Morning Lesson February 2, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Faith Above Reason - Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #60
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i3dp30RInQ_LD6VE6XZ8OCSh-IfNcczZVZeudiFv8yA/edit
1.Rav’s Introduction: Yes, I heard the friends now the way that they were talking about love of friends, and I am truly envious of those emotions, also that they expressed before everyone, and I also want to express something. There is a reason why it says that the main law of the Torah is love of others. That certainly this is the law of nature, the primary one, meaning that all the other laws, even though they seem to us that maybe they're not so much arranged towards love of others, maybe they even seem to contradict love of others. This is only how it seems to us because we are not yet inside this law, we don't keep it. All the other laws of nature, we keep them whether we want to or not.
Nature pressures us, it obligates us, and then we do it, but for love to love of others we have to reach it with our awareness, with our understanding, with our desire. Even though all of our qualities are against it, and against that specifically, because then we can understand, and we can feel, and we can keep it out of choice. Out of our own pressure, our own demand for it to happen that this law will exist in us, and to the extent that it appears in us, and it exists, accordingly, we become similar to the Creator. This is why this condition, love your friend as yourself, is the only thing that we have to do in our life, and to reach it, and this is the peak of development of each and every person. The whole of nature the still, vegetative, and animate, also according to how much man is incorporated in love your friend as yourself, then also all of these parts, all of these degrees join it, they join men and they're all incorporated in men, and us all of nature returns to be in complete love, which is actually the quality of the Creator. This is how we reach adhesion.
Therefore, we only think that by which we can give contentment to the Creator is to love, specifically for that in order to give contentment to the Creator is to love our friends. That is to the extent that you come closer to the friend, to the friends, from the internality body of your heart, and you truly want to come closer to him, and to be together with him with your heart and soul. This is the only operation by what you give contentment to the Creator. This is something that we need, each one should speak to himself, and persuade himself that that action is the only one, and it comes to a person only on top of him not agreeing with it, and not and rejecting it with his hands, and legs and with his heart and soul. He discovers how much he is the opposite, how much he exists inside of his ego, in the midst of it, and specifically through the revelation of his will to receive that is egoistic, and it hates others, when he truly reaches a state where he feels how much he hates, and he doesn't accept it, and he doesn't want to acknowledge anyone, any other person as a friend.
Out of that also out of lack of choice, through the light that shines on him, through the Reshimot, the broken records that awaken him, he gradually reaches a state where he begins to understand that in order to come closer to the Creator is only through coming closer to the friends. The Creator himself does not exist, but all in all the internality of the friends is the Creator. As much as he comes closer to loving them, he can understand what does it mean to love the Creator, and there is no difference between the two, it's just that one is the vessel and one is the light. The friends, the love of friends, the connection between the friends, his connection with the friends all of this, all-in-all is the Kli, the vessel in which he discovers the inner force of the connection between them, which is the Creator. As it says from the love of friends to the love of the Creator, and from that we can understand that we cannot do anything directly for the Creator because he does not exist, we need to build Him, “You have made me as he says.”
Therefore, we need to understand that we are not capable of giving or receiving with the Creator but only through this device, this vessel, this means that is called the connection between us, and therefore, we need to see here before us, two things, the true goal is the Creator, the means for it is the connection between us. Therefore, love your friend as yourself is the great rule of the Torah, the whole Torah, all of the reforming light, the entire correction is only in that, that I need the upper light in order to connect with others, but my intention is that by that to give contentment to the Creator. Therefore, I have the means, the vessel which is the connection between us, and the goal is to give contentment to the Creator, to the force of love that should be revealed among us. This is actually what I wanted to add to what the friends said before the lesson in the preparation for the lesson.
2. S. (09:07) You said you heard us speak and you are envious, my feeling is that we envy you, or should we, what should we do in our state that makes you envious?
R. The great broad vessel that did not exist with such a force ever before, you might say in history, it's not that we made it so, we received it. This is how it was established over the generations as the result of the work of many Kabbalists, and we the little ones can actually begin the work on the lowest degree, however, by us doing even something small we are drawing the greatest light. Therefore, I'm very happy, and I am envious, yes.
3. S. (10:17) When we say, I want to achieve connection, and I want to achieve equivalence of form with the Creator, and I want to bestow to my friends, who is that speaking?
