it mean to hit him in the teeth?
R. That you resist it. You resist with all your might, you act against those forces that want to disconnect you and push you away.
S. To continue, he says that he sees that he cannot overcome and that he always needs the mercy of the Creator and he must ask for help.
R. Yes.
S. Between hitting him in the teeth, it sounds like an action that man does, where does the help come if he already does that action of hitting him in the teeth, so he doesn't need the help, he already did it. So where does the help come in?
R. First of all ‘break its teeth’ to your evil inclination and then you will see what happens. Now for the time being, the act is upon you.
26. S. (01:27:23) To continue the scrutiny, we talked about independence, you told the friend to attain independence. Where is that term expressed here in this article? Eventually, everything that Rabash directs us to do is to turn to the Creator and He will complete the job. Where does independence come from?
R. I don't remember what I said and what I meant.
S. The friend gave an example of the child that is dependent on the parents and wants to receive from them. You told the friend that the fact that I turn to the Creator by that I am getting my independence. It turns out that independence is by not having anything, by only being dependent on the Creator.
R. Well that's independence, it is clean independence, to be dependent only on the Creator and not that I imagine myself being connected to the other forces of nature.
S. So my understanding that I have no deeds and there is nothing in me and I am only dependent on the upper one, by that I am independent?
R. Yes, you are independent in choosing to whom you belong.
27. S. (01:28:55) The Creator created the will to receive?
R. So we heard.
S. The will to receive, its nature wants to run away from the thorns, it doesn't want to be stabbed.
R. Yes.
S. He says that we have to be cautious of the state of just being a regular rose, a lily, and he says how careful we have to be and this carefulness is opposite of the will to receive?
R. In other words, a person has to be careful, sensitive, sensitive to all kinds of discernments in his ego.
S. That is the force of doing some kind of actions that are not in him and he can only get it from his environment, from society.
R. Yes.
S. That’s what he means that we have to reach surrender with no conditions?
R. Unconditional surrender means that you have to be close to all the friends and to try to help them achieve adhesion between them and with the Creator, from his part, and likewise each and every friend of course. That is it, and by this they all want to advance.
28. S. (01:30:55) In this personal work in the Ten of adding the half shekel, there is like, every friend has to know how much of an example he's giving the friends or this part is already the Creator ……?
R. There is no such thing, don't worry the Creator will keep a place for Himself. You need to with all your strength to turn to the Creator, to be connected with all the friends and with the Creator together.
S. The work of the half shekel is an individual work in the Ten or the whole Ten?
R. I don't want to hear such things as if you're saying this is one half and where is the other half? That is incorrect, that is incorrect, meaning my entire work, all of it 100%, is called half a shekel.
29. S. (01:32:08) Can we say that if someone puts his half a shekel and someone is searching for a half a shekel it's only half, but if a friend gives a gift to another friend in half a shekel, so between them there is a whole shekel of feeling because each one has a half. It is as if there are two stages?
R. Yes.
30. S. (01:32:44) He writes that when a person sees that he is not worthy on behalf of nature to work in order to bestow then he must pray a lot to the Creator to get help from above so that he will be able to work in order to bestow. What is this prayer? Is this a prayer to change my nature?
R. What he feels that he is missing in order to achieve wholeness; wholeness with the friends, wholeness with the Creator.
S. Where in this prayer is the Ten?
R. Friends, I told you.
31. S. (01:33:45) What is the difference between the state of sleeping and thorns?
R. Sleep and thorns. In the state of sleep a person does not feel the thorns.
S. It is like resting, comfort. It's like people that are not in the path, the lily isn't in the thorns.
R. Say it in English.
S. This is to be like a lily not among the thorns as it says in the article, so even on the path I am often asleep, how do I come to the thorns from a state of sleep?
R. It depends on your intention. What you want to achieve and what stands in front of you on your path?
S. If I advance through the thorns, I don't want the thorns but more than half of the time I'm in a state of sleep?
R I don't understand what you're saying.
S. If the thrones awaken me to prayer, to come closer to the Creator, to advance, but more than half the time I'm sleeping, how to awaken and feel the thorns?
R. Only through the connection with the friends, only through the connection with the friends. Each one of them also feels like you and each one feels that his work is incomplete, but through the connection within them you will achieve completeness.
S. The connection to them is to ask for them to overcome the state of dormant?
R. For everyone, yes.
S. The Creator can do everything?
R. The Creator, leave it to Him.
S. Can I say a short prayer for all of us?
R. Yes.
S. The Creator is great, for putting us here together around the table and from the state of connection we can awaken the Creator to do everything, all the miracles come from Him. Now we want our friends to awaken from a state of sleep, from the thorns, to reveal that it's mercy from above. We want to give honor above. Please connect us that You will have contentment from that.
