Morning Lesson December 03, 2021, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences from audio
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam - Shamati 232. Completing the Labor
1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, first of all we want to send a warm hug, big hug, to our friends, Fathers and the son's, Avot Ve Banim, who are in the desert in a tent. And they are having the lesson between them there and they are making all kinds of forms of gatherings and connections. I am very happy to see them there and I hope they feel warm and good, we are with you and that's it. So let's approach the articles selected for this lesson from the book Shamati that we need to study today.
2. Rav reads and adds: (01:28) I labored and did not find, do not believe it if I invested efforts and I did not find it, it is not possible do not believe that you labored. Because do not believe that you did not find, that means that you did not search. And he continues, that we must understand the meaning of I found, I labored and did not find, do not believe it. So what does it mean that I found? What should we find? What is there to find? “Finding” concerns the Creator finding us in favor, that I reach a state where the Creator favors me; and this can only be through equivalence of form. As he is in giving and bestowal and connection and love I should also be.
So the question is “If I labored, is it possible that nevertheless I did not find?” But it is written in a different way, I did not labor and found, do not believe it. Meaning that if I was favored by the Creator and I reached the revelation of the Creator but I do not feel that I actually labored, that I put in sufficient effort and I truly labored a lot, but instead maybe it was done by itself. So that too, do not believe it because it's impossible that something like that would happen. We must ask after all, he, that person is not lying, it is not about a person concerning himself an individual but instead it is the same rule with the whole collective. If one sees that he is favored by the Creator then why do not believe it, because one has evidence, he already feels that there is a proof existing in him, the consequence.
The thing is that sometimes the person is rewarded with being favored by the Creator through the prayer. This is because so is the power of the prayer that it can act like labor. Meaning instead of putting in labor, effort in improving oneself, the person prays and out of that he also improves himself reaching the same and result but seemingly through different means. As we see in physical life also that some get provision through their labor, and some get provision through prayer, by asking for provision he is allowed to provide for himself.
But in spirituality, although the person is rewarded by being favorite, he still must pay the full price, the full price. Meaning that there is such a way that he receives something from the Creator even if he did not labor enough. If he did not put in an entire effort, later on he has to pay the full price. This means the labor, the measure of the labor that everybody gives, he eventually has to give. Also, everything that he does not do, then he will lose the vessels. This is why he says I did not labor and found, do not believe. It is because there is no such thing, eventually everything comes according to the labor. That is labor in all kinds of different manners, labor beforehand, labor after, but in the end has to be labor, which is the vessel, and it has to be completely matching the finding which is the light.
Since he will lose everything if he's not putting sufficient labor in otherwise, he loses everything so the person consequently has to complete the labor. So there are a few possibilities here: to put in the labor before that, or during that time, or after being favored. Maybe one gets from the Creator some advance pay, like something he did not do, he did not labor, he still get some advance payment. And later on he has to pay it back because it is impossible in any other way, because then it would be not in order to bestow. Now are you going to read it and then we will answer questions
Continuing reading Shamati 209 (07:27)
3. R. (09:49) We learn that the prayer is the work of the heart. Here it sounds as the prayer, all together, is the effort of something that we have to pay for later. Is the prayer effort or not?
R. Certainly the prayer is also labor, effort, but maybe it’s not the same kind of labor that the person needs to give here. We need to put in labor effort in connecting to others, in coping with ourselves, in rising above our ego, and providing the conditions in which we bring a vessel to the Creator. In truth, prayer is very, very beneficial, I would say it is the most beneficial out of everything that we have. However it is not straight. I am not direct. I turn to the Creator asking and then the Creator makes all kinds of changes in me; and then I reach a state when I am ready to receive in order to bestow.