R. Who is it? It is your environment. It operates through you, sometimes you say, you speak like they say, sometimes you have the possibility to say what your evil inclination is, saying and in this way, you shift from one to the other.
Excerpt 60 (11:14)
4. R. (12:59) There is a difficulty here to express that state, however, what I get, the impression that I get from the group, this is what I get from the Creator. Well, we talked about it, we learned it, we heard many search excerpts about it that I dwell within my own people, and the Creator exists among the created beings, and the voice of the collective is the voice of the Creator. What does he want to say here? That if I yearn to reach a connection with the friends, in order to hear about the exaltedness of the Creator, this is enough for me, this is that same force that helps me to rise above my ego, and to rule it, in anything that I need, that is inside of the friends is this force with which I can defeat my will to receive, and with it I reach in order to bestow identifying with the Creator.
Therefore, our work is in that, we need to connect between us, and connect with the Creator, and to hold on to it truly above reason as we call it, in heart and soul whatever may come, and in this way we will succeed. As we see, a little child holding on to the mother and he is attached to her, he doesn't want to let go of her, because for him this is his whole life. It is the source of his life whereas when he grows up, then he already leaves her, and is on his own, he already starts to move around, to work with himself, he plays, but when he is really small, then all that he has in life is the mother, and this is how we should also understand that this is the approach that we should have in the group, to be adhered to the ten like a baby to the mother. Only through it, we can receive those forces with which we will be able to establish ourselves correctly with the good inclination against evil inclination. Meaning, to include both of these desires, both of these forces correctly, and to start to grow, to develop correctly, so that we always have inside, the greater and greater inclination, and on the top of it, it's right form, which is the good inclination. This is why each and every day we will have feelings that we are being away from the environment, from our group, and each and every day, we need to try to find forces, manners, by which we become attached to them, once again to our society, and this is how we grow.
Excerpt 61 (17:11) Twice
5. R. (19:15) This is a great rule, a very important one that specifically by holding on to it we advance. That is, as much as we each and every day, see ourselves, how much we have no forces, no success in nothing, actually I have nothing, I didn't achieve, I didn't gain, I didn't succeed, and what's going to happen? So such states everyone has them, and each and every one somehow tries to answer it, but in truth we need to see these things in a different way that whatever is happening to me, whatever is awakening in me, all of these questions: who am I, what am I, what for, what do I have, what did I achieve, what did I gain, where did I succeed? All of that the Creator is awakening in me in order for me to rise above this reason, and accept things that are in the force of faith above reason, and if I feel each and every day that I am not advancing , and maybe I even fall, maybe it's even worse than before, then I need to realize that this is an opportunity actually to rise more and more above my ego that is showing me such pictures, and that I should try to go in these states with joy, as though I earned, I succeeded, I attained everything. This way, I become attached to faith, and I rise above my ego, above my reason, and this is how I walk on the two legs, left, right, left, right, and we always start with the left.
Excerpt 61 (22:02)
6. R. (24:01) This means that there are two views, the view of the person, and the view of Rav or what we learn, what does Rav mean, Rav means the great one, who do we accept as the great one? Rabash and Baal HaSulam so whatever they write, if we accept it above our reason, above what we feel, even though this is ahead of us, before us, as a couple real fact, but we want to go, according to what we understand from them, the way they tell us, then this is called to go with faith above reason. Meaning, even though I feel all kinds of problems, and difficulties, and things that don't come up correctly, I need to say about them, “they have eyes but see not,” and I am going with faith above reason according to what my teacher is telling me. In this way specifically, I understand that I should be happy as much as I rise above my calculations, my egoistic calculations which bring me, which seemed to me as correct, and established, and I rise to faith to a degree where everything comes from the Creator and there are two things here, one is what I feel inside my desire to receive as a person who was in this world, and the other, is that I want to see it as it seems in the eyes of the Creator, which is something that is more a whole that's how it should be, and I join the connection with the friends, the more complete degree, and I accept these things in the force of bestowal, in the force of faith, and then I rise higher and higher above my reason. This is how I already begin to feel and see how we can rise through the degrees. From one state to the other.