R. Very well, good for you. Amen.
32. S. (01:38:05) What should we do when the stabs take a person out of balance, how to choose correctly?
R. By embracing with the friends and then it will influence you in a balanced way.
S. If I can't hug a friend, it's hard, she doesn't like it?
R. I have no other solution.
S. Only a hug?
R. Only a hug.
33. S. (01:38:45) If a person feels good in the quality of bestowal does it bring him to bestowing the order to receive pleasure for himself and how do I prevent it?
R. You have to be careful, yes, it is part of his work to acquire the quality of bestowal.
34. S. (01:39:30) It says in the article that in the state of Lo Lishma, of course, we come from Lo Lishma to Lishma we learn, so what is the state of mere lily, that the thorn does not prick, let's say the heart yet but there's no deficiency yet to pray. If there's no deficiency, how do we come to Lishma? What is that point of pricking then in the heart when we are in Lo Lishma?
R. A person who does not feel stings in his spiritual life still has not grown into a being in a state of being a lily among the thorns. The time will come when he begins to feel it.
S. Is that a state of Lo Lishma already?
R. When you feel this stings it is the state of Lo Lishma.
35. S. (01:40:52) Do we need to force ourselves to activate a loving heart in order to receive what we get from the Creator?
R. Of course, how else would we reveal that we’re receiving from Him?
S. In a regular state the heart is not on?
R. No, the heart isn't active.
S. When it is active we know that we are not realizing everything with the loving heart and then we feel a gap between the world and the states.
R. Let's say this is how it is. We will correct it afterwards.
S. We have to work on a degree of the next world and then to attain the fruits and intentions of the world that is before our eyes, is that the work we need to do?
R. [No translation]
S. What is the difference between the next world or like you said to determine myself towards the Creator. You didn’t mean determine in our five senses but when there's like a vessel that is built and to receive in it?
R. I think that we should simply open ourselves up as much as possible to the Creator and based on that we will be able to know what should be our actions.
S. What gets in our way? The desire to connect will be really burning in us and that we will not be able to take that state, what should we annul inside?
R. Our ego. That is the only thing that stops us.
S. Is it a natural desire in us to see ourselves through the others?
R. Yes.
36. S. (01:44:03) If all the evil is because of man, what is the state where a man is pure, how to understand that?
R. To the extent that according to his situation, he nevertheless tries to be in order to bestow even if he doesn't succeed, nevertheless according to this the Creator still advances in him.
37. S. (01:44:44) How to strengthen our hearts in the Ten in a way that the thorns will bring tears of joy in the work?
R. Prayer. Prayer in the group that you raise to the Creator.
38. S. (01:45:20) In the article he talks about unconditional surrender and …….. with the lilies and other tasteless. Can you explain this and give us guidance and how we can get to the point?
R. It's easy to say it in words but actually achieving it it's not simple at all. You have to pray a lot to the Creator to give him this quality.
39. S. (01:46:06) What should we do in order to reach a state of surrendering with no condition?
R. Would did you say?
S. How to work for the Creator with no conditions. How to reach that state?
R. By connecting with the friends and bestowing upon each other mutually in such a way that all that’s important is for us is to be together and this togetherness, this vessel, to direct it to the Creator to do with this vessel everything He needs. We are willing to be servants of the Creator, slaves, this is called unconditional surrender.
40. S. (01:47:18) About those thorns that constantly deviate our attention from the connection with the Creator. What eventually is the lily in this work?
R. The lily is Malchut which we attain in its best states precisely by paving our way through all the thorns.
S. What is this Malchut that we attain?
R. Malchut is our common desire which reveals the Creator to us.
S. The lily is the Malchut and it comes as a gift. We feel that the Creator is just giving it as an answer or is it an effort that we ourselves are building?
R. Well it’s our egoistic desire which we correct from all the egoistic intentions and what's left is a clean lily.
S. He said in the article that the Creator gave the quality of Malchut meaning to hear his voice. What does it mean to hear the Creator's voice in the Malchut?
R. Malchut adheres to Keter. There is no difference between them, then the person is incorporated completely in the Creator and this constitutes his correct goal.
41. S. (01:49:22) Could we try and understand what ‘hit them in the teeth is’? You said hit him in the teeth. It sounds like the force of the fist but it also means it's like softening the thorns, so what does it mean to overcome forcefully on the questions, it's using the force of love through the Creator?
R. It is to go against the thorns, against the disturbances in a way that we attack them.
S. Attack them?
R. Yes.
S. In what way?
R. In what way? A punch to the teeth.
42. S. (01:50:22) I got the impression that we first have to find my self with some balance between the good and the bad. What does it mean to find a balance and that afterwards we can take this step to choose the good and by that I can determine to the scale of merit. Is that right?
R. Yes.
43. S. (01:51:04) In the Ten we overcame all kinds of difficulties but still our social and financial state more than half the Ten is experiencing very hard financial states. What's this meaning? Is it coming to focus us, is there a connection between the inner work to the external states that the friends are going through?
R. Yes and no, we will advance and see the connection.