Therefore even though this is the way and this is the correct way, there are other ways. First of all, there is the need to try to put in a sufficient amount of effort, labor in the connection between us, the quantity and quality. And without it we cannot have a vessel. In truth, the labor is not in that we connect, the labor is in that we try to connect. The Creator does not demand from us that we have a complete, ready vessel, a corrected vessel. It is also not possible. But this is not what He demands from us, what is demanded is the labor. We have to understand that in our life we want to see the result, but in the spiritual life we do not need to reach the result. The result is just a sign, an indication that I gave sufficient quantity of exertion and quality of exertion. The Creator counts only the exertion, how much I scrutinized, how much I labored, how much I tried every time to reach connection, try to reach those qualities so I would resemble him.
This is what we must understand, so there is a difference. There is one who finds the desirable result through labor and exertion, effort. And there is one who is finding that desirable result through prayer and he did not labor. The prayer is without the ordinary efforts, but he already prayed and received the result. If we do not know how to ask, we would be bypassing everything and we would simply ask and receive.
The thing is it’s just about knowing how to ask, and we do not know how to ask because the desire to receive, our ego, is blocking us. So we get these things gradually bit by bit through many years of searching the great efforts and labor until we reach a state where finally the change in our perception and we realize what the labor should be in. For each and every body, for each the labor is unique in quantity and quality and in its nature, everybody is different from the others, it is just like in the human body, there is no one cell that is similar to the other cells and it is the same in the body of Adam HaRishon.
4. S. (15:07) Why is the person based on his efforts not to lose the vessel? It is written that relative to the effort the person gives forth and if he does not give effort he loses a vessel, why is that?
R. We have to constantly go through changing states, each moment is not similar to the previous moment, each and every moment each and every second what we are going through in our existence, it has to be the revelation of new conditions and revelation of our labor on top of these new conditions. This is why the person has to see how much he is using correctly every minute, every second he has and in this, one can see his labor also, how much he is searching for the labor each and every second.
5. S. (17:03) What is the difference between the state favored by labor or favored by prayer?
R. The bottom line the summary is the same, it does not matter by what you are being rewarded and this depends on the initial conditions of that person, as he writes there are those who succeed in their lives through labor and there are those who succeed through prayer. I would even say that there is no such thing that only this or only that, but through a combination, certain percentage of this, certain percentage of that, that we can say so, so we need both this and that. We also need to take into account that in the group we operate, in the group so therefore in the group it ends up that in each and every moment our states in the group complement each other even though we do not understand it, we do not direct these things, but this is how it happens. Therefore what is upon us is to try each and every day to add more and more, to enter into new examinations, details from the articles where these articles lead us to and, in this manner, to progress.
6. S. (19:10) What do they mean when they talk about the reward that we receive through prayer, after all we know that Rabash worked so hard, even experienced hunger, so he knew exactly how to pray, so how can we explain this?
R. I cannot explain this to you but indeed there were times when it was impossible to give even the children in the morning not a slice of bread or some vegetable or something else, some piece of cucumber, there was nothing. In the house there was nothing to give, this is what my teacher told me, so much so that truly nothing, not even onion, nothing. This is how the children went to school, this is how they lived, there were such times, why? We cannot understand this, we cannot understand why life that was in an entirely different period but they needed it for their own corrections, the adults and the children and general in the world, even today in the world once again it is coming and there will be another wave of a famine and the hard times are coming. We are in the beginning of a hard period of time and it is not only the middle east or Europe, America but in general all over the world because we are not listening to what nature is demanding from us. We are not coming closer to each other, we do not want together to defeat our own nature with mutual help so then we are going to get harsh study, harsh lessons from nature. This is what we have ahead of us, we can already see the beginning of the signs in all different places all over the world.
5. S. (22:12) The power of prayer can act like labor, how to come to correct prayer without labor?
R. No, for the prayer we also need labor and to put in the right labor we need to labor and, in the prayer, there is the prayer before the prayer and such special parts, our whole work requires preparation also, we learn that from the practice practically.