7. S. (26:30) It says here that there is joy where the Shechina dwells?
R. If I have all kinds of problems that pressure me in relation to my spiritual advancement. I rise above these problems and I say that this is what I see in my will to receive, however if I were in the will to bestow how much would I then be happy, I would see these things in the opposite manner then the way I do now. These two degrees that I tried to build, these for me are the degrees of reason, and the degrees of above reason and I cannot have one without the other. I always build it this way, why is it called faith above reason? If you don't have reason, you cannot have faith. That is there has to be a knowledge, a feeling of where I am, what I have right now, and that I am rising above that. I am rising above it, and this is how we build the degrees and we try each time to hold on to a higher degree.
S. After trying to rise above all the problems, this feeling, does it have to be a special kind of joy?
R. My joy should be the joy of a Mitzvah, a commandment. That I am rising above what I feel and understand in my reason, because by this I am accepting the commandant, the recommendation, of the Kabbalists. Who say in this way you will be able to reach the second degree of nature from Malchut to Bina and you will be able to ascend. Then from there you will see the entire state.
S. It turns out I have to do it, and not only feel joy because it's a Mitzvah?
R. Certainly I do it because this is what the Kabbalists are telling me to do. If we wouldn't do it according to the recommendation of the Kabbalists, we wouldn't even know that this is how it should be done. Look at the whole of humanity in how it is behaving, they live inside their reason. Whatever they have, they shut themselves in, within that degree and this is why they don't go up or down with respect to that degree. With respect to this world, I have no feeling of a higher world. Nothing, because it can only be felt in and, attained in the force of faith above reason.
S. I'm sorry but what I mean is that….?
R. This is something that you do within reason. The fact that you, in your life, want to get along with your corporeal problems, corporally to somehow arrange them and rise above them. Meaning to control them, say it with the right words, to control them. By this you only elevate your reason, you intensify it more and more. But it's not that you're elevating yourself to the degree of faith, you're not using the reason that you have in order to rise above it. But rather you are working within reason.
S. Exactly, so the question is how can I respond to such joy, what joy does it mean in order for it to be a Mitzvah?
R. Through the friends only. When you ask from the Creator to adhere to the group, this is the only spiritual operation that you can perform. Then if you try to perform that operation, in a way that is as correct as you are capable of, then the reforming light shines on you. It exists in that higher degree and if you truly yearn for it, to some extent the measure that you do yearn for it then that light, that feeling that exists in the light of faith that is in that higher degree, shines on you. It shines on you and then you can ascend, that's how it works. This is how we draw, invite the reforming light. Is it clear?
S. No, no, not clear.
R. So you should listen well.
S. The friends are like a means through which I discover joy and here I'm asking about the internal direction. Why do I need this joy, who do I bestow to?
R. The Creator, this is what I said. I right down and, I have it written down what I told you. There is a single operation which is to give contentment to the Creator, which is actually our work, our goal. All of the content of the purpose of our existence to give contentment to the Creator. As He does to us, so we want to do it towards Him. How can I give contentment to the Creator? If I love the friends, for that I do not complete my attitude to the friends, in the friends themselves. That doesn't work, it doesn't fall into place, there is no purpose there just to love others. But rather to love others in order to reach the love of the Creator. This is why it is considered that love your friend as yourself is the great rule of the Torah. It is a rule, a law. A law. What is this law for? That by this we will reach equivalence of form with the Creator. As He, to begin with, relates to each one of us and all of us together with love, so we also relate to Him with love. What does it mean that we relate to Him with love? Who is he, where is he? We build this concept inside the friends inside of the group. This is why it is called from the love of people to the love of the Creator. We need to repeat this and to chew upon it, and chew upon it more and more until we will feel it inside.
8. S. (34:30) Many times, I hear from the friends that whatever I feel as realistic, and I live it but to act in faith above reason for a friend is already complex, it's uncomfortable to lie about myself, but the friends, how to help such a friend who feel this unpleasantness, this discomfort, this act of love?
R. There is a means, let's say when you love a woman, or a child, you bring them a gift, right? In order to express your attitude towards them, and we do the same here. I need to love the friends in order to bestow contentment to the Creator by that, so what's so unclear here? I have no possibility to express anything to the Creator because where is He? We don't have a grip on Him, but the moment that I relate to the friends in order to give contentment to Him, then truly the result of my action, of my thoughts, reaches Him. Well think about it, and you will see that there is in that, some depth.
9. S. (36:08) You said that the more we advance, the more our desires grow. It's as if we can't control them unless we invest ourselves in the work of the ten. Often, this work doesn't give us the sense of Joy, but on the one hand, you feel fear that our desires are growing and we make it worse desires?