8. S. (23:18) How and in what way should we connect my ferroheme yearning with the desire of the Creator?
R. This is what we are studying about all the time, how can I accumulate and direct my efforts in the right way, according to the Creator's will. The Kabbalists write about it they attain this and they know what helps and what does not help. The system is a practical wisdom, the most practical wisdom possible because without trying it on ourselves up to the last detail in it we do not know, we don't understand how it works. Therefore it turns out that we have no choice we have to simply carry out whatever the Sages are saying and then and only then without trying to twist or manipulate things or change things we will succeed. We can feel we are succeeding on the path nevertheless, one who understands what he has to cope with his ego, his inner desire from nature and that here there is unpleasant work, which is a daily unpleasant work and to do this in a way that is easy and nice. It is possible only through connection, so then the person tries and he does it and then there are those who are constantly fighting themselves, that once again they do not want it, they are sinking into the ego, they disagree with everything that goes on, they have complaints against the Creator or grievances against his creation. So they are in the state of the fool sitting idly eating his own flesh, this is how it is, there is nothing we can do about it and only the mighty ones who try to find forces, persist and they continue nevertheless and break through into the king's Palace and they discover Him.
9. S. (26:17) You said that the great problems are coming to mankind, why does mankind go into this slaughter, they did not hear us in the past, now seemingly they hear and even though they are saying that they won't change, why is it like this and what is our prayer?
R. Why does mankind not want to change itself, ask yourself, why you do not want to change yourself. The entire problem is that we do not want to connect and ask, the prayer can only come out of us connecting, so either you do not know how to connect or are not capable of connecting and out of the fact that we do connect, we ask. Even the smallest request if it comes out of connection, the Creator hears it and replies, this is automatic, by this you are simply wiring that connection, you are turning on the network, you are activating it. If you are not connected with the ten then you stand no chance, you have no chance. There were very special Sages with special role in creation, so that they would operate even on their own, but this is due to their role, the entire correction is not about giving someone some piece of knowledge or methods but the correction itself can only be through connection.
10. S. (28:40) So hard times are coming so can we labor among each other so the world doesn't have to take such harsh blows or it is a necessary correction?
R. First of all “we” is mankind and not Bnei Baruch we, Bnei Baruch are inside within mankind, so we also feel whatever is coming but the more difficult time is coming to mankind, a physical kind because mankind is not learning from the good state how to be better, Rather they keep on going as they were before and now we are seeing how the forces of nature are beginning to close in on us, to give us much harder conditions, in which to exist if we do not know how to use properly that good force that comes to us then we ourselves are forcing this force to become an evil, punishing force. It is clear to us we discover how it has to be and we can already see it here and there on the planet how much the times that were better are now turning to very bad times. First of all in the basic things, we will see in the elementary things, there are many areas upon many areas on the planet, when there will be famine and all kinds of natural disasters in terms of the weather and so on. There will be more and more disease and viruses and lot more dangerous than the one which we are encountering now, and so on eventually we, Bnei Baruch have to accept these things and take them upon ourselves that we actually are the connection between mankind and the Creator. We must be accountable, we must put in the effort in order to renew this connection each time more and more, to tighten it in such a way that we are able to perform the corrections. Because in the eyes of the Creator it is certainly better if he mankind is coming closer to him through the good force, through connections within humanity, and not through suffering and all kinds of disasters, through the intensification of the ego each time.
11. S. (32:26) Why is the Creator punishing mankind for something He did?
R. This is not the punishment, it is a correction.
S. It does not sound like a correction to me.
R. It doesn't sound like correction for you, this is how you hear things, so I am telling you, accept it as correction. If you correct yourself then you will see that it was not punishment but whatever the Creator did such a way was showing you how and where to make changes, this is it until in his attitude to you, you will not feel it as punishment but as love
12. S. (33:26) In what manner do our deeds become a prayer?
R. According to your heart there is nothing else to say, it does not matter what I do with my hands, what is important is what I feel in my heart, the way I try to change my heart from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. From the desire to receive because the heart is the desire, which is from reception to be bestowal, from the desire that hates everybody to a desire that loves everybody
S. Can we say that in spiritual development there needs to remain only the prayer and everything else is secondary?
R. Yes, this is true.
13. S. (34:39) Can you tell me, what does it mean that as a result of our work we are rewarded with the grace of the Creator?
R. This is a very subtle and delicate state that we are actually doing nothing, we are just discovering that it is bad for us maybe through some round about the bad for others and then we are asking and then the Creator can answer our request. This is how he corrects us, this is actually what the Creator wants and this is why he broke the initial vessel that is after he created it out of the desire to receive and he gave that desire to receive his influence, his bestowal so the will to receive was in order to give but in a compulsory man this is like Adam before the sin, how he was born circumcised, that he had no evil inclination. The ego was not revealed and then the Creator made it so that in that same desire to receive called Adam, the first Adam, the first form of the desire was revealed the intention in order to receive. This is considered that he pulled on his foreskin and this desire to receive with the intention to receive, has to correct the intention and to return to that same will to receive but in order to bestow. He has to diminish his desire to receive and then also the intention in order to receive will be small, diminished and for the purpose the Creator breaks that single desire into many parts and he forces each one of them to correct itself. To the extent they correct themselves they can connect with others and then gradually in such a way through these times, the states that each one goes through, this is how they become corrected. Then the corrections of those discreet desires are corrections that are according to days, months, years according to the notion of time, this is how they are felt in the different people, different nations through wars and through each and everything they go through. This is what we are going through today as well but today we have already reached a state where we can conclude our correction only through connecting and drawing the reforming light between us. This is why it is considered that we exist in as time or in a state of the last generation the very last layer of Adam HaRishon who can connect and finish the correction, we do not quite see that we are the last generation because it is hidden from us, all those preparations that took place earlier before us. It will be revealed and this is called that he swallowed up the riches and he will vomit them, everything that accumulated inside the ego the egoistic will to receive, we will receive it back. Whichever way we have to listen to the Sages and understand that we are indeed in the last generation so it is open as already as the first line in the stage in the last generation we have already as special task and we are already able to finish all the corrections at least to do what we have to do. The others will come, more people will follow if necessary but actually from us and from now on everybody who is following this method how to correct ourselves, we can already affect the final correction.
S. So we in this convoy of efforts join this whole broad process you describe, in our case what should be considered as Heaven’s Mercy or reply to our request?
R. The attitude of the Creator to us is in everything, actually in everything that we exist, in everything we think and feel and operate, in all kinds of levels. It is all out of the Creator operating, we are not operators, we are operated on, we are all operated creatures, from our cells all the way to our organs and limbs and organs, our mind and desires, thoughts, in everything we are all operated. What we need to add to this is consciousness, to be aware of the Creator operating on us, to recognize that it is the Creator operating on us, there is None Else Besides Him that only he performs all the actions. All these actions happen through our desires and thoughts and we identify with them more and more until we come to a complete adhesion to them and to the Creator through them, that all that the Creator does is all for the good.
14. S. (42:13) So we need to have a constant effort, but should we also not have the feeling of joy?
R. Why does it bother it, the fact that I am in connection with the Creator, that He constantly expects from me the correct response, just like He in every moment wakes me up and gives me, the Creator asks, expects in every given moment to respond to Him properly in correct manner, so that we would have some contact between us, a mutual contact, a permanent and powerful contact between us.
15. S. (43:24) Why doesn't the person acquire the feeling of shame when he gets something he did not pay for?
R. I do not feel that I receive something from the Creator that I did not deserve, sometimes there is a feeling that I did not deserve something when I received it, sometimes, but most of the time they have a different feeling of I don't receive what I deserve because I think that I do deserve. Because we are the desire to receive and certainly anybody who negates that does through his own faults, what do I want, I want it all, everything according to my desires, as much as I can understand and imagine to myself, I want everything and this is how everybody exist, this is natural.
16. S. (44:43) Until this lesson I used to think that I made my efforts in the morning lesson, I have to pray to the Creator and I have to ask him all the time but today I heard that my labor is the constant search for the discernment in everything that happens in the lesson.