R. First of all you have to arrange in your thoughts and you're feeling a line. The Creator is the most important, and I want to come closer to Him, I want to connect with Him. This is possible only through the group, I have no other way. The way that I relate to the group, this is the way I relate to the Creator. I'm indifferent to them, so that's what I receive from the Creator, that quality. I don't want to connect with them, I also receive that quality from the Creator; it is called the evil inclination. Everything that is in contradiction, the connection between us in order to connect with their creator is called the evil inclination, so what do I do? Here we have to arrange our work, each one shall help his friend, whatever we can do together, in order to somehow come closer to one another, but again our whole coming closer is only for the sake of the Creator.
In order to scrutinize Him, to aim ourselves at Him, until we will begin to reach states where we will feel Him, and when we will feel Him, it will not be easier for us as we think, we think the barrier is I want to see Him, I went to break the barrier and then I'll see you the Creator, then my work will become easier. It does not become easier working with my will to receive no, it is worse seemingly, because then I need to overcome the fact that I feel the Creator. I need to perform actions in order to bestow, I need to resist the fact that I am revealing Him, this is called restriction, screen, and reforming light, but even though I feel Him as the good that does good to everyone, and He is revealed that there is no one who is cruel in The House of the King, I specifically have to work above that, otherwise it will not be bestowal.
Let's say that there is a father, who is pressuring his child, and then the child accordingly has to arrange himself such at the father won't pressure him, and then out of lack of choice he will perform all kinds of correct actions, then the father starts to be revealed that he loves the child more and more and more, and the child now has a problem. So how are you here to align, arrange his relations with his father? Because his father is allowing him to do everything, but he has to hold himself above the lack of judgments that are revealed on the father. He has to hold himself above the mercy, from where will he take such forces, he has to transform the light, the good attitude he sees from the father to darkness, from mercy, to turn it into judgment in order to behave correctly towards the father with that same love, because inside he has the evil inclination that is constantly enabling him to perform all kinds of such actions, your father he loves you, he forgives you, he loves you, do whatever you want he will nevertheless love you.
He has to transform the light, the good at it to you he sees from the father to darkness, to from Mercy, to turn it into judgment in order to behave correctly towards the father with that same love, because inside he has the evil inclination that is constantly enabling him then to perform all kinds of such actions, your father he loves you he forgives you he loves you do whatever you want he will nevertheless love you. Then the child has to hold himself in restriction, with an armor, and a screen, and reforming light, and it is not simple. It is not simple, this is still ahead of us, however, I'm just telling you that we have to try already to start to relate to the love of others and the love of friends, in a way that out of that we should understand how we should have our attitude towards the Creator.
S. I understood that faith above reason is the solution that shifts us from the wheel to receive two the will to bestow in an absolute way. It helps us cross the barrier in an absolute way, so my question is: should we remain in faith above reason always, so this becomes our oxygen, our spiritual nourishment, so can we somehow use it in our corporeal life also?
R. No, no, we don't need it for now. We shouldn't get confused. In your corporeal life simply be kind and considerate to everyone, kind, cordial, there is no other recommendation.
10. S. (43:04) You said that in the voices of the friends the Creator actually speaks, so I cannot therefore doubt the actions of the friend? or are there moments where we should not annul before the friends?
R. We are saying that we don't need to believe what the friends are saying and I hear in my ears but rather we need to try, and feel or believe the feeling of love that exists in the society, because the Creator who arranged for us the tens, the group's, although it seems to us like it's not Him who did it, rather we did it, well that's how He's concealed, and how He is working from in the concealment, but nevertheless we need to say that it is done to our benefit. It's done to our own benefit.
11. S. (44:29) In the text, it says that we have to invest when we work on the right line. I cannot discern in real-time whether I'm working on the right or the left, so what is the importance that there is to us having to distinguish between the right and left in order to achieve above reason?
R. I'll think about how to explain it. Typically, left and right, up and down, there are great differences in it, but I'm afraid to confuse people, so let's think, we will think how to convey this to you, we will come to it, soon, for the time being it will become confusing. We don't have any grasp in Bina and correspondingly in Malchut in order to work with it. On the left and the right, in truth, how to rise to the degree of faith on the right, and how to rise to the degree of faith on the left. Just as you climb the stairs, you can't climb only with the right leg, and for the left needs to be behind it. Right and then left behind, right and left behind it, or you can also climb right then left, right then left. So there's a difference here, how do we relate to these forces in order to not nearly come out of the previous state, but to overcome to the current state. It's still ahead of us, these are beautiful things, they are close to us, they are within reach.
12. S. (47:03) Many times we talked about the greatness of envy towards the friends, like you also said in the beginning of the lesson how important envy in our work is towards the teachers?
R. Of course, you can develop envy, you can develop your envy towards everyone, and also towards the Creator. It will only help you to be above your ego, you don't just wish to be greater than, rather you wish to rise above your ego. Meaning, you have an example of someone who is greater than you, and in order to reach his level you need to step on your ego in order to reach the state as let's say the friends. So there's no other choice but to do it because envy, lust and honor take a person out of this world, it is a very powerful means for us to climb.
13. S. (48:39) In the beginning of the lesson you said that we need to reach the love of the Creator in a conscious manner, along with that you said that the goal is not to love the friends, but through the love of the friends to reach giving contentment to the Creator. So how do we combine these two things?
R. Love of friends is the means, and love of the Creator is the goal, but in truth, eventually Baal HaSulam writes about it, we obtain the degree where the love of friends and love of the Creator are incorporated as one, where the vessel and the light are equal. We will come to it.
14. S. (49:34) I wanted to focus the question, so there is a difference between a good attitude, and love to the friend in order to give contentment.
R. I didn't get it.
S. I’ve heard that you said that I relate well to the friends in order to give contentment to the Creator this is on one hand, on the other hand, through the love of friends we want to reach contentment to the Creator, so what is the difference between the good attitude and love?
R. There is a goal to come to love of the Creator. In order to come to love of the Creator, the Creator shattered the created being called, man, Adam, into many pieces, and the relationship between these pieces you can scrutinize the meaning of love, hate, rejection, repulsion, so on and so forth, that's the reason for the shattering of Adam HaRishon. Hence, by connecting between us, by trying to connect, of course he was greater than his friend, his inclination is greater, we reject one another with each generation, we find ourselves in a greater distance from one another, hate, and if we begin to come closer to one another, come closer, and in this way, we come to a state, where we begin to understand why the Creator created hate and repulsion where he shattered the vessel of Adam HaRishon on and why do we need to come closer to one another in order to unify these parts of this vessel. This one vessel into one. This is our work.
S. But specifically with the Kabbalist, we learn that through hatred we reach love, not in order to relate to others nicely, right?
R. We don't relate to, when we gather in a group to either good or bad, but when we begin to advance towards connection, then we begin to feel the distance, rejection, hatred, and the students of Rabbi Shimon we see how it's happening, even more so when they tried to kill each other, then love covers all transgressions, we need to develop a force of connection called love between us. Then this way we'll connect all of the broken parts of the vessel of Adam HaRishon.
15. S. (53:07) The Creator created the created being, what does the Creator value as the highest thing in his creation?
R. The Creator loves a point in the heart inside of a person, his tendency towards connection with the friends in order to reach connection within the Creator.
16. S. (53:56) According to the article the left contradicts the right. Why doesn't the right contradict the left?
R. In truth, they both work towards one place, the complete connection. Just like we understand that there cannot be connection with that rejection love without hate, everything has to be connected and Incorporated with one another. Similarly in spirituality, from where our entire world cascaded down. In other words, you have to work in a state where all the good qualities, the bad qualities, they all must be incorporated in one connection. Then we'll understand that nothing was created for nothing. Rather, this is a goal for every quality, every disposition in a person.
17. S. (55:21) Keeping the Mitzvot brings Joy, so why does the person then feel himself as poor and Indigent if he's keeping the Mitzvot?
R. So he would rise to a higher degree.
18. S. (55:41) Many times in the ten, we feel as if you feel what we are going through, then the next day in the lesson we think about it. First of all I want to say that, secondly, on Zoom, the friends, we talked about that we feel kind of stuck, we don't feel any advancement, and after a few Zoom meetings we reached a conclusion that disseminating together we should disseminate together in order to connect within us, also to do something positive for the sake of the goal. Is this a good way to come out of our state of feeling stuck into work?
R. It is a very good method. Where if we find ourselves stuck in the ten, we go out with the ten to an action of bestowal. It's better from let's say having a meal, because we're having a meal, we enjoy ourselves, but when we go out to disseminate, we expand the vessel. We attach additional vessels to ourselves, and it works in the most beneficial way to our advancement.