R. In order to raise a prayer.
S. So I need to search constantly whatever happens in the lesson to see where I am to see the gap and then ask the Creator
R. Yes eventually our work is where do I have reasons with which I can turn to the Creator with, the biggest problem is to turn it to the Creator. I need to collect everything so I have some kind of backing or how to say the justification so I have a necessity, justification to turn to the Creator. If I justly and forcefully address the Creator through the group I am done with everything, I do not need anything else. This is what we have, this is what we have to organize.
17. S. (46:22) If we reach awareness that the Creator is operating from the beginning and we hear him and respond to him then the only addition that is ours is that I am not the one who is asking, but we are asking, is it in respect to this that I replace the “I” with the “we”?
R. Yes, this is the best thing if each decide and all of us together that in place of our “I” we become “we” this is the best thing, this is called the prayer of many. If you take and look at the prayer book, there all the prayers are written from the plural, that we are turning, we are asking not me, but we and the person does not say that “I,” really does not say, only in very individual states when you say “hear oh Israel” for example, but all the prayers are the prayers of the public, prayers of the group. They are requests that were written to us, all the prayers were written to us from the members of the great assembly. These are great Kabbalists that lived almost 2000 years ago, even before the destruction of the temple and they wrote the prayers to us and all those prayers are written in a manner that the group is asking “we”, always in plural and not I, not myself.
S. So the appeal, the dialogue with the Creator and also the Creator’s answer, it all starts when we turn to him correctly together?
R. Yes.
18. S. (48:55) In the prayer is there the power to change things to a good state?
R. The prayer is considered raising MAN we learn from the spiritual systems, that the response from above can be only with the condition that there is a request from below. That first there has to be after the Creator arranged the whole system, everything is dependent on raising the prayer, raising MAN, on the deficiency the lower ones raise and ask for the correction to identify with the Creator. This is actually the whole thing, then it turns out that I either we raise MAN from us being there in a connection between us and see what is lacking in order to rise higher and resemble the Creator, or that the Creator awakens us through all kinds of problems, viruses and others and the this is how the nevertheless raise a prayer, but the bottom line is coming from the request from below to the Creator.
S. Where is the point of breaking opposite to the Creator in this mechanism of prayer?
R. Breaking point is in the group where the group finally decides that through the connection between them is also the connection between them and the Creator. This is the same point that is the same point that which connects between us also connects between us and the Creator and if not from the connection between us, we would have no connection with the Creator either, it is simply one to one.
19. S. (51:09) Where practically our labor should be through the day from the ten so we would be favored by the Creator?
R. I don't know, but I tell you, during the day I have time, I'm preparing materials, I am doing discussions, I have meetings with all kinds of systems, with the writers and others. This is what I'm doing during the day, I have several hours during the day when I am working, but the moment I am free, I try to prepare the lesson for the next day. I read several times the article for tomorrow, the material that has to be in the lesson because I feel responsible, actually each should feel himself that way, that he is responsible towards others. On the other hand, I also wanted to say that I had an idea but I forgot. But again, yes, throughout the day we have to continue as we don't want to remember this but the work is in the connection, it is not verbally and inevitably we do this but I constantly have thought in my heart that I have to connect with my friend. That in the connection and the connection between us, there as much as I think about the connection this is where I expect soon and wait the revelation of the Creator there, until he is revealed but he will be revealed only there is nowhere else he can be revealed.
S. In the restaurant I know exactly how much I need to pay for each dish and how much I owe. So how much do we know how much effort do we owe, have to do to complete, what we did not put in?
R. I do not know in bestowal you do not have any boundaries, you yourself define your boundaries, but selfishly if you want to make calculation no more no less like in the restaurant, it is something else, Here we cannot do this because you are working in bestowal so if you are working in bestowal even if you want to give 1 gram, 1 gram, you need to relate to that one gram just like Ein Sof, that there is no boundary, like Infinity when you cannot define whether it is $5 or $10, you cannot define this, you simply bestow in everything you are capable of endlessly.
20. S. (54:55) You said before that each has a unique kind of exertion. How can a person know what is the kind of labor, of exertion that one should invest in the ten?
R. The form of effort is where we want to preserve this form of connection between us and strengthen it, and tighten it more and more, until this form of connection will be suitable to the Creator, until in this form of connection we will discover that suddenly we begin to connect. You know how you can relate this to, where you have all kinds of big bodies of masses, of matter, in space and suddenly these masses begin to connect between them, and a system starts forming like the solar system, like with planets. So this is what we need to see that we are connecting and the beginning in this way to deal between us, each with his ego, and everyone like that with each other. Then, there is a certain intermingling of systems where each of us is a small system, and each of us needs to try to be in such a way between us, that is the intermingling of the private systems with the general system. Then, when we start to connect our system, which is already beginning to be included of several friends, and by what? By establishing for ourselves and creating for ourselves a goal, and how do we all stabilize ourselves in such a way so that we will be concentrated on the goal, how we take upon ourselves that we are all different and day after day we distance from each other because our ego is growing. In accordance with the intensity of the connection that is between us, so the ego needs to be greater also. So this is how we, therefore, work on this this way. This is how we place our system such that from within this system, as each of us is kind of protecting the others so that we will not run away from this state, which is surrounding the center of the group, which is the sun, where the Creator is supposed to be there. So that is how we established ourselves, this is our work. That is why throughout the day we have plenty to do, not just to read the article, but to constantly think how we are establishing ourselves in a way that we will have ten complete Sefirot. Then, by that we present to the Creator a place, a vessel that He can be revealed in. Then, from that the Creator receives a pleasure.
21. S. (58:29) If in the ten we scrutinized the prayer and we raised it, from where, nevertheless, do we sometimes get the feeling of lack of confidence that there will be an answer to the prayer?
R. It is good that you do not have forces. I don’t think it is a problem, actually the contrary. People that have full confidence, it is usually people that have a lot of chutzpah, they are a little bit audacious and are doing mistakes in all kinds of places. People that have a lack of confidence ask, they check themselves and advance, because they feel that they have to learn. So a lack of confidence is not a bad thing, it is actually a feeling and a good quality. Don't be ashamed of it, just as it is written, ‘’it is not the shy one that learns,’’ don't hide that you have a lack of confidence. Yes, well, correct, am I at the end of the correction? No. So certainly, even theoretically, logically, I am in a state of lack of confidence. Lack of confidence, lack of security, is that void, that space that is still under my authority and I feel it, and it will be revealed. The more I grow, the lack of confidence will be even greater just like Rabash would say, you ask the cleaner in the hospital about something, she knows this medicine, that medicine, she can say. You ask the professor and even someone who is higher up, and higher up, ‘’anyone who is greater has bigger doubts.’’ If he truly knows his material and he is advanced, he has much more questions because the more you advance, certainly we feel more the extent in which we do not understand. This is natural, it is actually a sign. Then, this person who does not have confidence has confidence, because he knows his boundaries, he knows how much he does and how much he does not.
22. S. (01:01:23) We see in the history that Baal HaSulam, Rabash, and you, and also today the whole world Kli, how much they are doing and laboring, making effort. The feeling is that your effort is never enough, so what are you doing in that state?
R. Thank God we have such a feeling that nothing is enough. The Creator is arranging things for us, and we need to move forward, and to hold on to one another and to the Creator. This is how we will surely be accepted. The main thing is, it is written, ‘’a thousand times a righteous will fall and he rises again,’’ a thousand times a righteous will fall and rise. Therefore, there's no such thing as a person falls and remains there. He needs to get up, we need to help one another to get up, because we have no choice. The process is a process and we must reach the end, and there is no such thing as someone who falls and goes. Rather, we always need to be ready to receive the friends, also those that leave and then come back, and the new ones, in all kinds of ways and to organize more groups. Not to calm ourselves down as if we are organized - ‘I have a group, I have the studies, thank God!’ No. Where is next, in what are we moving forward for the correction of the world after this? - that's what's important. The Creator takes that into consideration. Meaning, if we are concerned with the expansion of the revelation of the Creator in the world, this covers us in every way.