19. S. (57:23) But if we're touching on dissemination, they should do it in coordination with the language coordinator, they shouldn't just go out and do something?
R. True it's certain you have to do it in coordination with your head of language, not just do actions on your own because they might bring more harm than good.
20. S. (57:50) In the first quote Rabash describes the state where a person reaches the end of correction. With all of his heart and soul he feels the greatness and importance of the Creator that He is good, and doing good, and He is everywhere. Meaning, he discovers in his desire and feeling that the Creator is everywhere, and he justified Him, until today I found that in this state a person receives light the changes his sensations, his feelings his perception of reality but at the end of this excerpt 60 he says that “this is what a person must receive his friends”. How do we get light from the friends?
R. Certainly, we get the upper light, we receive it, we might not feel it, but we are getting even now through the friends, through the ten. You can say well, I don't feel the ten, we're not connected to such an extent yet, we're not integrated in one another, we are not in spirituality, it doesn't matter it doesn't matter that you feel this way. In truth we receive everything, we receive only through the ten. We will talk about it, it's not simple. The ten is a spiritual structure, and if you don't discover spirituality, then this structure is concealed from you as well, you're only thinking about it through the bodies.
S. In one of the excerpts we read in the lesson, we talked about the greatness and the attitude of the friends and through them we get the forces. There is the friend that I reach such hatred for, that I'm truly willing to kill him, but then other friends, they will never give me such great importance according to his nature, as much as possible I try to justify. How can I elevate into the degree of everyone? He's very precious to me.
R. Think about it more, simply invest more thought into it, and you'll be able to raise each and every friend up to the level that you choose.
21. S. (01:00:38) For two weeks already we've been studying this topic of faith above reason, and the more the greater the desire is, the desire is more for myself, so I want to stop and simply not to do anything, because it seems like maybe everything is not going in the right direction. So how can I add to this the matter of giving contentment to the Creator? To simply stop and do it, how?
R. Well faith above reason has to be attached to the Creator, because the Creator is the degree of Bina and the group is the means. If the Creator would not have broken the structure of Adam HaRishon, the will to receive, into small, tiny pieces, we wouldn't have the opportunity to see anything against connection, against the Creator, against love, against bestowal, as created beings we wouldn't be able to understand the meaning of connection, because anything we feel, we feel from its opposite quality. So what can we do? In such an instance. We can't do anything. It's like people in this world who don't have a feeling of spirituality, and the opposite of spirituality. For us, in the point in the heart when we just come to the wisdom of Kabbalah to develop the spiritual vessel already there is a point in the heart that includes Panim and Achoraim through discernment, and it comes to us from the shattering. So we have to nurture it, we have to bring the reforming light to it, until it grows and we will climb up together with it.
22. S. (01:02:59) If we place the love of the Creator before us, it will become impossible without doing that it will be impossible to reach the love the friends above reason?
R. It is certainly possible, why should you come to love of friends above reason? You will build some kind of Socialism or communism, such an attitude between the friends that eventually cannot be sustained because it goes against the purpose of creation. The purpose of creation is to reach the degree of adhesion with the Creator and if you do it as Baal HaSulam writes the sin was committed by Rasha that took this idea of the love of the other and started to clothe it in his corporeal life only and the Creator will not forgive it. Where is it written, I forget? In The Peace article, yes. It is certainly not a good idea so we don't just need to advertise the idea of love your friend as yourself and by that things will improve because by beginning to implement love your friend as yourself without the Creator will come to hate. We will reach hate. Look what's happening today in Russia, to this day they're in the same form of shattering that they brought upon themselves. Since, instead of developing themselves correctly like the other nations egotistically, simply, they added to it the quality of bestowal and that's what corrupted them, the human society and in general the character of the people, look what's happening to this day, they can’t find a different way to develop.
S. The primary thing that we have to hold on to as the goal is to reach the love of the Creator?
R. Yes, love of the Creator has to be the goal. First and foremost and all the other actions that we do towards that then you can justify what you're doing. Otherwise you reach communism, fascism, anything you want.
23. S. (01:06:31) The state of darkness that I get is that considered attainment, that later on will become light or is it something that comes to me from the left side and I need to overcome it through faith above reason?