S. Humanity also has some labor that they have to put in from their side?
R. No. They don’t have a point in the heart that is burning. The Creator does not awaken that in them, they belong to the AHAP. Only those that the desire for the Creator has been revealed in them, or is revealed in them, belong to GE. Galgalta Eynaim is the part that is between the Rosh [head] of the Partzuf [face] - the general head of the Partzuf of the whole of creation, and the AHAP. So that is us, that is it. We are kind of like the throat, well, we will learn all these discernments. This is what we need to do, that's why we need to say as much as possible, to tell, in order to bring humanity closer to that which we are all supposed to do. This is what we will do, we have no choice. We need to come close to what we are, and to advertise the method, the correction of the world. Let's hope that they will come and join us.
23. S. (01:08:42) You can achieve results through effort and you can achieve them through prayer. How is it possible to reach a true prayer without exhausting all of our efforts? Does that mean that we actually get the results really through efforts and prayers simultaneously?
R. Yes, both together and also vice-versa, once this and once that.
24. S. (01:09:16) What is more important, the way we ask or what we ask for?
R. No. What is important is what we ask so there truly be our request as close as possible to the state of the correction, that we want to connect and, in our prayer, to establish a place for connection for the Creator, and for the revelation of Him.
25. S. (01:09:45) What should we do if a person puts in effort, but he doesn't really have a new desire for his nature to change?
R. That's not important. Whatever the Creator created, He created. He created such a deficiency, meaning that I don’t want so much, but in what I have I go. And if I don't want all together, I nevertheless oblige myself to be next to such people who do want because in the system I must be. Eventually everyone, everyone, will have to be in the same system of Adam, there is no argument on that. So I ascribe myself to there in some way, I don't have to be Moses or all those, Rabbi Shimon or something like that, but in what I can and capable I will be. Pay attention - at the end of correction, when everyone connects, there is no difference between a great one and a small one, we are all in one unified system, and we are all intermingled in the same way. The whole difference is in how much we each observe their own role in the correction. But at the end of correction, one body, everything is filled with the light of Ein Sof [Infinity] without any differences.
26. S. (01:11:19) It says in the article, but in spirituality, although he is favored by the Creator, he must still pay the full price later on. What is that price that we have to pay?
R. Add complete effort that he has yet to do, which is done by prayer, and now he needs to add exertion. Let's say you reach a certain place, a store somewhere, you don't have enough money to buy what you need, but you really ask. You say, I need this, if I will take it and I will later be able to work with this, let’s say it is a tool or something - a work tool. You say, if I don't buy it, I will not have what to work with. Give me these things, I will earn something and then I will give back to you. It is the same thing here. Through the request we receive forces, it's kind of like an advance, and then we give back - we pay back.
27. S. (01:12:37) You said that hard times are coming, because we are not listening. Who is not listening, humanity or Bnei Baruch?
R. No, humanity. Bnei Baruch we are advancing in a manner that we are capable of advancing. Maybe we can add a little bit more, it is always possible, that is clear. The main thing is that humanity doesn't hear. Humanity doesn’t and it's also dependent on us. We need to think about this and pray because we are before not such pleasant stages. I do not want to scare you, but I am saying this so that you will feel that you are also responsible for this.
28. S. (01:13:25) In our time, what is the role and the significance of the morning lesson in the prayer, in the scrutiny, for humanity?
R. I think that without this lesson we don't advance. Because, nevertheless, every day we have somewhat some forms of inclusion or incorporation with the implementation of this method, and accordingly we begin to correct this new part in the soul that is now being disclosed through the study of the article, and this is how we move forward day after day. Of course, later this disappears, we forget. In place of that, a new article comes and new thoughts, and a new day, but it is not important. Nevertheless, we already did it and it remains.
29. S. (01:14:26) Why does the Creator awaken in a person such forces that puts him in a state of a fool, sits and folds his hands, and eats his own flesh? Why does the Creator do it?
R. That too is part of correction. That a person needs to know how much he is zero, and how much he is from a will to receive that is not even inanimate, even worse - dust, because’ ’from the dust you came and to the dust you shall return.’’ So we need to incorporate, and sometimes from such discernment - who we are besides that we are incorporated here from all sorts of lights and vessels that are already in corrections, in connection with the Kabbalists from all sorts of generations. Actually, we need to understand we have great work ahead, but it is going. The main thing is not to exit and continue every day, and it doesn't matter what my mood is or at all, and to feel a bit of responsibility.
30. S. (01:15:57) You said that only when we try to find the strength to persist it breaks into the King’s palace. What are those heroes or strong ones who break into the King's palace?
R. That's not me, that's what Baal HaSulam writes and also the prophets that only those whose patience withstood, they reached the gates of the King. The gates of the King were opened and they entered the palace. There, they revealed that the Creator is waiting for them long ago and says, ‘where have you been, how long can I wait?’ It is like those brave ones who can overcome their laziness or stupidity, confusion, all such little disturbances that we feel.
31. S. (01:16:59) When we unite and write a prayer it feels like the hardest block, that we are doing mechanical actions and we don’t feel changes. What should we improve?
R. It's very nice, a very nice sensation that the heart is closed and I feel how insulated it is. I can request from the Creator and ascribe to myself how it has to be connected with the friends, and that alone with them that I am with them, that I am truly joining myself to them. Nonetheless, I can participate in our mutual common request to the Creator. Then, it works the strongest like it is written, ‘’there is none more whole than the broken hearted.’’ The more a person feels that his heart is broken, he is closer to wholeness.
32. S. (01:18:11) Does a correct feeling of gratitude should be in the beginning of the labor, during the labor, or at the end of the effort?
R. Make an effort to be in each state like this.
33. S. (01:18:32) What does it mean that we are totally operated? What should we do in order to promote the process of correction?
R. First of all, not to forget that we are activated, that ‘’There is none else besides Him,’’ and the Creator does for us all the states, but He leaves an opening for us. We are called ‘created beings’ that accordingly we are called ‘created beings.’’ What does it mean? What is upon us to do, how to react. If we react according to what He influences upon us, then we are not reacting, we are not even created beings, we are activated, operated by the Creator like still, vegetative, and animate. If we, nonetheless, leave ourselves an opening - the freedom, there can be only one condition that we operate above our nature that the Creator created, then we can say that that it is us and not the Creator. This, it is called, ‘’My sons have defeated me,’’ and that is how we progress. Only in such a manner that He doesn't leave to myself an opportunity not to react, I must react from myself - where am I? If I for myself, it is not me. How can I take something for me that is not for me? After that I connect with the ten, then in your incorporation in the ten and the influence of the ten upon you, with this you can turn to the Creator and that will be new. Listen to this, think about it. It is really the only place, our free choice, what he explains in the article ‘The Freedom,’ that the Creator brings a person to his fate and He says, ‘take for you.’ This, we can truly do, and it is very much against our nature, and it takes years. For me also, it took many years until I understood and felt, and I am not embarrassed to say, because it is actually a sign that the ego of a person is great, is big. When he takes care of it, it will grow and be good.
34. S. (01:21:22) The prayer in the ten should change during the day, or if we are demanding the same thing the whole time? Can that succeed as well?
R. We don't demand the same thing all the time because each moment is new, each moment a person is new. So there is no same prayer, same demand. You can't enter the same river, everything changes, the water is flowing.
35. S. (01:21:57) Is prayer the only thing that influences reality? Why is it so?
R. Like we just spoke. There are those who attain the result by their labor, and there are those who attain the result by their prayer - request, one of the two. I would say that if we think that we can do something, do. ‘’What is in your power and your ability to do, do.’’ But wherever you see that you have reached the limit, the border, pray. Prepare the prayer, connect the prayer, and by the prayer you should attain. But if you begin to yell and pray even before you’ve tried, that's not a prayer. A prayer needs to be out of a lack. The lack you reveal only on the condition that you have tried, and maybe a few times, and you saw that you couldn't, you didn't succeed and you are sure that you are not capable. In that same state you turn to the Creator and request of Him,
ask of Him. That is a true prayer, it comes out of the experience, out of the exertion.