R. It's both, you begin to work and you'll see how one completes the other. There is no light without darkness, there is no ascent except the one that stems from the descent and that's how we make it. We begin from zero. According to the depth of the descent we can rise again, again we descend and we rise to plus 2, we descend to minus 3 or rise to plus 3, that's how it works. He who is greater than his friend his inclination is greater and that's how we are working on our will to receive. Consequently, we need to rejoice about the descents as we do about the ascents, it's written about it in the Zohar many times. Rabbi Shimon also before the end of his correction that he obtained, he understood that there is a great degree, a great ascent ahead of him because the descent was so deep that it was impossible that there will be something or any less then the light at the end of correction reached him. Because he was in such a deep descent.
24. S. (01:08:37) I tried to go with faith above reason, but I recognize the fact that I'm doing it for myself. How do I shift it into a correct operation?
R. Keep going and you'll understand how to do it in order to bestow. Keep going.
25. S. (01:09:05) What is the quality of above reason why is it called faith?
R. The degree of Bina, the force of Bina bestowal is above the force of reception, Malchut.
26. S. (01:09:24) What does it mean that the Rav determines the time in which to go on the right line or on the left line?
R. The Rav, he is typically the Creator and he is the one who determines for us how to go, how to advance, we will talk about it. We are still not in two lines, we are merely learning about it in the beginning of the path, what to do so the upper light will simply fill us and advance us.
27. S. (01:09:59) In our effort to rise above reason do we bestow to the friends?
R. Of course, anything we do even without any connection to above reason or below reason, we influence one another because we are in a group. Each and every one must be responsible for what he's doing. Even in his personal life.
28. S. (01:10:35) I cannot force myself to feel joy if it does not come, why do we need joy in order to bring contentment to the Creator?
R. Joy comes from appreciating the purpose of Creation, the Creator, the group. From my state where I have an opportunity to rise to the peak of existence above all of reality. I have to be in joy and develop in me that attitude.
29. S. (01:11:15) How in the state of poor and indigent can I truly be in sincere joy in order to broadcast this joy to the friends so they all feel it?
R. Example. I need to set an example to all of the friends.
30. S. (01:11:35) What corrupts the love of friends, what is the primary reason for that?
R. I would say when you disregard it you look down at it and you don't value it that's the main reason. When I don't pay attention to what the friends are saying or doing. I simply can't see or hear what exists between them and there might be another instance where I can't see and I can't hear but I nevertheless raise them above my reason. As if they are in bestowing and connection.
31. S. (01:12:33) When we relate to the will to receive should we understand it as a collective, a groupwise will to receive or an individual one?
R. The most important is to be in the individual will to receive. I don't think that the group will to receive is something we can work with, it's only if we are in order to bestow. Then these desires they are under the screens in order to be so they can connect, they can depict for us, they can portray for us the Partzuf but before that you don't have it.
32. S. (01:13:23) Is there a state where faith becomes a permanent fact?
R. No, we have to hold on to faith above reason so it doesn't get corrupted, we are the ones who corrupt it. We have to, because as a fact when we have doubts and mutual faith, what is faith where is it? If I bestow to the other that is an expression of faith. Otherwise it is the kind of faith that we used to speak about our world, I believe. They tell me over the Internet or the radio something, no, there's no such thing. This is not faith, faith in the wisdom of Kabbalah in general, faith means that I can be in the force of bestowal like I can work in the force of bestowal. I myself am not relative to something that I am told. When I raise myself to the degree of faith and then I carry out what the teachers tell me. I am in the degree of faith and I believe in the teacher, in what? That I can carry out the acts of bestowal that he's telling me about. That's how it works.
33. S. (01:14:59) You give an example of a father who loves his son and the son needs to hold himself in restriction. Then we also need to relay to the love of friends in such a way and we will learn from that, the attitude of the Creator. How does the example of the son be expressed in love of friends?
R. The same, even like with the father, means that I go above my desire. Meaning if the father relates to me in the best way allowing me to do whatever I want, I have to restrict myself and do only what is best for him. If there were many judgments and I'm the opposite and by my nature I want to use all of my desires in order to receive, I restrict them and I work in order to bestow. That is the true spiritual action.
34. S. (01:16:10) How to rise to faith above reason if acquiring knowledge is the natural inclination of every study, in faith above reason we don’t understand so much?
R. It has nothing to do with knowledge. Actually those that go with faith above reason become more wise seeing more, feeling more. It has nothing to do with knowledge. He does not have to shut his eyes and not know. No, that is completely wrong.
35. S. (01:16:51) When I hear the lesson on my own everything is clear and when I listen and scrutinize along with the friends in the ten, then it is not so clear what the lesson was about. Why is that happening and how to better absorb the lesson in this state?
R. It's best to understand the lesson along with the friends. The more it confuses me and broadens my view and I'm not so oriented as compared to it if I would do it alone. It is better when I'm with everyone. Because then I attain out of the connection between us, I then attain the essence of this lesson. That means that it is considered that I have learned something in my spiritual vessel. Whereas if I’m alone with my intellectual vessel, that’s called, wise at night.
36. S. (01:18:00) If the group is the means, how do I protect myself from using it egotistically?
R. You may use the group egotistically just like any group in the world outside of Bnei Baruch. The thing is the goal. Because everything that we do is for the sake of the connection between us.
Excerpt 62 (01:18:45) twice
37. R. (01:20:54) Only once he comes to, he despaired by nature he cannot solve the problems, these obstacles, he cannot reach the goal then he can ask for help from above, to be helped above reason. He understands that in nature, in reason he cannot attain and above nature that is only the upper force, he will have help but it is under the condition that he asks. He has to reach such a decision, such a despair that erupts after he despairs and then he gets help which is above nature.
38. S. (01:21:42) How to receive reason in corporeality that it will not harm above reason?
R. There's no problem to learn something in corporeality from our world that could corrupt our path in spirituality. There is no connection between the two. That is what we learn all the time. That the spiritual fast that is in faith above reason in the force of bestowal and the corporeal path is in will receive which is beastly, I'm not even seeing material, it is beastly it is in the degree of the animate. It doesn't relate one to the other. There is no connection. I can be a scientist in the world and along with that be a Kabbalist. I can be a simple person in our world and at the same time be a great Kabbalist. There's no connection between one another. It is simply different vessels, a vessel of Bina and a vessel of Malchut.
S. If a person has a desire to run away from corporeality, that is bad?
R. That is not good, a person needs to learn how to work with that.
39. S. (01:23:40) The excerpt is very similar to a state where we gather to reach a certain plea and everyone comes with his approach and somehow breaks as a part of this process as his action?
R. I do not understand what you are talking about, so I'm not in this thing, so you can’t say half of the question so I don't understand what you are talking about. What I recommend is to learn together and to disseminate together. Dissemination is something that is very beneficial for advancement. We are in the time of the last generation, the more people will feel, will understand and hear even a small contact they have to our material they are connected to us and this connection is maintained. You cannot come out of it and what we will attain even if it is the smallest, thinnest link, it will pass on to them and they will advance. By that we will all acquire higher and higher degrees. By the amount of people that we add to come in closer to the Creator.
Reader: Baal HaSulam “The Peace”
40. R. (01:25:44) He's talking about Russia here.
Reader continues: (01:25:48)
41. R. (01:29:29) Yes that is a problem, that we need to also in our life, in our study we need to understand that everything that we learned is all for us to connect between ourselves, we give the Creator a vessel so that he will be revealed and in joy. That is it. Otherwise it will not be for his sake everything that we are building. That is what happened in that example with Russia and all the rest of the countries and more or less are all going in the same mistake.
42. S. (01:28:15) Friends understand that to reach despair they try to help the society to reach despair to show how egoistic we are and how we do not succeed to connect, is there a benefit from this or is there a harm?
R. There is a tendency in the will to receive in man's ego, he loves being down, he loves seeing himself that he is zero and enjoying that. There were such religions, such beliefs where people would cover themselves with feces and all kinds of things, there's a connection to that until today with the tattoos. There are things to that. We will learn that in the future. I'm just afraid that I will not be understood correctly. The wisdom of Kabbalah against any bad thing even if it is a small thing. Because this bad is not the purpose of creation in the corrections that is why we should not come close to that. Meaning if you want to do good go ahead and if you can avoid evil do that. That is our path and by closing, shutting yourself with all kinds of mortifications that will not lead you anywhere. On the contrary, one who abstains himself has to bring a sacrifice, otherwise how can he come close to the Creator, you cannot restrict yourself, to bring yourself to come closer to the Creator. You have to bring yourself to complete the fulfillment.